The Arkansas Board of Corrections on Friday approved an 815-acre site for a planned prison to hold 3,000 inmates, despite objections from residents and local officials that they were blindsided by the state’s purchase of the land.
The board voted to accept the land that the state had purchased for nearly $3 million to build a prison that Republican Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders and corrections officials say is needed to ease a backlog of state inmates in county jails.
Officials have not said how much the prison will cost or given a timeline for its construction. Sanders, a Republican, called for 3,000 new prison beds and lawmakers set aside $330 million for that last year. An additional $75 million that was originally intended for the expansion of a prison unit is also available for the project.
“This vote today, it starts a lot of studies and a lot of thought processes,” Chairman Benny Magness said during the meeting, which was held via Zoom with nearly 300 people. “There’s probably a slim possibility, but it’s a possibility, that this site won’t work. But we’re at the point where we need to accept the site where we can move on and check some of that information.”