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County Lines Magazine
County Lines is the official publication of the Association of Arkansas Counties. It is published quarterly. For advertising inqui- ries, subscriptions or other information re- lating to the magazine, please contact Scott Perkins at 501.372.7550.
Executive Director / Executive Editor Chris Villines
Managing Editor Scott Perkins
AAC Executive Board: Mike Jacobs – President
Roger Haney – Vice President
Judy Beth Hutcherson – Secretary-Treasurer Sherry Bell Sue Liles
Rhonda Wharton John Montgomery Faron Ledbetter David Thompson Will Jones
Debra Buckner Bear Chaney Jimmy Hart
Patrick Moore Joe Gillenwater Marty Moss Debbie Wise
National Association of Counties (NACo) Board Affiliations
Alvin Black: Public Lands Steering Committee. He is the Montgomery County Judge.
Roger Haney: Board of Directors. He is the Wash- ington County Treasurer and is also on the Telecom- munications & Technology Steering Committee.
Ted Harden: Finance & Intergovernmental Affairs Steering Committee. He serves on the Jefferson County Quorum Court.
Haze Hudson: Transportation Steering Committee. He serves on the Miller County Quorum Court.
David Hudson: Vice Chair of NACo’s Justice and Public Safety Steering Committee. He is the Sebastian County Judge and member of the Rural Action Caucus Steering Committee.
Mike Jacobs: NACo Board of Directors, the Mem- bership Committee and the Agricultural & Rural Affairs Steering Committee. He is the Johnson County Judge.
COUNTY LINES, WINTER 2014
County Jails, a new crisis has begun
instead it is a prolonged stagnation which is creating a crunch for many of our counties.
I Tis predicament continues to grow, and for that reason it simply cannot be dismissed. But
unfortunately funding gaps have become recently coupled with a very acute issue that is now the most urgent problem we face.
Crisis is defined as a condition of instability or danger, as in social, economic, political, or international affairs, leading to a decisive change. Tis is the level at which our county sheriffs and jail administrators now find themselves … in crisis mode. I encourage all of you to read the county jail report given by Michael Dougherty on page 28 of this issue. It is an excellent break-down of how we arrived at this point, so I will not retell the story he articulates well in those pages. I will however, detail that what we are seeing is more than a nugget of concern as we move ahead into this new jail crisis across Arkansas.
Te explanation of the jail crisis is two-fold but one hinges on the other. Te genesis of the issue is overcrowding. County jails can hold approximately 9,500 inmates with the bed-space they have at this time. As counties, we went to our voters to ask for millage rates, sales taxes and help from the populace to build jails we thought were meant to hold our inmates (city and county misdemeanor detainees and inmates awaiting trial for felony charges). We also believed that shortly thereafter that all adjudicated felons, now the responsibility of the state, would be sent upstream to the state prison system.
Tere are basically two types of state prisoners we now hold in our system. Tose men- tioned previously, adjudicated felons, and those who had been released on parole from the prison system and are now basically back in our jails awaiting revocation hearings or to be returned to state prisons due to revocation.
A little trivia for you – next time you are engaging someone about this issue, ask them if they know what the largest state prison is. Let them search on the Internet to find that the Cummins Unit holds around 1,850 at capacity. Te truth, however, is that the county jails are collectively far and away the largest state prison unit in Arkansas, currently holding approxi- mately 55 percent more state prisoners than the Cummins Unit with nearly 2,900 backups in our jails.
Yes, that’s right, 2,900 – or 31 percent, or our inmates at capacity, are state prisoners we
are holding for transfer to state prisons. Truth is, we have always been flexible and often hold more than capacity because we take care of what must be done locally. But these numbers far exceed our historical marks.
So, just how did this happen?
Well, for a bit of history, a few years ago our counties were overcrowded to the point of crisis, a problem that had built over a long period. First time felonious offenders held at
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n our last magazine, I wrote about the ongoing county funding shortfalls, and the dilemma that the counties of Arkansas face as a result of chronic revenue gaps. Te funding issue is not something that happened one day,
Director’s Desk
Chris Villines AAC
Executive Director
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