BY Elizabeth Reid
Contributing Writer, Delta Business Journal

  With construction of the 128-bed federal work camp underway, the Federal Correctional Institute Yazoo City is one step closer to becoming the largest employer in that town. Already, FCIYC is one of the larger federal prisons in the U.S. and is the only federal prison in Mississippi.
  “The new work camp project, a 128-bed facility, has a cost of approximately $1.9 million and will house very, very low-risk prisoners,” says Elliott Caggins, executive assistant at FCIYC.
  The first phase, a minimum-security federal prison, completed two years ago, houses 1,940 inmates and has about 350 employees.
  “We just started on the low security correctional facility, designed basically for those inmates who are close to getting out,” says Griffin Norquist, chairman of the Yazoo Greater Growth Foundation. “The work camp will not have perimeter fencing and it is for people who have committed non-violent crimes, such as tax evasion. But it’s no country club.”
  The federal correctional facility’s impact on the community has already been evident with last month’s passage of a $5.5 million school bond issue, Norquist said.
  “The bond issue passed by 69% to build a new public elementary school, largely based on the needs of federal prison employees,” he says.
  Yazoo City Mayor Wardell Leach said the jobs FCIYC creates provides “money that goes back into the city’s revenues.”
  “These things – school improvements and new jobs - go hand in hand,” Leach says.
  Charles Shelton, board chairman for the Yazoo Chamber of Commerce, said the work camp “is not a halfway house. The very, low-risk prisoners will be allowed to work around the prison and in the community,” Shelton said. “It’s a support group of sorts.”
  Yazoo City will get an even bigger boost when construction can begin on a $90 million medium security federal correctional facility, Norquist said.
  “We’re awaiting – and working on - congressional funding to build a medium security prison, which would house close to another 1,000 prisoners and would provide 300 or so jobs,” he says.
  The work camp should be completed by the end of the year, with the medium security facility beginning immediately after that, pending legislative funding, Norquist said.
  The influx of employees – and visitors – have boosted hotel revenue because “most everybody comes to see dad,” Norquist says. “Consider a situation like 1,900 college students who can’t leave campus. The increase of traffic on Saturdays and certain times of the week is incredible.”
  The housing market is “a real problem, even though now more than half of FCIYC’s employees live in the Yazoo County zip code,” Norquist says.
  “We’ve seen such a firming of real estate values and land values, especially in the county,” he adds.
  New houses are not being developed as quickly as community leaders would like, and more hotels will soon be needed, Leach said.
  “But projects are on the drawing board, and economically, things are moving up,” Leach says.
  Norquist says business leaders are “really excited about the people who work there and what they have brought to the community. They’ve been true partners and are excellent corporate citizens.”