Hand it to the folks at the Department of Correction who handled last week's big problem fast enough. That is, immediately. Call it the Department of Immediate Correction.
Before most of Arkansas even knew that a convicted murderer was sent out on a work crew to install gym equipment at Cabot Junior High North, the policy allowing any such thing was changed. And not a moment too soon.
Now the big questions start coming, beginning with, What th--?
Then others follow: How--? When--? Who thought it could ever--?
It's hard not to sputter when asking such questions after reading about the old policy that's just been changed. It allowed a murderer in jail since the 1970s to work at a school during school hours.
The inmate, Glen Martin Green, was convicted in 1975 of murdering an 18-year-old woman. Police believe he beat her with nunchakus--a martial arts weapon--and ran over her with his car before kicking her into a creek. She was a month pregnant.
According to dispatches, Glen Martin Green gave police a lengthy confession. And prosecutors in Lonoke County even today call the case as disturbing as any they've ever seen.
Yes, the murder happened a long time ago. But that doesn't make Glen Martin Green any less a murderer. Even if by now he's done enough good time to earn trusty status on the inside. But he still should not be out in public. Nor should he be anywhere near a school.
Those running the DOC now assure everybody that changes have been made. Which is fine as far as that one policy goes. But have those in charge got the message?
At a legislative hearing Wednesday, lawmakers grilled the DOC's director, Ray Hobbs, about what's been going on in his department. You may recall the case of another trusty, also a convicted murderer, who walked away from a work detail on prison grounds earlier this summer. Timothy Buffington was recaptured only a few days ago.
Here's some of what Director Hobbs said about inmates who earn trusty status:
"Inside staff and wardens know that murderers usually make the best trusties. They are going to be there a long time. You are going to train them for a job, a long-standing job, because you don't have any turnover. But we recognize, we need . . . it doesn't make good PR classification when you're dealing with a murderer."
Good PR classification? Whether it's good or bad "PR classification," whatever that means exactly, this incident is less about public relations than public safety.
This is not a problem of perception but policy. And there should be no compromise with the basic rule here: Convicted murderers don't belong at schools.
As far as murderers' making the best trusties because they're going to be jailed a long time, there's a different and better way of looking at it, and it was well expressed by a state representative named Bob Ballinger, who comes from Hindsville: "It would just seem to me, if you are a guy who's locked up and you're not getting out, to me that seems like the guy with the real incentive to escape."
Makes sense.
The state is going to use trusties on work details. Lots of taxpayers support the idea. Chain gangs in the way of Cool Hand Luke may have gone the way of hot boxes, but some of us like the idea of convicts picking up trash on the side of the roads, tearing down dilapidated houses in Pine Bluff, and generally earning their keep.
But keep the murderers on the inside as a general rule, not the outside. And by all means as far away from schools as we can put them.
Editorial on 09/29/2014