Sen. Bryan King, R-Green Forest, presents an alternative proposal to the state’s prison plan during a press conference in Little Rock on Jan. 8, 2025. (Mary Hennigan/Arkansas Advocate)
Instead of building a 3,000-bed prison in Northwest Arkansas to reduce crowding in county jails, Sen. Bryan King said Wednesday the state should fund local correctional facilities.
King, R-Green Forest, proposes in draft legislation that the state use the roughly $400 million allocated for the planned prison, and about $200 million more from the state’s reserve fund, to invest in new construction, expansions or renovations to jails in counties with the highest backlog of state prisoners.
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The bill has not yet been filed for the upcoming legislative session, which starts Monday, Jan. 13.
In October, Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders announced the state would purchase 815 acres for nearly $3 million in Franklin County for the site of the new prison. The Board of Corrections later approved the purchase and entered into a lease agreement. Department officials are meeting this week with representatives of Vanir Construction Management, a California-based company contracted to oversee the project.
The Legislature has set aside $330 million for the project, and there’s another $75 million in reserves.
But King, who has been a vocal opponent of the prison plan since its announcement, thinks the new prison will cost significantly more than what officials have estimated so far and the existing funds would be better spent on a more immediate remedy.
“Once we get into [the prison] project, we’re in for the biggest — one of the biggest — financial boondoggles in Arkansas history. You can see that already,” King said.
King’s proposal states the appropriations will be used “for construction and expansion of new and existing correctional facilities, and for grants to counties for construction-related costs for county jail improvements, county jail expansion, and new county jail construction-related expenses.”
Funding local facilities would also allow people serving sentences for lower-level crimes to stay closer to home, which may decrease recidivism and lessen transportation costs, King said.
“Placing the burden of long-term incarceration on county jails is a failed strategy and a disservice to communities and inmates alike,” Sanders spokesperson Sam Dubke said in response to King’s plan. “The Governor and her staff have been in contact with Franklin County leaders and will continue to engage the community as the state constructs a prison that will bring hundreds of jobs and hundreds of millions of dollars in investment to Franklin County while building a safer, stronger Arkansas.”
King indicated Wednesday that he is also working on a separate bill that he said will detail a “holistic approach” to the state’s “crime crisis.”
“If we don’t do something about the crime and stop it on the front end, we’re going to be prison poor,” King said. “We’re just going to build another prison, fill it up; another prison, fill it up. We cannot continue on this path.”
According to figures from the Prison Policy Project, which advocates for alternatives to incarceration, Arkansas locks up more of its people than any state except Mississippi or Louisiana, with 912 prisoners for every 100,000 people.
As of Jan. 8, the Department of Corrections reported 1,671 inmates at county jails. Of those, the highest percentage of inmates, 11%, were in Pulaski County, followed by 8% in Washington County, according to data from the department.
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The planned prison is expected to provide enough space to relieve overcrowded county jails and house the state’s most serious offenders, who under the Protect Act of 2023 will be required to serve most or all of their sentence.
DOC spokesperson Rand Champion said in an email Wednesday afternoon that corrections officials were unaware of King’s press conference and would not comment on the proposal “because we don’t [know] the details or context of that press conference.”
King said Wednesday that he discussed his proposal with Board of Corrections Chairman Benny Magness. He said he also made attempts to meet with Sanders and Joe Profiri, a senior adviser to the governor who previously served as corrections secretary, but King said his requests have been ignored.
Magness did not respond to an inquiry from the Advocate before publication.
Funding and infighting
While the state has about $470 million currently available for the planned prison, King and others opposed to the project expect it to cost significantly more.
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In December, members from a local group that formed against the prison shortly after it was announced told lawmakers that based on information they received from public records requests, a 3,000-bed prison will likely cost the state $1.5 billion.
After that meeting, the primary sponsor of the Protect Act, Sen. Ben Gilmore, R-Crossett, told reporters that it was likely lawmakers would need to set aside more funds as the project progresses.
At Wednesday’s press conference, King compared Arkansas’ prospective penitentiary to ones in other states, like Alabama and Utah, where projects exceeded budgets into the billions.
King also took several digs at a few of his former and current colleagues, whom he blamed for enacting “soft on crime” policies that he said have further exacerbated the state’s crime issues.
“The reason we got to this is because [former] Gov. [Asa] Hutchinson, [former] state senator Jeremy Hutchinson, state senator Bart Hester and a long list of names have been supporting these things and not taking care of the public safety and putting it as a priority,” King said. “Instead, they’re trying to sell them on programs, task forces, everything else that quite frankly did not take care of the problem. It actually made it worse.”
In response to King’s statement, Hester, R-Cave Springs, said he believed his fellow lawmaker was entitled to his own opinion and “version of alternative facts.”
John Sykes/Arkansas Advocate 09/11/2023
“We’re doing right by the people of Arkansas,” said Hester, who is Senate president pro tempore. “I’m certainly pleased Sen. King gets to have his opinion and proposals, but one has to have credibility and influence with their colleagues to actually be successful, and I certainly hope him the best.”
Hester pointed to increased funding to law enforcement as an example of policy he has supported that prioritizes public safety.
When asked about King’s alternative plan, Hester said he thought “it’s a bit of a ridiculous proposal that we would house people for 40 or 50 years in our county jails.”
Jeremy Hutchinson, whom King mentioned alongside Hester, is currently completing an eight-year prison sentence for corruption and bribery.
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