Otus the Head Cat

Parlous thugs won't flee Lake Ouachita lockup

Kayakers head for Island 49 on Lake Ouachita last month. The island soon will be off-limits and the home of a $100 million prison facility known as “Arkansas Alcatraz.”
Kayakers head for Island 49 on Lake Ouachita last month. The island soon will be off-limits and the home of a $100 million prison facility known as “Arkansas Alcatraz.”

Dear Otus,

What's up with the new signs around Island 49? They say "No trespassing after 9/1/14." Our Kayak Klub picnics out there all the time.

-- John Patrick Mason, Mountain Pine

Dear Otus,

Are they really going to turn Island 49 in Lake Ouachita into a state prison? That's going to eliminate my favorite crappie and bream hole. Who's brilliant idea was this?

-- Stan Goodspeed, Hot Springs

Dear Otus,

Is it true that the state is planning an Arkansas Alcatraz in the middle of Lake Ouachita? That'd be cool.

-- Frank Hummel, Story

Dear J.P., Stan and Frank,

It was wholly a pleasure to hear from you and the 87 others who wrote in last week following the joint announcement by the state Department of Correction and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

Evidently, the plans to create an "Arkansas Alcatraz" struck a nerve. There appears to be no middle ground. Readers either seem to believe it will be a blight and eyesore, or a brilliant solution to growing prison overcrowding and the increased incidences of prisoners simply walking away.

Rest assured, once the $100 million island facility is complete, there will be no "walking" away. Point 50, the nearest land to Island 49, is 211 yards away. That's 211 freezing cold, 80-foot-deep yards away.

Should a prisoner attempt to swim to adjacent peninsulas, one is 600 yards to the north; the other is 880 yards to the south.

And the intervening waters are filled with flesh-eating walleye. Flathead catfish -- some as massive as 80 pounds -- prowl the murky depths. They say Lake Ouachita's freshwater jellyfish are the nonstinging variety, but do you really want to find out?

First of all, everyone agrees that the state has run out of prison beds. Due to a lack of space, nefarious ne'er-do-wells, shady peccants and knavish, miscreant malefactors are brazenly wandering our streets instead of paying their debts to society.

Their blase and cavalier attitude toward incarceration no doubt contributes to the shocking 43.2 percent recidivism rate. I mean, if a lowlife gets a slap on the wrist plus time served, where's the incentive not to recidivise?

State prisoners (2,330 at last count) are backed up in county jails ill equipped to handle them. Other facilities, such as Tucker Parole Boot Camp, McPherson and Grimes units outside Newport, and the Northwest Arkansas Work Release Center in Springdale are bursting at the seams.

What the state needs is a facility that will hold the 30 percent of the prison population (almost 5,000 hardened inmates), who will probably never leave the Department of Correction. That'll free up the other units for the fluid population.

That's where Island 49 -- "Arkansas Alcatraz" -- comes in. It's sheer genius. You can check out the precise location on Google Earth at the GPS coordinates 34.609490, -93.205419.

With 66,324 total acres of land and water, Lake Ouachita is Arkansas' largest. Officials inspected the lake's more than 200 islands before settling on Island 49 near Lake Ouachita State Park.

The porkchop-shape island measures 1,742 feet long and 1,056 feet wide at its widest. By comparison, Alcatraz in San Francisco Bay is 1,675 feet by only 590 feet. It's also 1.5 miles out in the bay -- not possible for Lake Ouachita.

The department is considering a design with less open barracks space and more two-man cells, which provide more security. The new prison will take a minimum of three years to build and will provide about 400 jobs for the Hot Springs area.

Sorry, Kayakers. There will be a 200-yard "No Approach" zone that will prevent you from getting too near. Also, a dock and support area will take up 2.5 acres at nearby Point 50. Otherwise, the landscaping and design should make the prison island an attractive addition to the lake's ambience.

Instead of the cold, fortress-like facade of Alcatraz (built 1910-12), Island 49's facility will resemble a piece of modern sculpture. Designed by Moshe Safdie, the genius behind Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville, the prison will appear from the water to be a giant stainless-steel nest of the black-necked grebe (Podiceps nigricollis), a diving water bird that winters on the lake.

Entergy Arkansas will light the island using Phillips Lighting's Color Kinetics division, the same outfit that lighted the bridges in Little Rock and that has worked on light displays for landmarks such as the London Bridge, the Eiffel Tower, the Sydney Opera House and the Empire State Building.

Until next time, Kalaka reminds you that for special occasions, the lights can be synchronized to such tunes as "Jailhouse Rock" and "Folsom Prison Blues."

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Fayetteville-born Otus the Head Cat's award-winning column of humorous fabrication appears every Saturday. Email:

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HomeStyle on 07/26/2014

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