Lindsay Wallace, Secretary of the Arkansas Department of Corrections, at a meeting in North Little Rock on July 26, 2024. (Mary Hennigan/Arkansas Advocate)
In an attempt to relieve pressure from crowded county jails while the completion of a new 3,000-bed prison facility remains in the distant future, the Arkansas Department of Corrections and Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders have turned their focus to immediate expansions.
“We have roughly [a] 16,000-prison-bed capacity and we have north of 17,000 people that need to occupy that space,” Sanders told the Advocate Tuesday. “So it’s very clear that you don’t have to be great at math to know those numbers don’t add up, and so looking for every opportunity we can to expand capacity and crack down, make sure that violent repeat offenders aren’t back on the street.”
According to a Friday report to the prison board, more than 2,100 state inmates were being held in county jails, Division of Correction Director Dexter Payne said.
Officials started moving inmates into a vacant Tucker Unit work release facility earlier this month, and recently completed the transfer of 124 people, all of whom are either assigned to a work-release program or require minimum security.