ARKANSAS, USA — The Arkansas Board of Corrections voted to approve the purchase of land for a new state prison on Friday, Nov. 8, despite an uproar from residents against the project.
This comes a little over a week after Arkansas Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders first announced the beginning stages of the prison with a purchase of land near Charleston on Thursday, Oct. 31.
The land was purchased for $2.95 million on 815 acres.
"For Charleston, Franklin County, and the River Valley, it will offer hundreds of permanent, recession-proof jobs and millions of dollars in investment," Sanders said.
The board voted 5-1 in favor of advancing the process of building the prison.
During the KDYN interview where she made her first public remarks on the plan, Gov. Sanders said "These people can either be in this prison where they are guarded, or they can be in your community."
Despite the sentiment, Franklin County residents have voiced their concerns about the way the state handled to decision.
"We were shocked," said Julie Shelton, a longtime Franklin County resident who owns property near the planned prison site.
"For one, they said they'd already purchased the land for the prison like it was a done deal, and no one in the community knew about it," Shelton said. "I think everybody started calling around to the representatives to try to find out what was going on, and they knew nothing either."
Sanders went on to say her goal with the new prison is to address the state's prison bed shortage and end Arkansas's "failed system of catch-and-early-release."
Arkansas Secretary of Corrections Lindsay Wallace echoed the state's focus on increasing space in prisons. “The Department of Corrections’ mission is to provide safety and hope for Arkansans, but we won’t accomplish that effectively without adequate bed capacity,” Wallace said.
In the BOC meeting on Friday, a member pointed out that the River Valley and Northwest Arkansas regions generate about 30% of DOC inmates, but don't have a facility in that part of the state. Board member Lona McCastlain moved to accept the purchase and was seconded by Dr. William "Dubs" Byers. Both said they didn't like how the process was handled, but wanted to vote on it.
The BOC meeting took place the morning after a widely attended town hall discussion in Charleston, where residents voiced their opinions, asked questions, and shared concerns.
One resident who attended the town hall says he felt dismissed by the BOC members and governor's representative at the town hall. "We felt like we were made just like a bunch of country Hicks, that we didn't have any knowledge of what we needed or didn't need," says Charlie Brown.
Franklin County Judge Rickey Bowman facilitated the town hall on Thursday. "I know this community well, and my thought was, I know the property well, that that's a very bad location, not only for our community, but also just for the state of Arkansas to build on this this location," Judge Bowman said.
He pointed out the infrastructure of the location: Rolling hills. "It's not level, solid rock. I mean, it's going to be very expensive," Bowman said.