Board of Corrections votes to accept land for planned prison

The Arkansas Board of Corrections (BOC) on Friday (Nov. 8) voted to accept the land for a planned 3,000-bed prison in Franklin County. The move comes after considerable protest from county residents and Arkansas legislators who represent the area.

Six of the seven-member BOC voted to accept the land, with one member abstaining.

Gov. Sarah Sanders, Arkansas Department of Corrections Secretary Lindsay Wallace, Arkansas Board of Corrections Chairman Benny Magness, and other state and local officials announced Oct. 31 that the state has purchased land north of Charleston in Franklin County to build the prison. The cost for the 815 acres was $2.9 million.

More than 1,800 area residents attended a town hall Thursday to ask questions about the prison and push back against it being built in Franklin County.

According to BOC Chair Benny Magness, Friday’s vote is merely to transfer the land from the state to the BOC so the process can begin to determine if a prison can be built on the site. He said there is “slim possibility that the site won’t work,” but the BOC needs to “accept the site and move on” with site studies and other things necessary to make a decision on whether to build a prison.

Magness also said during Friday’s board discussion that the “culture shock is understandable” among Franklin County residents, but he hopes people in the area will come to accept it.

BOC member Lee Watson, who lives in Fort Smith, said there is a need for a prison facility in western Arkansas, but abstained from voting.

“I don’t feel like I’ve had sufficient time to make a decision,” said Watson, who noted that the BOC was notified of the prison site just a few days before the Oct. 31 announcement.

BOC member Lona McCastlain said she respects the concerns of those in Franklin County, but the law enforcement community also has lobbied the BOC to build another prison to reduce pressure on county prisons around the state.

“I just think this is the time that we need to act to get started on this,” she said Friday.

BOC member William Byers dubs, who lives within five miles of a prison with 3,000 inmates, said the “advantages far outweigh the disadvantages” of living near a prison, and he hopes that with time the people of “Franklin County can look back and say that this has benefited our community.”

During Thursday’s town hall in Charleston, Sen. Gary Stubblefield, R-Branch, suggested that legal action might be pursued to stop the state from building a prison in Franklin County.