Sarah’s Jail

We have a pool going on how many times the Governor’s prison bill will be brought up before she can strong-arm enough unbelievers to get it passed. I think it’s five or six bites at the apple so far, but keep going, Sarah, you’re getting close!

Every time (lame duck) Senator Hammer’s bill comes up, another senator I thought we could trust goes over to the dark side. Senator Hammer’s support for the bill is understandable, in that being a good little soldier will guarantee the Governor will plow the road to Secretary of State for him. Not only that, but the new prison isn’t in his district and he’s a lame duck, so he won’t have to worry about unintended results nor how to pay for it. He’ll be gone by then.

Now I’m not as involved in politics as some people, but I know enough about sausage making to know when someone’s adding spices to the mix. It’s shameful that Arkansas has a loophole – that’s what we call any law we don’t like, isn’t it – that allows defeated bills to be brought up again and again until the legislature is so shell-shocked by the continuous barrage from the Governor’s office that they vote yes just to get some peace. That seems to be what’s going on here. Let’s look at some of the facts:

The planned state prison in Arkansas will be built on an 815-acre site near Charleston in Franklin County. The land was purchased by the state for $2.95 million in October 2024.

The project is opposed by local residents who say the state never told anyone why they were buying the land, there were no public meetings nor public consultation prior to buying the land.

Members of the Chickamauga Nation have raised objections, claiming the land as an archaeological site with tribal significance. Arkansas does not officially recognize the Chickamauga Nation as a Native American tribe and does not have a process for state recognition of tribes. The Chickamauga Nation is not recognized by the federal government either.

The Chickamauga nation cites treaties dating back to 1785 and mentions by George Washington as evidence of their sovereignty. They continue to advocate for sites they consider sacred, including the proposed prison site in Franklin County.

There is no doubt that new prison space is needed in Arkansas. The state spends $30,000,000 annually to house state prisoners, 3,000 of them, in county jails as a result of a lack of space. That’s $10,000 per prisoner per year, but that’s only what the state reimburses the counties – Arkansas pay $40/day for housing prisoners in county jails, even though is costs much more than that. In Washington County the cost/day to house prisoners is $95, more than double the state reimbursement.

At the national average of $23,000/prisoner/year, the 3,000 prisoners in county jails will cost Arkansas $69,000,000/year to house, so a new prison makes sense from the financial standpoint.

Where it doesn’t make sense is to sneak it into a county without making your intentions known to the residents. It seems building a prison anywhere in the state will anger someone, and it has to go somewhere. Starting the project without any public notification is not only a poor decision on the state of Arkansas’ part, but it’s also against what Sarah Sanders supposedly is, which is a Republican. The Republican Party of Arkansas (RPA) emphasizes transparency as a fundamental principle in its platform. The party asserts that “those elected, appointed, and employed in government work for the taxpayers of this state and must provide public information when requested, in line with Arkansas’s Freedom of Information Act.”

I suppose it doesn’t really say you have to inform citizens when you’re going to build a prison in their back yard. Seems they – the Governor and the legislature – aren’t required to tell taxpayers what the prison will cost, and there are as many stories about millions or billions or you pick a number of dollars this prison will cost.

One other issue is where are you going to get the people to staff this new prison? The average salary in Franklin County is $42,000, correction officers in the state prison system average $43,000, so there’s no big financial reason to work at the prison. The state of Arkansas has had problems filling other correction facility jobs, and in fiscal 2022 about 46% of entry-level and corporal positions were unfilled. This raises concerns about filling positions at the new facility.

Arkansas needs more prison space, no doubt about it. The problem with the Franklin County project is the state wasn’t transparent, they’ve hidden facts like actual projected costs all along, and they continue to push for this project even though there doesn’t seem to be enough support to get it across the goal line.

I’ve written before about the seeming corruption in the Arkansas government. This seems to be more of the same.

As Steven Crowder says, “Change my mind!”

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Jack Sotallaro

Continuity planning, civilian and military