Governor Sanders' focus on prison expansion threatens the very core of our common purpose as Arkansans. During her inauguration speech, Governor Sanders spoke of a “generation brimming with passion and new ideas to solve age-old problems” and one “moored to the deepest values and oldest traditions yet unafraid to challenge the present order and find a new way forward.” Unfortunately, Governor Sanders and other elected officials’ insistence that Arkansas “needs” more prisons is not “a new way forward.” It is merely more of the same.

Locking up members of our community does not create a long-term improvement in Arkansas communities. The Arkansas Department of Corrections has been plagued with staffing issues, violence in the prisons, and the inability to keep those inside healthy.  

Our prison system is already unsustainable. Arkansas incarcerates 942 out of every 100,000 of its citizens. Not only is that far higher than the national average (664 per 100,000). When you compare Arkansas to NATO countries like The United Kingdom (129 per 100,000), France (93 per 100,000), and Iceland (33 per 100,000), those numbers are even more staggering. Clearly what we’re doing is not working.  

Instead of building more prisons, we ask that our state legislators use our tax dollars to implement real criminal system reforms such as pretrial services, mental health courts, access to mental health care, supportive housing, drug and alcohol addiction treatment, more drug and veterans courts and job training and rehabilitation while in prison.

If Governor Sanders wants to forge a new path forward, we should look to states that are realizing the true benefits of reducing their prison and jail populations.  We welcome the opportunity to speak together and create a better Arkansas that works for us all.

Here are just a few of the ways we could begin this work today:

Leverage outside technical assistance and research on evidence-based practices
Eliminate mandatory minimum sentences
Create or expand specialty courts and/or other alternatives to incarceration
Engage with community service providers and employers before release from prison
Impose shorter terms of community supervision
Expanded initiatives to overcome barriers to the feasibility of release
Allow or expand sentence credits through a variety of measures
Create robust reentry services with a focus on case management and success rather than punitive sanction

We cannot move toward a more equitable economy or address the full complexity of the needs of families when millions of taxpayer dollars are being used to lock up more people.  Making meaningful progress will require comprehensive system changes and investments into the community steeped in evidence-based approaches that create greater safety and well-being for communities across Arkansas.

If you would like to see your tax dollars redirected to smarter investments that will stop the revolving incarceration door, please sign on and let our leaders and stakeholders know that the same policies and procedures we have been following for the last fifty years just aren’t working.  It’s time to do the hard work of bringing real change to our criminal legal system to insure fairness and equity for everyone.