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(Jackson, MS) – Mississippi State Parole Board Chairman Steven Pickett today announces his retirement from public service, effective December 31, 2021.
Pickett is ending 30 years of government work, including nine years on the five-member Parole Board. He began serving on the board Nov. 10, 2012, after then-Gov. Phil Bryant appointed him and became chairman a year later. Having been reappointed by Gov. Tate Reeves in 2020, he is the longest serving chairman. Pickett thanked Gov. Reeves in a retirement letter dated December 14.
“My thirty years of public service – in law enforcement, with the courts, and on the parole board – have provided me the opportunity to make a difference in many people’s lives,” he said in the letter. “Helping people was my primary goal when I began my career in law enforcement, as it is for all the men and women who protect and serve us. My position on the parole board provided me a different kind of opportunity to help others, by giving a second chance to those who earned it and denying it to those who remain a threat to public safety.”
Mississippi Department of Corrections Commissioner Burl Cain said he has appreciated Pickett’s friendship and cooperation. Though the Parole Board is an independent body, its budget is within the MDOC’s.
Under Pickett’s leadership, the board has supported Commissioner Cain’s request to not release gang members back into communities. “He has helped us to keep our communities safer,” Commissioner Cain said.
Pickett came to the board after serving as a longtime deputy to then-Hinds County Sheriff Malcolm McMillin, who was on the board when Pickett joined. Pickett’s career also has included serving as a Youth Court Resource Officer, deputy chancery clerk, and Justice Court judge in Hinds County.
“I will leave knowing that I gave it my best and after more than sixty thousand parole and revocation decisions, it’s time to go,” he said in his resignation letter to Gov. Reeves. “The prison population is the lowest it’s been in twenty-two years at just under seventeen thousand. The decrease in population is due, in large part, to the difficult and important decisions made by the board.”
Though he will be leaving government service, Pickett said, he will continue helping others by working with the Mississippi Center for Police & Sheriffs’ Warrior Cottages program in Vicksburg, which provides housing to those in need, including veterans.
A retirement reception is planned for Pickett at the board’s office on North Street, Suite 100A, in Jackson from 11 a.m. until 1 p.m. December 29.
MageeNews.com is an online news source serving Simpson and surrounding counties as well as the State of Mississippi.
Hi Sue this is Bob Davidson with the Mississippi Senate—do you happen to have contact information on Steve Picket now that he has left DOC?—-email or text?—thanks
I do not. I will attempt to secure the information.