Criminal justice reform group calls for pause on jail expansions in Benton, Washington counties

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FAYETTEVILLE — A local advocacy group opposed to a proposed expansion of the Washington County Detention Center on Friday called for a five-year moratorium on jail construction in both Benton and Washington counties.
Members of the Arkansas Justice Reform Coalition held a news conference Friday morning along College Avenue in front of the Washington County Courthouse. Nine people attended.
“At this time, both Benton and Washington county elected officials have made public the intent to ask for a $240 million jail and court expansion in Benton County and a $60 million dollar jail expansion in Washington County on the ballot to voters,” the group said in an email. “Why do we disagree with this route? These astounding financial burdens on taxpayers are being requested without full diligence into alternative investments that could reduce the number of individuals in jail and serve to uplift and keep families together. Washington County has had in its hands a road map to these alternatives since August of 2020 and those same findings are relevant in Benton County as well.”
Sarah Moore said the group will have a petition supporting the moratorium on the group’s website and on social media. She urged anyone concerned to sign the petition, to contact their local justice of the peace and to attend county government meetings to speak on the proposals.
Moore said county elected officials “have failed us” and members of the public need to urge them to “press pause” on the jail expansion projects. Moore said Washington County commissioned a study identifying many alternatives to incarceration — from bail reform to expanded pretrial services to programs such as a mental health court — that have not been tried locally but worked in other places.
“We need to recognize that what we do when we jail folks is ineffective,” Moore said.
Sheriff Tim Helder said Thursday that Washington County needs more jail space, and he wants the Quorum Court to ask voters to approve a jail expansion project in the November general election.
Helder said his concept is larger than the covid-related expansion the Quorum Court has discussed for several months.
The current proposal, prompted by the covid-19 pandemic, would add 232 beds and space for quarantining and isolating detainees for health reasons; for the intake, medical and courts areas; and storage and administrative purposes. That proposed expansion would cost about $20 million if approved by the Quorum Court and take two to three years to complete.
The Sheriff’s Office proposed expanding the jail in 2018, citing crowding as a continuing problem. The jail has a design capacity of 710 beds but is generally considered to be at capacity when about 80% of the beds are occupied due to legal requirements for separating detainee classifications. The jail population on Thursday was 702, Helder said, having dropped after the state Department of Correction last week took 20 prisoners the county had been holding for the state. Helder said there were 112 detainees sleeping on the floor Thursday for lack of bed space.
Helder said the county has been releasing without bond about 300 people a month who would have been detained if there had been jail space. In April, he said, the jail released 461 people.
The 2018 proposed expansion to add 600 to 700 beds would have been paid for by a sales tax increase, which voters would have had to approve. The original sales tax increase proposed was 0.5%, which would continue in effect until the jail addition was built. After construction, the sales tax would have been cut in half, with a 0.25% sales tax remaining to offset the cost of maintaining and operating the jail.
Helder said Friday he doesn’t want to delay the project, adding it isn’t just about more jail beds but making space for the kind of services and programs for which Moore and others have advocated.
“We’ve just completed a five- or six-year stretch of waiting,” Helder said. “I don’t think we can wait any longer.”
The suggestion Washington County should delay acting on the jail expansion for five years was called “totally unacceptable” by Lance Johnson, justice of the peace for District 2 and chairman of the Quorum Court’s Jail/Law enforcement/Courts Committee. Johnson said Thursday after Helder made his proposal he plans to have the project on the agenda for the June 6 committee meeting and he will support it.
“They can call for anything they want; my opinion hasn’t changed,” Johnson said Friday.
Patrick Deakins, justice of the peace for District 5 and chairman of the Quorum Court’s Finance and Budget Committee, also said Friday he couldn’t support a delay.
“I think that is completely disconnected from the reality of the issues we face in this county,” Deakins said. “It’s almost mind-boggling.”
Kurt Moore of Siloam Springs is justice of the peace for District 13 on the Benton County Quorum Court. He said Benton County’s jail expansion is needed as one part of the larger range of services Sarah Moore and others have called for.
“My opinion is that you need jail space to be able to do all of those alternatives,” he said. “All of them from bail reform to alternative sentencing to mental health programs and services hinge on the ability to be able to lock up the people who need to be locked up. I think we’ve waited five years too long already.”
County Judge Barry Moehring said he doesn’t think a moratorium is appropriate for Benton County.
“I don’t think it’s realistic or practical or what the citizens of Benton County want,” Moehring said.
Moehring said Benton County has experienced rapid population growth and is projected to reach a population of more than 500,000 in the near future. He said a growing population requires growing the services and infrastructure, including courts and detention facilities, that county government must provide.
What’s next?
The Washington County Quorum Court is set to meet at 6 p.m. Thursday in the Quorum Court room at the County Courthouse, 280 N. College Ave. in Fayetteville.
Source: Washington County
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