$ 1 pact renewed to lease jail space

Center beds ease state inmate jam

Pulaski County and Arkansas Department of Correction officials have signed a renewal of their $ 1 contract that leases a 250bed county work center to the department to ease the backlog of state inmates in county jails.

The year- long lease was originally signed in July, to the chagrin of some elected officials who thought the county should have asked the state to pay more, given lags in reimbursements to the Pulaski County jail and others.

Pulaski County Sheriff Doc Holladay said the jail’s population has for the most part been closer to the jail’s 1,210- inmate capacity instead of well over it since entering into the contract with the state, which requires that half of the inmates in the work center be from the Pulaski County jail.

“The reason we entered into that agreement is we needed agreement [ that] they would take some inmates out of our facility, and they’ve done that. So it’s a win- win for us and the state, and quite frankly, maybe a bigger benefit for us,” he said.

The jail “closed” three times last year to most nonviolent, nonfelony offenders for a total of just over 100 days to curb crowding. It closed once for more than a month after the county entered into the contract with the state but has been “open” ever since.

The county jail has been closer to its funded capacity, while also holding higher numbers of state inmates as the statewide county jail backlog has risen in recent months from just over 2,200 inmates in early April to more than 2,800 inmates early last week.

That backlog rose despite hundreds of beds opening this spring as part of a plan approved by the state Legislature to provide immediate relief to county jails, many of which are over capacity and refusing to hold certain arrestees because of a lack of space.

“I think that we’re recognized by the state and by the Department of Corrections for being willing to help when we can,” said Barry Hyde, the county judge for Pulaski County, referring to the work center.

Correction Department spokesman Cathy Frye said in an email that the work center was helping alleviate crowding within the prison system.

Hyde has already signed the renewal, along with the Correction Department. A signature from the Arkansas Building Authority will

make it official, a Pulaski County purchasing department official said.

The work center sat empty before the department began using it for state prisoners.

It once served as the jail’s satellite building, holding 240 inmates across the street from the main jail building on Roosevelt Road. But when the county expanded the jail in 2013, the sheriff ’ s office moved the 240 inmates from the satellite building to the main building.

The satellite building was then used as a day work center,

although it’s still technically considered part of the jail’s 1,370- bed facility. The jail’s official capacity is now 1,210 inmates because 160 of the beds remain unfunded, as the county and cities have not agreed to pay the $ 2 million it would cost to operate them annually.

The satellite building is holding more than 100 state inmates at any given time who would otherwise have been in the Pulaski County jail. The rest are from other county jails that are filled with state inmates.

“If we had those additional inmates locked up in the county jail, we would have some population issues,” Holladay said.