High crime and low salaries: Mississippi police say pay isn’t enough to recruit – SuperTalk Mississippi

Crime is on the rise throughout Mississippi, main native and state officers to debate quite a few options on the way to resolve the rising fee.

For Jackson particularly, these options embody including extra district attorneys and judges to help in diminishing the backlog of practically 3,000 circumstances within the judiciary system, ramping up safety on the Mississippi State Fairgrounds, in addition to including 100 extra Capitol Cops in the course of the subsequent legislative session.

However Jackson isn’t the one space within the state in want of extra law enforcement officials.

In response to Hinds County Sheriff Tyree Jones and Covington County Sheriff Darrell Perkins, departments throughout the state battle to recruit partially because of the low annual pay for law enforcement officials.

“The pay might be beneath common…for Mississippi versus another states like Texas, California, and Florida which have much more cash than we do somewhere else,” Perkins defined in a latest look on The Gallo Present.

Jones added that different states who pay extra and supply higher advantages have been using Mississippi’s low pay for officers as a approach to recruit for years.

“You will have Texas that has come into the state, proper right here within the metropolis of Jackson and recruited,” Jones defined. “Once I was with Jackson Police Division, I do know we misplaced about 5 or 6 officers to the state of Washington.”

So how low is Mississippi’s pay for police compared to different states? In response to a 2020 article from Forbes, the annual wage for a Mississippi police officer is the bottom within the nation.

Backside-10 states for police officer salaries:

1. Mississippi ($36,290)
2. Arkansas ($40,570)
3. Louisiana ($42,470)
4. South Carolina ($43,520)
5. West Virginia ($44,450)
6. Georgia ($44,700)
7. Tennessee ($45,370)
8. Alabama ($46,720)
9. Kentucky ($46,720)
10. North Carolina ($47,340)

High-10 states for police officer salaries:

1. California ($105,220)
2. Alaska ($87,870)
3. New Jersey ($86,840)
4. Washington ($80,200)
5. Hawaii ($78,720)
6. Illinois ($78,350)
7. New York ($77,490)
8. Colorado ($75,720)
9. Delaware ($73,740)
10. Nevada ($73,660)

The complete interview with Jones and Perkins will be watched beneath.