FORT SMITH -- The Sebastian County sheriff has proposed two options to expand the jail to reduce crowding he told the Quorum Court has reached "dangerous proportions."
Addressing the court during its monthly meeting Tuesday, Sheriff Bill Hollenbeck proposed one option to repair and expand the jail at an estimated cost of $12 million.
The other option would convert the sheriff's offices into a minimum security lockup for women and build onto the existing jail to hold misdemeanor prisoners.
Both changes would generate income for the county because it can charge municipalities $54.01 a day to hold their misdemeanor prisoners. The county can't charge the arresting city for inmates in the jail for felonies because those inmates are county prisoners.
Hollenbeck said crowding is forcing the his office to release the revenue-generating misdemeanor prisoners because it only has space to hold the more serious felony prisoners.
The county is considering reducing by half the number of convicted jail inmates bound for state prison that it holds for the Arkansas Department of Correction at a rate of $30 a day per prisoner.
The U.S. Marshals Service has said if necessary it would give up the 40 beds it reserves from the county by contract, Hollenbeck said. The government pays $53 a day for each of its prisoners.
"This could potentially be a massive amount of lost revenue," Hollenbeck told Quorum Court members.
Hollenbeck proposed that with conversion of offices to hold the women prisoners, the sheriff's office and 911 call center would move to the county's Emergency Operations Center at Fort Smith's southeast border at Chaffee Crossing.
Hollenbeck didn't have a cost estimate for the Sheriff's Office's conversion option, but County Judge David Hudson said the county might be able to generate $2.3 million for the project from a portion of a county sales tax earmarked for capital projects.
Hollenbeck didn't ask the Quorum Court to decide Tuesday but to discuss the expansion of the jail at next month's meeting after more definite data are gathered.
"We are using electronic monitoring, reduced bonds in conjunction with the [prosecuting attorney] and judges, utilized signature bonds authorized by the state, sent hundreds of [Arkansas Department of Correction] inmates to other facilities, used drug and veterans court, used community service as a jail diversion and we are still overcrowded by approximately 150 inmates daily," Hollenbeck said in the letter.
The county jail has the capacity to hold 356 inmates but it typically holds 480 to 500, he said.
The actual capacity, Hollenbeck said, is about 320 because of inmate separation requirements. Pre-trial inmates are supposed to be separate from post-trial, misdemeanors from felonies, child molesters from inmates charged with violent crimes, members of rival gangs from one another. Inmates who pose a threat to themselves or others also should be isolated.
Those separations can't be maintained with the current jail population, Hollenbeck said.
"The current jail is a pressure cooker that has outpaced our needs," he wrote.
Police departments in the county have grown and arrest rates are surpassing the county's ability to hold more prisoners, he said.
Arrests lead to criminal prosecutions, and Circuit Judge J. Michael Fitzhugh told the Quorum Court that criminal filings in Circuit Court have topped 12,000.
He said the three judges who handle criminal cases have tried to slow the pace of convictions. He said judges have discontinued a program they called Rocket Docket. w̶h̶i̶c̶h̶ ̶s̶p̶e̶d̶ ̶u̶p̶ ̶d̶i̶s̶p̶o̶s̶i̶t̶i̶o̶n̶s̶ ̶o̶f̶ ̶s̶o̶m̶e̶ ̶c̶a̶s̶e̶s̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶e̶a̶s̶e̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶i̶r̶ ̶c̶a̶s̶e̶l̶o̶a̶d̶s̶,̶ ̶b̶e̶c̶a̶u̶s̶e̶ ̶i̶t̶ ̶w̶a̶s̶ ̶e̶x̶a̶c̶e̶r̶b̶a̶t̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶j̶a̶i̶l̶'̶s̶ ̶c̶r̶o̶w̶d̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶p̶r̶o̶b̶l̶e̶m̶ The program was instituted to speed up disposition of criminal cases, in part, to help alleviate crowding in the county jail.*
Hollenbeck told Quorum Court members the added stress of the jail population is endangering the staff, inmates and contractors working in the jail. Some vendors have refused to work in the jail, Hollenbeck said.
Providing services in the jail has suffered, he told the Quorum Court. It takes longer to book in and book out prisoners. Booking and disposition clerks are processing up to 70 inmates a day, he said.
The Quorum Court passed an ordinance Tuesday with the intention of reducing jail crowding.
The ordinance establishes a criminal justice coordinating committee that will work to streamline the criminal justice system and divert mentally ill people who need treatment instead of jail.
Sebastian County was one of four counties chosen last week to receive $1.6 million from the state to operate a 16-bed crisis stabilization unit aimed at providing temporary treatment for mentally ill people who are arrested, rather than putting them in jail. The units were authorized under Act 423 the Arkansas Legislature passed earlier this year.
The county will work with the Western Arkansas Counseling and Guidance Center to establish the unit in a building on the guidance center's campus, Hudson said. The county has earmarked $140,000 for the startup cost. Hudson said he hopes the unit will be ready to open in the fall.
The committee will oversee creation of a mental health court that will identify appropriate persons to participate in a program through which they will be assigned to a continuum of treatment, rehabilitation and other services and will be monitored by the court.
The committee also will oversee training of law enforcement officers for crisis intervention situations involving mentally ill persons. Act 423 that authorizes the intervention calls for 20 percent of a police or sheriff's department employees to have training to recognize a person in mental crisis and in need of treatment.
NW News on 08/17/2017
*CORRECTION: Sebastian County Circuit Judge J. Michael Fitzhugh told the Quorum Court on Tuesday that a Rocket Docket program was instituted to speed up disposition of criminal cases, in part, to help alleviate crowding in the county jail. Fitzhugh’s remarks were reported incorrectly in an article that ran in Thursday’s editions.