Here’s a twist in the news.
Local jails might be wishing for more, not fewer state inmates.
For decades, as this state toughened its sentencing laws, Arkansas couldn’t build enough prison cells to take all the people convicted and sentenced to the Department of Correction.
The result was a routine backup of prisoners in local jails, not just here but all over the state of Arkansas.
The counties typically packed those prison-bound inmates in with people being held in advance of trial and with those people serving jail sentences for misdemeanors.
So common was the practice that counties built jails expecting to hold some state (and federal) prisoners as well as their own.
The state Legislature would set aside money every session to pay the counties for holding state prisoners, but the money almost never matched the bills the state would run up with the counties.
That meant every two years, when the Legislature assembled again, there was always a request for asupplemental appropriation to pay the debt.
It was a vicious little cycle. And, in years when state money was tight, there were always arguments over whether counties would recoup the money the state owed them.
The Legislature has since moved to annual sessions, which allows more timely budget corrections - but here’s the odd news.
Last week, this newspaper reported the jails in Benton and Washington counties are experiencing reduced populations of state inmates.
Consequently, both jails report diminished revenue from holding state prisoners.
What’s happening?
The state Department of Correction is moving prisoners through the system more quickly. That makes space available in the prisons sooner and shortens the stayof prison-bound inmates in the county jails.
The change is pretty dramatic. Recently, the Benton County Jail held just 14 state prisoners awaiting transfer. Compare that with 99 held a year ago.
In the first four months of this year, the county collected $94,508 in state payments.
That sum was $475,542 in the first four months of 2011.
(The state reimbursements are $28 per day per prisoner.)
According to a Washington County spokesman, state prisoners used to spend three to five months in county jail but now transfer in three weeks to 30 days.
While some meal costs and other items are reduced, the big cost of jail operation - personnel - doesn’t go down with the jail population.
From that standpoint, the additional state dollars are missed.
However, the overall aim here isn’t to keep the local jails full.
These shifts are occurring because the state implemented a new law specifically intended to move people through prison morequickly or to keep them out of prison altogether.
Recognizing the state’s old get-tough-on-crime attitude had led us down a path of spending more and more on prisons, the state undertook to change its approach to corrections.
Even though there are apparent cuts in costs, the state is also expecting to make Arkansas safer.
That will happen in part by changing the lives of offenders early in their criminal experience and keeping them from returning to jail or prison.
Changes were made to both state sentencing guidelines and to probation and parole practices.
It is still a bit early to evaluate how well the legislation, passed in 2011, is accomplishing its goals.
Still, this news prisoners are moving out of county jails, then into and out of prison quickly, suggests something is working.
Somehow, the dynamic that had been stacking prisoners up like cord wood in the prisons and in county jails is changing.
BRENDA BLAGG IS A COLUMNIST FOR NWA MEDIA.
Opinion, Pages 5 on 06/22/2012