FORT SMITH -- Officials in Sebastian County are trying to make changes throughout the criminal justice system to reduce overcrowding in the jail.
In the monthly Quorum Court meeting Tuesday, County Judge David Hudson said officials with circuit court, district court, the prosecutor's office, Sebastian County and Fort Smith, the Sheriff's Office, and Fort Smith police met to review the jail's population and options to reduce it.
Hudson reported the jail population was 488 on Tuesday, far above the 356 capacity the jail was built to in its last expansion in 2007. The jail was built in 1995 to hold 266 prisoners.
He presented a draft of an updated plan for the jail showing expansion and repair costing more than $13 million.
How much of the plan could be implemented will be addressed by the Quorum Court when it takes up budget discussions this fall, Hudson said.
"There's nothing easy about any aspect of this," he said.
Hudson said the analysis showed it would cost more than $7 million to increase inmate capacity by 160, adding a wing for 96 inmates at the northeast corner of the jail and/or a wing for 64 inmates at the northwest corner.
The analysis identified areas of repair and renovation in the jail that would cost $5.5 million. Renovation of the juvenile detention center and expansion of the Sheriff's Office would add another $566,000 to the project.
In a report to Quorum Court members last month, Hudson pointed out it may be difficult to come up with the money to pay for the expansions and renovation.
In 2014, the share of a 1 percent sales tax dedicated to jail operations was increased from 44 percent to 54.5 percent to provide money to hire jailers, the report said. At the same time, the share of the tax that went to capital needs, such as jail expansion and renovation, was cut from 25 percent to 11 percent.
Officials talked about other ways to reduce crowding in the jail.
Sheriff Bill Hollenbeck is removing prisoners sentenced to the Arkansas Department of Correction from the jail. The prison system is taking some and others are being transferred to counties, Hudson said.
The jail census from Tuesday showed of the 488 inmates in the jail, 97 were prison-bound. Forty-four of those 97 were removed from the jail this week, Hudson said.
Prosecutor Daniel Shue said it frustrates county officials, civilians and law enforcement such a large percentage of the inmates in the jail are state prisoners, which reduces the ability of the sheriff to house county prisoners.
Jail records Hudson presented to the Quorum Court showed the state pays the county $30 a day to house a state inmate. Cities in the county pay $53.59 for each of its prisoners.
Circuit Judge J. Michael Fitzhugh told Quorum Court members the three judges who handle the criminal cases are trying to speed up processing cases through the court system. He said it takes four to six months for the typical criminal case to move from arraignment to disposition.
He said judges are going to implement a system to reduce the time to 2½ months.
He said defendants will be brought before judges within 40 to 60 days and will be asked if they want to plead to the charges. If not, he said, they will be set to go to trial in 30 to 35 days.
He said he believes the effort would help reduce jail crowding.
"We embrace the idea of a rocket docket, because the vast majority of them do plead and the vast majority of them are nonviolent," Shue said. "To move these cases through, I think, is a good thing."
Fitzhugh said judges and the prosecutor's office also discussed lowering bonds for inmates charged with nonviolent crimes to make it easier for them to bond out of jail. That would leave room for inmates charged with violent crimes, who are flight risks and who are a danger to the community.
"Who we want in the jail are not those people that we're mad at," Fitzhugh said. "We want the people in jail that we're afraid of."
NW News on 10/22/2016