When it came time to build a new prison in Arkansas, Gov. Asa Hutchinson said no.
Hutchinson, a Republican former U.S. attorney and ex-head of the Drug Enforcement Agency, might be considered a natural candidate for a "get tough on crime" approach. But Gov. Hutchinson has proven to be more pragmatic than one who might rely on a throw'em-in-jail mentality.
Indeed, that mentality is what's gotten Arkansas in the serious situation it's in. Parole and probation wasn't working effectively and one of the guys who was supposed to be monitored by state programs wasn't. He had effectively skipped the whole post-prison supervision thing, then he managed to kill a young man.
Lawmakers and state officials naturally, and understandably, reacted by clamping down on parole and probation. Ever since, the state's prisons have gotten more and more full. Who, after all, wants to advocate for policies that might let the next killer out on the streets?
The state's Department of Correction in 2014, when Hutchinson was running for the office he now will hold at least through 2019, responded to a burgeoning population of state inmates with a proposal to build a new 1,000-bed at a cost of $100 million. The new prision would cost about $25 million a year to operate.
But Hutchinson said no, although he hasn't been averse to spending some money on new prison space. He sought General Assembly funding for reforms that included new prison beds, then in July he asked lawmakers for another $7.4 million to added about 200 more beds.
While incarceration rates have been on the decline across the country, Arkansas has bucked the trend. The prison population in 2015 has reached record levels, going beyond 19,000 inmates. The prison system is incapable of handling that many inmates, so what happens? The backlog of state prisoners in county jails begins to build.
Officials with the Arkansas Sheriffs Association estimated earlier this year county jails can handle about 1,600 state inmates. The population of state inmates in county jails has topped 2,800 at times this year.
Last week, Arkansas Sheriffs Association President John Montgomery, who serves as the sheriff of Baxter County, told state lawmakers a new prison is needed. "I know that's not popular," he said. "I know nobody wants to talk about it, no one wants to talk about the cost."
Consultants, however, have warned that Arkansas is outpacing every other state in the country in terms of its incarceration rates. Are Arkansans that much less law-abiding than other Americans?
Our state cannot afford to build so much prison space. High incarceration rates relative to other states should indicate the existence of great opportunities for Arkansas to deal with some offenders in different ways that are more cost-effective than simply tossing criminals in jail.
If Arkansas builds new prison space, much of the pressure to find needed alternatives will be alleviated and our state will slip back into a throw'em-in-jail mentality. That's the last thing Arkansas needs.
Hutchinson and others in state government need to lead the state in creating alternatives to incarceration. Help local and regional law enforcement and medical professionals develop the tools needed to deal with mental illness and substance abuse, both frequently cited as core elements to the behaviors that lead to arrests and imprisonment.
The crisis of space created by the tightening of parole and probation rules may be just what Arkansas needs to force some outside-the-box thinking for ways to deal with root causes of crime rather than simple warehousing of offenders.
We need prisons so that people who can only be addressed with incarceration can spend time behind bars, but Arkansas is overusing its prison space by oversimplifying its response to crime.
Last week, prison officials released a report showing nearly half the inmates released from prison four years ago were re-incarcerated by the end of 2014. Some will say that's because criminals are just criminals. But by investing in substance abuse and mental illness treatment, life skills training, job skills development and active post-prison assistance, some of these people can be rescued rather than re-incarcerated.
That should be a major state goal. Certainly, what Arkansas has done so far is inadequate to the task.
Commentary on 10/05/2015