Agency veteran Graves gets corrections nod

Governor turns to the experienced chief of staff of departing secretary

Solomon Graves, a veteran staff member in the state’s prison and parole agencies, was tapped by Gov. Asa Hutchinson on Thursday to join his Cabinet as the next secretary of corrections.

Hutchinson made the announcement at his near-daily coronavirus news briefing, calling Graves “an instrumental adviser” to his administration. Graves is chief of staff to the governor’s current corrections secretary, Wendy Kelley, who announced her retirement last month.

“Solomon is stepping up during a difficult time in Arkansas, but with fourteen years of experience in adult corrections, he is well prepared for the task,” Hutchinson said later in a statement. “He is a compassionate leader who will vigorously fulfill the state’s responsibility to assure public safety balanced with the need for rehabilitation and reentry support.”

The nomination to the state Cabinet post must be

approved by the Arkansas Board of Corrections, whose chairman, Benny Magness, hailed the governor’s pick.

“The board has worked with Solomon for years in different positions,” Magness said. “I think his confirmation will be very easy.”

If confirmed, Graves will take over in the middle of the department’s largest crisis in years: the spread of covid-19 that has infected 3,789 inmates, killing 21.

While serving as a spokesman and legislative liaison for the state’s prison system earlier in Hutchinson’s administration, Graves weathered other tumultuous periods at the department, including the resumption of executions in 2017, a series of prison attacks later that year and persistent problems with staff vacancies at several prisons.

“The staff and leadership team of the department are some of the most dedicated public servants I have had the honor to meet,” Graves said in accepting the governor’s nomination Thursday. “My commitment to them is that we will remain focused on public safety, successful offender re-entry and working together to meet our various challenges and to improve the efficiency of our service.”

The Department of Corrections was formed last year by a merger of two state agencies, now the Division of Correction, which manages state prisons, and the Division of Community Correction, which oversees more than 60,000 Arkansans who are on parole or probation.

Graves started his career as a research analyst at Community Corrections in 2006, and later worked for the Parole Board before joining the prison agency as public information officer about five years ago.

Hutchinson said he chose Graves in part because of his experience during the merger of the two departments.

Graves’ boss, Kelley, was promoted last year from director of the state’s prison system to head the combined Department of Corrections, at which point Graves became her chief of staff.

“He has experience in, he understands it, he worked on the transformation,” Hutchinson said.

The governor also noted the challenges the department faces in combating covid-19, including a recent outbreak of more than 1,200 cases at the Ouachita River Unit in Hot Spring County, where many older prisoners and those with special medical needs are housed.

Hutchinson said he has instructed both Graves and Division of Correction Director Dexter Payne to meet with the department’s health care contractor, Wellpath, to determine what measures should be taken to protect the health of men housed at the unit.

Early on in the pandemic, the Department of Corrections took various measures to prevent the virus from spreading into prisons, such as halting visitation from

outside and having prisoners at the Cummins Unit sew thousands of masks that were given to both guards and staff around the state. Hutchinson said Thursday that there were no plans to resume visitation at prisons.

Where the virus has penetrated prison walls, it has proven difficult to stop. At least 13 lockups, including prisons and jails, have each seen more than a dozen cases among inmates.

In a letter announcing her retirement last month, Kelley said she was leaving because of personal reasons, while also lamenting the “negative press surrounding our response to the pandemic.”

“I can assure you that we, DOC staff and Wellpath staff, are all dedicated to doing everything we can to prevent the spread in our facilities,” Kelley wrote.

Graves did not announce any new policy initiatives Thursday, though he said there would be a continued focus on “moving away” from any outdated practices.

“Corrections is a highneed area within state government,” Graves said. “We have to be good stewards of our resources and understand that at times shifting our focus also means realigning our

priorities, taking a step back, determining what we’re doing [and] is it a best practice.”

Graves, 37, earned a degree in criminal justice from the University of Arkansas at Little Rock. He lives in Little Rock with his family.

“The board has worked with Solomon for years in different positions. I think his confirmation will be very easy.”

— Benny Magness, Arkansas Board of Corrections chairman

Graves