NATCHEZ — Candidates Ray Brown and Chuck Mayfield said they both have the leadership ability needed to be your next sheriff.

The men spoke briefly to the Natchez Trace Kiwanis Club Thursday, explaining the experience and platforms.

Ray Brown

Brown said he’s prepared to assume administrative responsibilities in the Adams County Sheriff’s Office and develop a great team around him.

“I don’t have all the expertise, but (the job) allows me to hire people — like Chuck and other candidates — to fill the positions,” Brown said. “I’ll have a team of people I can respect that will come to the rescue. I feel I can administer.”

Brown said he wanted to focus on educating children and the community in order to reduce crime.

“The dark side we need to look at in our community is our children,” Brown said. “It will take us as a community to come together and find out what the problem is that we have.”

Brown said hip-hop lyrics are contributing to gang violence in the community and encouraged adults to listen to the music.

He also said prescription drugs have eclipsed marijuana and other drugs and that stopping drugs as they come into Adams County was key.

“Let’s build a fort around us and keep the perimeter safe,” he said. “Industry will come in when they feel they are safe.”

Brown also said he would like to create a penal farm to lower the sheriff’s office budget. Inmates would be responsible for farming a section of land, and the food they grow would feed the inmates. Extra produce could be sold to the community.

Brown said he wants to employ the best officers for the job and would review everyone at the office now.

“I’m not going to say there aren’t going to be any changes,” he said. “Me myself at the sheriff’s office would be a change. We’ll go through and do interviews.”

Chuck Mayfield

Mayfield said his experience in law enforcement has well prepared him for the job of sheriff.

Mayfield started at the ACSO by working in the jail and learning to manage prisoners. Then he moved to patrol and worked the night shift. Later he became and investigator, working robberies, burglaries and homicides. Finally, the sheriff asked him to lead the newly formed Metro Narcotics unit.

After leaving the sheriff’s office, Mayfield went to work for the Adams County Youth Court and youth drug court.

“I’m in awe of this office of sheriff,” he said. “It’s a very important job and it’s not easy. I worked in the office for 25 years, I know what it’s like to be sheriff.”

Mayfield said he has no intention of “cleaning house” if elected sheriff, and respects the deputies currently at the ACSO.

“They are looking for leadership and experience and for someone to call at 2 in the morning,” he said. “I will try to lead by example and not put the officers in any situation I wouldn’t put myself in.”

Mayfield said during his time at Metro Narcotics seized money and property went back into the office budget, funding their work in part.

“The taxpayers weren’t funding the war on drugs, the drug dealers were,” he said.

“The goal was to go after the main drug dealers.”

If elected, Mayfield wants to create an intelligence unit focused on gangs.

Mayfield said he will also focus on protecting the elderly, children and animals, and was particularly proud of his work in the 1980s to bust a dog-fighting ring. The bust led to the arrest of 17 people, the realization that dog fighting was a misdemeanor in Mississippi and the eventual change in state law to make it a felony.