Ahead of a scheduled session today with lawmakers, corrections officials Tuesday released a three-pronged plan to correct security problems at prisons that have dealt with a spate of violence this summer.
Gov. Asa Hutchinson endorsed the "action plan," announced by the Department of Correction in a late-afternoon news release, while describing the plan as a first step in shoring up security lapses in the prison system.
Violent altercations have been reported at a half-dozen prisons this summer, sending prisoners and guards to the hospital and resulting in the death of one inmate. State prisons Director Wendy Kelley has said the violence appears to be worse than in recent years, and attributed at least two of the incidents to faulty fencing that allowed maximum-security inmates to be on the loose inside their unit.
Kelley and Arkansas State Police officials are scheduled to appear before the Legislature's Charitable, Penal and Correctional Institutions Subcommittee today to discuss "security breaches" within prisons.
"I appreciate Director Kelley's swift action per my request for options to better safeguard our prison facilities and reduce the violence within," Hutchinson wrote in a statement. "Based upon my discussions with her, these are items that should be started immediately, while we consider additional and longer-term options in the weeks and months ahead."
Hutchinson's request for more safeguards came at the end of September, one day after inmates at both the Maximum Security Unit at Tucker and the Varner Unit at Grady assaulted and injured corrections officers.
The Department of Correction's plan to address the violence, according to the news release, included three specific safeguards:
• Continue to replace chain-link fencing around solitary recreation pens, through which inmates at the Maximum Security Unit were able to break through in a pair of incidents, and review security at other recreation areas.
• Build "controlled access points" at the entrances to barracks at all four maximum-security prisons.
• Convert about 400 cells that now house inmates in barracks-style housing into "restrictive housing" for unruly inmates, who could be locked down for at least 22 hours a day.
Asked whether Kelley planned to present the action plan to lawmakers today, prisons spokesman Solomon Graves said Kelley was not preparing a formal presentation, but that she would answer any questions from the committee.
Kelley previously told the Board of Corrections that the state needs more of the highest-security cells where inmates can be placed on lockdown. General population inmates are typically housed in open-style barracks, or in cells that open into a larger barracks space during the day.
Several of the reported incidents this summer, including an altercation that resulted in the death of Tucker Unit inmate John Demoret, occurred inside open barracks.
Both Kelley and Board of Corrections Chairman Benny Magness released statements attached with the department's plans expressing optimism that they would achieve results.
"These items will, without a doubt, increase the security of the Department of Correction," Magness said.
The plan did not address the pay that corrections officers receive, which prisons officials have previously cited as a cause of high-employee turnover and depleted ranks within the department. Recent pay boosts at three prisons have been aimed at attracting and retaining employees.
The Department of Correction also faces a chronic shortage of bed space for convicts, though lawmakers have passed over calls to spend money to construct more prison space.
Arkansas' prisons housed 16,220 inmates Tuesday, despite having a designed capacity of 15,300.
Metro on 10/11/2017