COVER
STORY
Raising the Roof Local sales taxes fund new jail construction in several counties.
Story by Michael Dougherty s Photos by Christy L. Smith
in the 1990s for such Arkansas criminal lockups. Another round of county facilities being threatened with closure by the state’s 26 criminal detention facility review committees (one committee serving each judicial district) has resulted in jails recently completed and a number of others at various stages in the construction process. The need to meet the state’s jail standards, com-
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bined with the overcrowding caused in part by addi- tional state prisoners being housed in county facili- ties, has forced the issue in a number of counties. County officials say having their jails crowded with
violent offenders and Arkansas Department of Cor- rection inmates waiting on room at state prisons has kept some district judges from placing misdemeanor offenders and non-violent felony offenders in jail because county facilities have no room for them.
t was a matter of time. Aging county jails and the conditions inside them were bound to eventually bump up against the state standards established
That, in turn, had kept counties from collecting fines and fees because some of the less serious offenders don’t pay what they owe; they know that police offi- cers and deputies have nothing with which to threat- en them, if the offenders don’t cough up the cash. State inmate overcrowding in county jails has
decreased from about 2,900 in May 2015 to about 1,000 on March 7, 2016. These estimates include DOC state inmates and not inmates within the De- partment of Community Corrections who are housed in county jails. “The AAC is appreciative of the administration’s
and state’s effort as many of our jails were in a crisis; however, recent reports to the Legislative Criminal Justice Oversight Task Force certainly indicate that efforts to address Arkansas’ 48 percent recidivism must be created and executed or prison and jail populations in Arkansas will continue to grow again,” said AAC Executive Director Chris Villines.
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