Issues

Phil Bryant’s Accountability Agenda

Fighting Crime and Protecting Our Communities
As a former Deputy Sheriff, Lt. Governor Phil Bryant will work to strengthen our laws, improve our technology and work closely with local law enforcement officials to fight crime and make our communities a safer place to live, work and bring up our families. There can be no substitute for strong law enforcement and tough penalties for those who threaten the safety of our families. Phil Bryant has offered a number of proposals to fight crime in our State.

• Automatic life sentences for second offense convictions of crack and crystal meth manufacturers and dealers

Drug addiction is a terrible disease that affects many of our families and takes a toll on our communities and economy. Those who profit from the trade in illicit drugs need to be removed from our communities. Crack cocaine and crystal methamphetamine are cheap drugs that are manufactured relatively easily and have swept across the country and into our rural heartland as an epidemic. Laws to seek controls on the ingredients have been helpful but who deal these drugs are responding with new ingredients and otherwise finding ways to defeat these controls. These people are a true menace to our society and we have to take more drastic measures to check this epidemic.

• Double the penalties for those who commit crimes against children and the elderly

We have hate crime laws in this country that increase the penalty for those who commit crimes in which they are motivated by racial, religious or other prejudices. This proposal is similar in that it calls for doubling the penalties for those who commit crimes against our most vulnerable citizens.

• Automatically adjudicate juvenile sex offenders as adult.

To some this proposal may seem harsh. However, law enforcement and judicial officials support this proposal for those cases where the penalty for juvenile offenders simply does not match their crime. When a fourteen year old rapes a six year old, the judicial system needs to be able to do more than place the offender in a few years of juvenile detention.

• Integrate local law enforcement’s fingerprint and identification system for better communication to fight crime

Local and state law enforcement agencies must have better tools to do their jobs. Better coordination and cohesive systems such as this will aid our law enforcement officers. The state can do more to enable our different jurisdictions in doing their jobs. 

• Expand the sex offender registry to include criminals convicted of any crime against children and the elderly

Not only should those who victimize the most vulnerable of our citizens have enhanced penalties but we should be able to better protect our communities from these offenders. This proposal simply calls for creating a registry similar to the sex offender registry that would keep track of individuals who have preyed upon our children and elders.

• Ban the sale of drug paraphernalia in stores

A part of law enforcement, just as is parenting, is setting an example and sending a law abiding message.  Convenience stores across our state have drug paraphernalia such as rolling papers readily available and usually prominently displayed at the checkout counters. These products should be banned from our stores. The message these displays send to our young people is not helpful in the struggle against illicit drug use.

• Fully fund the State Crime Lab

This is a longstanding issue in our state budget process and one that needs to be remedied. Most of our local communities and counties can never hope to have the facilities, funds, or personnel available to them to conduct the kinds of forensic testing that the State Crime Lab is capable of doing. The backlog at the Crime Lab can seriously jeopardize law enforcement efforts and we can do better. Because of Governor Haley Barbour’s leadership over the past four years, funding for the Crime Lab has increased significantly and that same type of focus on increased funding should continue to be a priority in the upcoming years. We will do a better job of giving our law enforcement agencies every advantage in doing their job of protecting all Mississippians.