CALICO ROCK — In Calico Rock’s King Park, 30 young men dug a trench to divert rainwater away from the ball fields and into a nearby creek. Officers on horseback and on foot supervised the white-clad workers. The men with shovels were inmates from the Arkansas Department of Correction’s North Central Unit at Calico Rock.
Since North Central opened 20 years ago, its inmate Regional Maintenance crews have worked on projects in various locations, including Harrison, Hardy, Mountain Home and Mountain View.
For 2011, Warden David White reported to the Arkansas Department of Correction that crews from North Central completed 147 assignments and worked 99,813 inmate hours. According to White, such crews at the 12 other Arkansas prisons worked a total of 579,764 hours on local projects last year.
“The majority of our work here is on rural roads, where trees have grown up to impede traffic, and ditches that aren’t draining well,” White said.
North Central crews also do maintenance on city parks and county fairgrounds, make road repairs and clean litter and brush along highways. Some assignments are one-time events, such as tearing down unused buildings or creating playgrounds and ball fields.The Arkansas Game and Fish Commission has used the RM crews on “Stream Team” erosion projects and to cut and maintain trails. After every flood, ice storm or tornado in north-central Arkansas, the crews often clear roads for emergency and utility-company vehicles.
“The DOC has always worked inmates,” White said, “but the public didn’t see it. Arkansas prisons used to be agriculturally based. When mechanized farming came along, we had more men than we had work for them to do.”
The first Regional Maintenance program began in 1982 at Wrightsville Prison in Pulaski County. That crew’s first assignment was to clear overgrown areas along Interstate 40 near Pine Bluff.
“People in that community started saying, ‘This is a great thing. It’s about time they put those prisoners to work,’” White said. “So DOC expanded the program into all the state prisons.”
Requests for Regional Maintenance work must be submitted in writing from a government entity or a nonprofit 501(c)(3) organization. At North Central, White reviews each request to see if it qualifies. Next, correctional officer Capt. Paul Killian receives the work order.
“If I’m not already familiar with the location,” Killian said, “I will go out and see about security, what tools we need, how long I think the job will take, including the distance from the unit. We nowhave two 32-man crews.”
Only inmates with the best records are selected for the RM crews.
“We look at level of violence and type of crime,” Killian said. “We’re not going to put anyone out there who has a large amount of time to serve or a history of an escape. Plus if you try to escape, you run the risk of getting shot and killed.”
Every morning before the North Central crews go out, the inmates attend a safety meeting. Correctional officers discuss that day’s assignment, along with safety issues such as safety glasses, hard hats and wearing chaps when using chain saws.
“For the number of man hours we have, we have very few accidents,” Killian said.
Each crew is transported by bus, along with two sergeants and one lieutenant as guards. A pickup tows a trailer with two horses.
“Most of our work is withhand tools,” Killian said, “but we let some inmates use chain saws, Weed Eaters and mowing machines. We screen these guys. We don’t just put any guy out there with a chain saw.”
Only the governor can call out the crews for natural disasters.
“We work through the Arkansas Department of Emergency Management,” White said. “In a natural disaster, we can work on private property. If a homeowner sees a crew of inmates coming down the road that he can’t get out [of], it’s not unusual for us to find a big pot of coffee waiting when we get there. These residents are proud to have us come help them. We appreciatethem appreciating us.”
For many years, Killian was a guard on RM crews.
“Sometimes the way to get the men to do something difficult is to challenge them. I’d say, ‘I don’t think you can move that thing.’ You tellthem that, they’re going to move it.”
Rarely do security problems occur with the inmate crews.
“An inmate found a loaded .22 rifle along Calico Creek in Calico Rock,” Killian said. “He started waving and yelling, ‘There’s gun right here.’ The inmates are instructed if they find anything like that, they are to get away from it and let an officer know. That’s why we don’t let people know ahead of time where we’re going to be working.”
White addressed the misconception that RM crews take jobs away from local residents. “Any request must be that if our crews don’t do the work, the job will simply go undone,” he said.
Calico Rock Mayor Ronnie Guthrie praised the North Central RM crews.
“They do a lot of jobs that the city wouldn’t get done,” Guthrie said.
“They’re good workers.The city couldn’t keep up Rand Park without the prisoners. Where you can’t go with a mower, they go in and swing-blade. The prisoners originally built the walking trail that goes up the hill there, and they have kept it cleaned out. We’re rebuilding the bathrooms in Rand Park. Last week, the prisoners stripped the roof off and took the building all the way down to the cement blocks. Over in King Park, they maintain the Lions Club Rodeo Arena, and on Main Street, they remodeled the Calico Rock Museum building.”
Back in King Park, Lt. Jackie Goggans talked about the RM crews he supervises.
“All our men are good workers,” Goggans said. “Once in a while, we get a man who has never done this kind of work before, or any kind of work. Once he learns how to do the work, you see the pride coming up in him. We teachthem [that] if you want respect, you have to give it.”
Two inmates offered their comments.
“I love being outdoors and being productive,” said Bobby Forrest of Hampton. “If the cities and counties had to pay for what we do, they couldn’t afford it. We give back to the community.”
“It’s amazing what a day outside does for your spirits,” said Cody Harp of Eureka Springs, one of the inmates. “It gives me a chance to get out of the prison and remember that the rest of the world is still out here. We appreciate the opportunity to do this work.”
For more information about Regional Maintenance at the North Central Unit at Calico Rock, contact White at (870) 297-4311 or david. white@arkansas.gov.
Three Rivers, Pages 45 on 03/29/2012