Community Correction tweaks rules on employees’ use of force

Lawmakers gave a quick review Tuesday to new wording of rules dictating when and how Arkansas Community Correction employees can use force.

Community Correction spokesman Dina Tyler appeared before the Administrative Rules and Regulations Subcommittee of the Legislative Council in the afternoon to present three changes to the department’s regulations. The changes elicited no questions from lawmakers.

Tyler, speaking to a reporter later, said the changes were made as a result of the parole and probation agency conducting a review of its rules. There would be no practicable change in policy under the new wording, she said.

The changes reviewed by lawmakers included deleting the general provision authorizing Community Correction officers to carry “an assortment of weapons.”

An abbreviated wording of the policy was instead written into Community Correction’s “Use of Force” regulations, which also went under legislative review Tuesday.

That policy also contains a new section stating: “Ability, Opportunity and Jeopardy are factors to be considered when determining the amount of force necessary.”

Each of those factors is further defined in the new language. For example, the regulation now says officers must be within an “aggressor’s” range for causing harm before using force to stop them.

Tyler said the regulation was rewritten to match the language that’s used to train department employees.

Parole and probation officers are trained at the Arkansas Law Enforcement Training Academy in Camden, Tyler said. The department also has a training center in Pine Bluff for officers stationed at its residential lockups.

“An employee may use the amount of force reasonable to effectively bring a situation under control and protect the lives of employees and others,” the new policy otherwise states.

The third change reviewed by lawmakers amended portions of the agency’s rules for screening visitors to residential centers. Tyler said the language clarifies that the procedures complied with the federal Prison Rape Elimination Act, as well as state Division of Behavioral Health standards regarding security screenings.

Arkansas Community Correction did not hold public hearings on any of the proposed rule changes, nor did it receive any public comments, according to a packet given to lawmakers.

The rule changes come at no known cost to the state, Tyler told lawmakers.

Arkansas Community Correction is tasked with supervising more than 58,000 adults on parole and probation, as well as in its residential and re-entry centers, as of Tuesday, according to Tyler.