Three teenage boys locked up at an Alexander youth prison escaped Wednesday night, injuring at least one guard, state officials confirmed.
Police caught the boys around 12:45 a.m. Thursday at a Bryant Walmart, said Amy Webb, a spokesman for the state Department of Human Services.
Bryant police officers arrived at the Arkansas Juvenile Assessment and Treatment Center, about 11 p.m. Wednesday, shortly after the teens ran to the facility's perimeter, pulled up a section of fencing and low-crawled to get away, Webb said.
One teenager had asked to use the bathroom and was let out of his living quarters, Webb said. He then began unlocking rooms that belonged to at least five inmates.
The teens shoved and struck staff members as they fled their rooms, injuring one worker, who went to the hospital, she said.
The Human Services Department asked the private company managing the lockup for a "plan of correction" in response to the latest escape, Webb said.
The state agency is "reviewing both the incident and the fenced area involved ... to determine what repairs or additional security features need to be completed," she added.
Webb said the injured employee was released from the hospital Thursday. Webb couldn't comment on whether the involved teens were taken to another juvenile facility, citing privacy laws.
After a separate escape incident in August 2017, state officials said it is common for the agency to move runaways to more secure facilities, such as the Alexander center or juvenile correctional sites in Dermott. Officials then adjust the teens' length of stay and "treatment plan" -- essentially their sentences -- based on the circumstances of the escape.
Alexander is the state's largest juvenile lockup, with 120 beds. It also serves as Arkansas' central intake unit, where almost all adjudicated youths are assessed before sentencing.
A Nevada company called Rite of Passage has managed the facility since 2016 through a $34.1 million, three-year contract.
Debby Thetford Nye, the company's attorney, was unable to immediately respond to the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette's request for comment.
Escapes from Arkansas' youth prisons happen periodically, state records show.
There was another escape from the Alexander center last month, for instance. In 2018, a teen also ran away there, and there was another escape the year before.
In 2015, when G4S Youth Services, a Florida company, ran the site, there was at least one breakout, according to data.
However, teens are more likely to escape from the state's other lockups, data show, particularly from centers in Mansfield, Harrisburg and Colt, which are less secure.
The state last month closed the Colt Juvenile Treatment Center as part of an initiative to reduce the youth incarceration rate. Officials plans to close another lockup in Dermott no later than July.
Metro on 02/08/2019