On Monday, August 19, 2008, the mediation committee between the City of Little Rock and Pulaski County Governments met to reveal their findings after five months of deliberations. The primary conflict was formed when the City of Little Rock threatened to file suit against Pulaski County for failure to fulfill what the City contended was their legal obligations created by the inter local agreement penned in 1990.
The arguments by the City were broken down into 4 major points.
Should the Sheriff be obligated to accept ALL prisoners presented to the county jail for detainment?
Can the City enforce the maximum capacity of only 20 Federal prisoners even though the county receives much more for each Federal prisoner per day than it costs to hold them?
The countys medical obligations regarding prisoners.
The disparity of payments by the state compared to federal payments or the countys actual costs.
The mediation council led by Rick Massey, attorney for Alltel Corporation, addressed all these issues. Essentially Mr. Massey said that all the decisions came down in favor of the county.
Mr. Massey said that by state statute the Sheriff has full autonomy over the number of prisoners he feels can be held safely and legally in the jail. In essence, the Sheriff is NOT obligated to hold all prisoners brought by the cities. If he deems it unsafe, or against the state laws, he does not have to accept additional prisoners beyond a safe capacity.
In regard to holding more than 20 federal prisoners the committee said that the county could be held to the maximum required by state statute. However, this would not be wise as the county receives a profit of approximately 1.5 million per year by holding up to 60 federal prisoners at any given time. The loss of this extra revenue could seriously cripple the already stressed jail budget and probably would not result in many open beds if any at all.
The city suggested that all prisoners be taken to UAMS for treatment and relieve the county of the financial burden of running and funding a treatment facility. However, the committee pointed out that it would not be long before UAMS would be forced to cut off treatment to prisoners or close all together. This action would have a very negative effect on the city and the state as the facility would be flooded to the point of not being able to treat their paying patients properly.
Finally, the state pays the county 26.00 per prisoner per day to hold prisoners convicted and awaiting transfer to the state facilities. When in fact the cost of holding these prisoners is approximately 46.00 per day. This is a pretty good deal for the state when you consider that at any given time the state has approximately 5000 prisoners waiting in county jails across the state. Not a bad deal at all when you consider it costs the state 58.00 per day to have them in their facility. This translates to 56,960,000 per year that Arkansas counties have to pay from their tax revenues.
Click here to read the Arkansas Matters article or view the video on the recent meeting between city and county officials regarding jail overcrowding.
