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| Arkansas Addresses Prison Overflow |
| By Associated Press |
| Published: 11/26/2002 |
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More people than ever are in the state prison system and the state Board of Correction called an emergency meeting for this week to set some of the inmates free. Counting the 1,200 prisoners being held for the state in county jails, Arkansas had 13,089 inmates as of Friday morning, Correction Department spokeswoman Dina Tyler said. The backup of inmates in the county jails is forcing the department to determine whether it should allow early parole for about 600 people to open up some beds in a state prison, Tyler said. 'We have stepped into some ugly territory,' Tyler said. 'We've already stuffed our prison system. We've put a bed everywhere we thought we could safely.' The board is to meet Tuesday and Tyler said she expects it will vote to allow prisoners who are already set for parole to leave prison up to 90 days early. She expects that will remove 600 inmates from jails and said that's the board's only option to open beds for new inmates. 'But the catch is that we don't gain 600 beds because of the rate of inmates coming into the system,' Tyler said. 'The sheer volume is unbelievable.' She said usually the department grows at about 40 prisoners a month, but since July growth has jumped to nearly three times that rate to about 120 new prisoners per month. 'Why we have hit this sudden growth spurt we don't have a clue right now,' Tyler said. 'We're trying to find out.' Tyler said the board has been regularly granting early releases since 1998 to lighten its load, but it often doesn't have much effect on inmate population numbers. Tyler said the board plans to ask the Legislature for $7.5 million to open the beds and $13.5 million to pay counties for housing the overflow inmates. |
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