WASHINGTON COUNTY, ARKANSAS, Ark. — Washington County has asked to terminate its lease agreement with the Arkansas Community Corrections (ACC) for the women's correctional treatment facility in response to the state allegedly not doing enough about jail overcrowding issues in the county.
In an email to justices of the peace with the subject line Keeping you informed, Washington County Judge Patrick Deakins said a notice of termination letter was sent to ACC on March 29. Deakins said in the email that while the lease termination serves as a 9-month notice of closing the facility, renegotiating the lease is a possibility.
In response to the notice, Dina Tyler with the Department of Corrections told 5NEWS they are currently assessing how to move forward.
"We are studying our options very carefully because employees and offenders would be affected," Tyler said.
The ACC is a division of the Arkansas Department of Corrections that handles adult parole, post-release supervision, and probation supervision along with six residential treatment facilities, which includes the detention center on North College Avenue in Fayetteville.
Deakins says in his email that while ACC has leased the facility on North College for $1 a year since 2007, "we have reached a point where we are having to make some very difficult decisions."
In Deakins' letter to ACC, the decision to terminate Washington County's lease with the state came after a "somber consideration" of the county's options.
According to the lease attached to the letter, the state agreed to pay $1 a year to Washington County in exchange for maintaining the facilities and running it as a community correction center for women. The facility is listed on the ACC website as a residential center with 114 beds.
"It has been demonstrated that the state has abdicated its responsibility to the counties to provide adequate prison space for inmates. This abdication has resulted in dire overcrowding within our Washington County Detention Center that puts both officer and detainee safety at risk, and adversely impacts the Washington County Sheriff's constitutional obligations to operate the facility," the termination letter to the state says.
Deakins goes on to say that Washington County has experienced astounding growth over the past few years and with that growth, exponential pressure to have enough space for inmates.
Overcrowding in the county's detention centers, Deakins says in the letter, is a result of the state's lack of responsibility in helping maintain that growth and not providing enough space.
"[The ACC's] abdication has resulted in dire overcrowding within our Washington County Detention Center that puts both officer and detainee safety at risk, and adversely impacts the Washington County sheriff's constitutional obligations to operate the facility," the letter says.
The center, which operates as a women's residential facility, according to the ACC, is located on North College in Fayetteville. The lease between ACC and Washington County began in 2007 and was supposed to last until 2027, according to the lease agreement.
Deakins' termination letter to ACC argues that the lease of the North College facility "unilaterally benefits the state at indefensible expense to the Washington County taxpayers, and to the detriment of Washington County's pursuit of public safety."
Washington County, however, is open to discussing alternatives. Deakins says he is "primarily interested in how the county could be made whole with regard to housing the backlog of state inmates within our facility."
On the other hand, co-founder of Arkansas Justice Reform Coalition and Justice of the Peace Beth Coger feels the county should look at other options.
"We should have a robust pretrial services program," she said. "That's the fastest and the easiest thing, and the least expensive, that we could do. We need to hire more public defenders and pay the public defenders on par with the prosecutors ... The county is going to have to step up at some point and try to solve the problem and that's going to cost money."
Coger added that the county eliminating the correctional facility is a step in the wrong direction.
"We're going backward, not forward. We should be moving forward," she said. "Washington County should be setting the example for the rest of the state and what we can do when it comes to alternatives to incarceration. And we're not doing that. But we have the resources to do that."
The lease also says that after 10 years, Washington County can terminate the lease with 9 months' notice. In addition to any payments, Washington County has to pay ACC $5,000 for the early termination of the lease.
(Editor's Note: The video of this report had b-roll of a jail/men's facilities. The subject of the story is a residential women's community correctional facility and not at all a jail with women inmates.)
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