LITTLE ROCK — In preparation for next year’s legislative session, the Arkansas Department of Correction is once again requesting money to build prison space for 2,000 more inmates, with the department’s director saying the lack of space for the state’s growing inmate population is “becoming a crisis for staff and inmate safety.”
At a Little Rock meeting, the department on Tuesday presented to the state Board of Corrections a proposal for $184 million to build two new prisons.
After several minutes of discussion, the board voted 4-2 to approve the request, stipulating that some of the money could be spent on lower-security lockups operated by the Department of Community Correction instead of prisons.
The request will be sent to Gov. Mike Beebe, who will make construction project recommendations to the Legislature.
While acknowledging that the chance of getting funding is slim, prison officials said they have a duty to ask for what they need. They noted that as of Tuesday, 1,715 state prisoners were being housed incounty jails because no prison space is available.
“It’s just a crisis situation,” Correction Department Director Ray Hobbs told the board. “If you don’t plan for something, it’s going to explode on us, and we’re going to look like we’re just sitting there twiddling our thumbs.”
After the meeting, Correction Department spokesman Dina Tyler said Hobbs was not referring to a “safety and security crisis” but a “population crisis.”
“We are safe, we are secure, everything’s open, everyone’s in their places, they are safe and secure, but we’re at a crisis with our growth,” Tyler said. “We have a population explosion that we can’t deal with.”
Beebe spokesman Matt De-Cample said the proposal for new prisons is “something that we’re considering along with many, many other things.”
“It’s just going to be a matter of how all the pieces for the state budget fit together once we have a better picture of where revenues are going to land,” De-Cample said.
The state’s prison population Tuesday was 15,991, up more than 700 inmates from Sept. 30, 2009. Growing at an average of about 33 inmates per month, prison officials expect the population to reach 16,000 by early next year and 17,000 by 2013.
The Correction Department submitted a similar request, for two 1,000-bed prisons, in preparation for the 2009 legislative session, but Beebe did not recommend the project for funding.
The department does have expansion projects in the works that are expected to ease the inmate backlog over the next several months. For instance, a 300-bed addition to the Cummins Unit is expected to be finished this month. By the end of next year, the department also expects to build space for an additional 422 inmates at the Ouachita River unit in Malvern and a 100-bed addition to the McPherson unit in Newport. The department is also starting work on a 100-bed addition to the North Central unit near Calico Rock, which is expected to be finished in 2012.
At Tuesday’s meeting, the board modified the Correction Department’s request after member Drew Baker, a Little Rock businessman, said he wanted the option of investing more in the Community Correction Department’s minimum-security lockups, which he said have a better success rate in rehabilitating prisoners than prisons do.
Community Correction Department spokesman Rhonda Sharp said nonviolent offenders can serve up to two years in the centers, where they attend classes and perform community service. A study in February 2010 found that 26 percent of the offenders released from the centers had committed another crime within three years of their release, Sharp said. According to the Correction Department, about 37 percent of prison inmates released in 2006 had returned to prison within three years.
Board members Mary Parker of Little Rock and Ken Jones, the Union County sheriff, voted against the proposal, but for different reasons.
Jones said he wanted to explore ways to slow the growth of the state’s inmate population before requesting money for more prisons. He is among law enforcement officials, legislators, members of Beebe’s staff and others who have been meeting for the past several months to discuss ideas, with a goal of presenting the Legislature with recommendations next year. At the request of Beebe and other state officials, the Pew Center on the States’ Public Safety Performance Project also is studying the state’s sentencing laws and corrections system, and is expected to make recommendations.
He said the request for money is “a dream anyway.”
“We’re just covering ourselves in case the state hits the lottery,” Jones said.
Parker, a criminal justice professor at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, said she preferred the department’s original proposal. Any changes proposed during the legislative session “will not work miracles” and will likely not effect inmates who are already in the prison system.
“If we had the beds today, they would be full,” Parker said. “That’s not going to change at the end of the legislative session next year.”
Chairman Benny Magness of Gassville, who votes only in the case of a tie, said he would have preferred a proposal for just 1,000 more beds. The request for the 2,000 beds is “just not going to happen,” he said.
“I just think it’s pie in sky,” Magness said.
Arkansas, Pages 11 on 09/29/2010