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LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) — Arkansas should look at sending some inmates to private facilities to ease overcrowding, along with converting abandoned public buildings and expanding alternative sentencing programs in addition to building a new prison, according to a report issued to lawmakers Monday.
The options were detailed in a report from the Legislature's nonpartisan research office as lawmakers consider ways to alleviate prison overcrowding that has spilled inmates into county jails.
State prison officials want to build a 1,000-inmate maximum-security prison to ease the overcrowding, but Sen. Eddie Joe Williams referred to the plan Monday as "a minimum of a $100 million problem."
Williams, R-Cabot, is chairman of the Senate State Agencies and Governmental Affairs Committee, which received the report Monday and will advise lawmakers on how to move forward.
The report recommends using abandoned school buildings and other available structures rather than building new prisons. It also advises expanding the use of drug courts, which focus on treatment for nonviolent drug offenders, and considering contracting with private prisons in other states to handle some of Arkansas' prison population.
Nearly 2,500 of the state's roughly 18,000 inmates are currently housed in county jails statewide. Lawmakers have already set aside $6 million to hire staff and open up 600 more prison beds to ease overcrowding at local jails, but state prison officials said a new prison is a central part of their plan to ease the backlog.
"A new prison is just a small piece, but in my view it would be a necessary piece," Larry Norris, the Department of Correction's interim director, told the legislative panel.
But Williams said there's little appetite for the way prison officials have suggested for paying for a new prison. The Board of Corrections is considering proposing a $2 increase in the car tag decal fee to pay for a bond issue to pay for the prison's construction. Williams said he wants to talk with legislative staff about ways to fund the prison without raising any fees or taxes.
Williams said he doesn't think there would be support is in the Legislature to "pass a statewide tax increase or tag increase in the environment we're in, where Arkansas voters spoke loud and clear that they're taking a much more conservative view of how their tax dollars are spent."
Republicans swept statewide and congressional offices in the Nov. 4 election and expanded their majority in the state Legislature.
But other lawmakers warned that a lack of space for inmates could hamper other efforts to overhaul the state's probation and parole process. Sen. Jeremy Hutchinson, R-Benton, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said probationers realize there's not prison space to hold them if they violate the terms of their release.
"Until the threat is real, we're not going to see probation have the type of success that we want it to have," he said.
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