New bangin’ doc

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“Man, come on. It’s a pod full of felons.”

—an inmate in a new Netflix trailer

And here you thought that “Gang War: Bangin’ in Little Rock” was bad publicity. When that documentary came out in 1994, on HBO no less, it depicted an almost hopeless view of the city. As if gangs controlled everything (and in some neighborhoods, that could be assumed).

After a while, the damage done by that documentary wore off. And now the city gets this:

Apparently Pulaski County Sheriff Eric Higgins has allowed a Netflix crew to film an experiment in the county jail. The idea was to allow more freedom to a group of inmates and see how they do. We say apparently because the premiere on Netflix is scheduled for April 10, and we haven’t been given any kind of preview.

Grant Lancaster’s front-page story said the series, “Unlocked: A Jail Experiment,” was filmed in 2023. Also included in the news article Wednesday, Pulaski County Judge Barry Hyde sounded like he considered the Netflix show—um—perhaps “poor form” is an understatement.

Barry Hyde indicated that the high sheriff presented an idea of having a crew film inside the jail back in 2021, but, according to the article, “the deal was never finalized after Hyde and a county attorney raised concerns.”

A statement from Mr. Hyde this week said, “As you would imagine, it was a surprise to learn last week that, more than two years later, the Pulaski County jail is featured in a Netflix series.”

Well.

The series trailer indicates that the experiment involved a jail with “no locks and no officers,” which sounds less like a jail than a hotel. The trailer shows fighting, apparent drug use and fermenting of prison wine, but, according to the news article, the “6th Judicial District Prosecuting Attorney Will Jones over the weekend said he wasn’t aware of the series until seeing the trailer and so wasn’t able to comment on whether his office had prosecuted criminal behavior related to the series.”

As of Wednesday morning, the sheriff wasn’t saying much either, letting a spokeswoman for his office do the talking to the media.

The trailer for “Unlocked” is easy enough to find online. And it doesn’t appear as though “no locks” is really part of this experiment. The jail’s front doors didn’t appear open in the trailer, and we haven’t heard of a mass exodus from the jail since 2023. It appears as though this is some sort of experiment by Sheriff Higgins to allow a bit more freedom behind bars to get inmates ready for the world outside the walls. And every sheriff wants to cut down on what the legal types call recidivism.

And if that’s the case, he should say so. As in, the sheriff should say so. Not an office spokesperson. And perhaps Sheriff Higgins could explain why he thinks the county judge needn’t be a part of any contract with Netflix.

Right now, Pulaski County residents have a vexing trailer making the rounds, an irritated county judge, and a silent sheriff.

Netflix has an interest in drumming up viewers on April 10, so the trailer, like most trailers, would need to be interesting—maybe even more interesting than the show itself deserves. Maybe.

But folks around here shouldn’t have to wait until April 10 to figure out what’s going on in the local jail, or in the offices of those assigned to protect them.