The Arkansas Department of Correction plans to end its $1-a-year lease at a small lockup facility in Little Rock in order to transfer prisoners and staff members to a newly refurbished unit in Pine Bluff, a spokesman said Tuesday.
The department began renting space for up to 175 prisoners at the Wrightsville satellite unit -- a small prefabricated outbuilding of the Pulaski County jail -- from the county in 2014. The unit is about 12 miles from the 850-bed state prison in Wrightsville.
A letter drafted by the Building Authority Division was sent to the Pulaski County comptroller Tuesday indicating the state's intent to terminate its lease at the facility within 90 days, as required under the original agreement.
Prison spokesman Solomon Graves said the department plans to end operations at the facility by March 1 and reassign correction officers to the Barbara Ester Unit near the department's headquarters in Pine Bluff. There are not enough officers to staff both lockups, Graves said, and the department does not have the authority to hire more.
The Ester Unit, which began housing inmates last year, remains partially under construction and is expected to hold 580 inmates next year.
"The Wrightsville satellite unit was always intended to be a temporary arrangement between the Department of Corrections and Pulaski County," Graves said. "It really amounts to a reallocation of resources."
The satellite unit operated out of the larger Wrightsville Unit's budget at a per-bed cost of about $17,240 a year, according to department estimates. That's more than $1,000 less than the projected annual cost for the additional 200 beds that have yet to open at the Barbara Ester Unit.
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When the satellite unit began receiving prisoners in 2014, it helped relieve a backlog of state inmates detained in county jails. The department's contract with Pulaski County required that at least half of the inmates at the satellite unit come from the backlog at the county jail, which is run by the sheriff's office.
Arkansas continues to house state inmates at county jails because of a rising prison population that has filled lockups beyond capacity. On Tuesday, Arkansas' prisons held 16,041 inmates, at 105.6 percent of capacity, according to the Department of Correction.
The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reported when the satellite unit opened that the Pulaski County jail held 450 state inmates, more than a third of the jail's total population.
On Tuesday, the number of state inmates at the county jail was 270, which is closer to a fourth of the population. The county lockup's population was also smaller because of renovations.
Graves could not say whether closing the satellite unit would cause more state inmates to be sent to the Pulaski County jail between now and March. Not all of the inmates will be sent to the Barbara Ester Unit in Pine Bluff, which specializes as a re-entry facility for soon-to-be-released inmates.
While the agreement contributed to the drop in the county jail backlog, Pulaski County sheriff's office spokesman Carl Minden said, the Department of Correction is attentive about not overwhelming the state's most populous county jail.
"We were fine with the agreement continuing as it was," Minden said. "But we're not that concerned that it will have that much of an effect on us on a day-to-day basis."
The satellite unit in Little Rock housed parole violators and prisoners with less than six months until their release dates, Graves said. The unit offered re-entry and workforce training programs.
While under county control, the building operated as the jail's workforce center with as many as 250 inmates, according to Minden. The structure had sat vacant when the Department of Correction leased it in 2014.
On Tuesday, signs around the barbed-wire fence still identified the building as a jail workforce center. A large white "Pulaski County Animal and Sanitation Services" sign identifies the other tenants that share the site.
The Board of Corrections gave its approval to Director Wendy Kelley last week to terminate the lease, and notice was sent to the state's Building Authority Division on Monday to send Pulaski County a formal termination notice, Graves said.
Minden said the sheriff's office had no immediate plans for the facility.
Metro on 11/30/2016