Sanders tells sentencing plan

Will work with lawmakers, campaign says; foe sees conflict

Republican gubernatorial nominee Sarah Huckabee Sanders on Tuesday called for enacting what she described as smart, targeted Truth in Sentencing legislation aimed at ensuring violent repeat offenders are not allowed back into communities in Arkansas.

The proposed legislation would require that, if an inmate is out on parole and commits another crime, the criminal must go back and serve the remainder of the original sentence to be run consecutive to the new sentence, she said in a news release.

The Truth in Sentencing proposal is part of what Sanders called her plan for a safer and stronger Arkansas.

The state also needs to transition from a criminal-centric focus to a victim-centric focus and join the majority of states in enacting a victim’s bill of rights to ensure people victimized by crime have basic protections under the law as part of Sanders’ five-pronged plan.

Sanders, of Little Rock, said in a news release that “Violent crime is on the rise and deadly, illegal drugs are flooding our communities, which is why as governor, I will close loopholes in our parole system, be an advocate for victims, support our men and women in law enforcement, and never defund the police.”

Her plan says the state “must be prepared to devote the necessary resources to increase prison capacity to allow for the retention of violent, repeat offenders and to reduce the backlog in our county jails.”

Sanders’ blueprint also calls for increasing mental health programming for inmates requiring those services in prison, and supporting recruitment efforts of additional law enforcement officers across the state and tangible investment in training and additional resources, including overtime.

Democratic gubernatorial nominee Chris Jones said late Tuesday afternoon that it appears Sanders’ bullet-point plan is intended to suggest she has actual plans for Arkansas while she’s been absent during nearly all of the campaign with no published positions until now, two weeks before the first ballots are cast, and divide and instill fear in voters to scare half the voters to stay home and the other half to vote out of fear.

Early voting starts Oct. 24. The general election is Nov. 8.

Asked whether Sanders has an estimate of how many more state prison beds she believes need to be built, has a cost estimate of how much this criminal justice package would take

to implement and whether her ideas are concepts or draft bills, Sanders spokesman Judd Deere said in a written statement that “As governor, Sarah Huckabee Sanders will work with the Legislature to enact and fund these bold policies and reforms to keep Arkansans safe.

“She is committed to building the requisite number of beds to ensure that repeat, violent offenders are not being let out of prison prior to serving their time,” he said.

Jones said actions speak louder than words.

“Sarah Huckabee Sanders likes to talk about how she will ‘never defund the police,’ as if that’s a debate happening in Arkansas,” he said in a written statement. “It’s not. Nobody has proposed that.

“The truth, however, is that Sanders has effectively promised to reduce state revenue by 55% when she argues for eliminating income taxes,” Jones said. “What she is conveniently ignoring is that this kind of revenue cut will have a chaotic impact on the Arkansas budget (just look at our neighbor Kansas), including the law enforcement budget. My plan actually increases funding for recruitment and training of Arkansas’s law enforcement without jeopardizing the state budget and with no new taxes.”

Jones said, “We do have a prison capacity problem — and we need to ensure that prisoners are housed appropriately for our community safety, their safety and that of ADC officers.

“But that is not the only problem,” he said in a written statement. “We must simultaneously address the disease, not just the symptoms.”

Libertarian gubernatorial candidate Ricky Dale Harrington Jr. of Pine Bluff said having safer communities in Arkansas starts with integrity that must be demonstrated by all Arkansans.

“No one has the right to deprive another individual of Life, Limb, or Property,” he said in a written statement.

“Crime is on the rise and it will take all of us to stand against criminals (including agents of the State),” Harrington said. “We can support police and hold them accountable. We can show mercy to those harmed by criminals, and in the administration of Justice, we must not go too far. This undermines our basic concepts of true Justice, and we become the object we fight against.”

Asked about Sanders’ plan, Republican Gov. Asa Hutchinson said Tuesday in a written statement, “I am in full agreement that more prison beds are needed and that is why I asked the Legislature to approve $75 million to construct a new 500 bed prison.

“I agree with the approach outlined by Sarah and I expect the next administration will need to put additional resources into prison expansion,” said the term-limited Republican governor who endorsed Sanders in November 2021.

The Department of Corrections is preparing to issue a request for qualifications for the design professional who will develop the final project plans for the proposed prison expansion, said department spokeswoman Cindy Murphy.

Asked when the prison expansion is expected to be complete, she said, “Our estimate for the North Central Unit expansion is completion of phase 1 some time in 2025, but a more accurate timeline will be available after the design phase is completed.”

Asked if there any other proposed prison expansions or beds in the department’s proposed budget for fiscal 2024 and fiscal 2025, Murphy said the department’s Division of Community Correction will be opening a seventh community correction center in Batesville next year to reduce county jail backup by holding approximately 700 offenders annually that would have been housed in county jails for 90day terms.

The project is estimated to cost approximately $9 million. Murphy said $4.3 million of that will be spent in the current fiscal year 2023, with the balance being spent in fiscal 2024.

The department’s Division of Correction has a maximum capacity to hold 14,652 inmates and the current total is 15,338 inmates, she said.

The department’s Division of Community Correction has a maximum capacity to hold 1,629 offenders in beds and the current total is 1,624 offenders in beds, Murphy said.

She said there are a total of 1,986 county jail backup offenders, including 1,279 Division of Correction inmates, 518 offenders who have had their parole revoked for 90 days for violating the terms of their parole, 107 awaiting space at community corrections centers and 82 waiting for supervision sanction program space.

Hutchinson has been governor since 2015 and his eightyear tenure as governor will end in January. His successor will be sworn in on Jan. 10.