Arkansas State Senator Bryan King, R-Green Forest, is making his case for an alternative to a current prison funding plan to ease overcrowding. As Josie Lenora with Little Rock Public Radio reports, Sen. King held a news conference Wednesday where he suggested that instead of building one 3,000 bed mega-prison in West Arkansas, the state should relocate existing money to increase prison capacity in high crime counties.
Sen. King said, “Most of these inmates, as I’ve showed, are originating from just eight counties and that’s where those facilities need to be built.”
Prison overcrowding has been an issue for years. According to the Association of Arkansas Counties (AAC), at the end of July 2022, the state prison system’s designed capacity is 15,431. Yet the prison population stood at 17,109, citing data provided by the National Institute of Corrections (NIC). Observers say one factor that has only exacerbated the problem is a new “Truth in Sentencing” law enacted in 2023. That legislation requires prisoners to serve longer amounts of their sentences behind bars.
On October 31, 2024, Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders announced that the state of Arkansas purchased land for the prison on the site of an 815-acre property for $2,950,000 in Charleston, located about 106 miles northwest of Little Rock. Governor Sanders said, “This new facility will help end our failed system of catch-and-early-release and protect our communities by keeping violent offenders off our streets.”
Arkansas’ ranks third highest in the country for its incarceration rate of 912 per 100,000 people, which includes prisons, jails, immigration detention, and juvenile justice. The national average stands at 614 per 100,000 people, according to reports from the nonprofit agency Prison Policy Initiative (PPI). The PPI is a public policy think tank that conducts research and advocates for criminal justice reform. Arkansas’ regular legislative session gets underway on Monday.
[For information on PPI data sources click here].
