LITTLE ROCK, Ark. — A prison reform bill was just filed in the Arkansas legislature that would make actual prison time served longer for inmates, especially repeat offenders.
The around 130-page prison reform bill, Senate Bill 2, talks about "truth in sentencing" and funding some prison beds that are needed in the Arkansas Department of Corrections prisons.
Senator Bart Hester says this prison reform bill is really what’s called truth in sentencing.
“When we open up the newspaper or listen to you on the news, and we see that some guy that's abuse a child got 50 years, we think, 'Well, that's good 50 years.' But in Arkansas, that means you got one-sixth of 50 years. And so that's just not truthful. And if the general public really understood that they'd be outraged,” Hester said.
Hester says this will better align Arkansas with the federal prison system.
So, if someone is sentenced to 50 years, they will serve at least 85% of that time on some crimes and 100% on others.
“It's really important because our prisons and our streets are full of repeat violent offenders, we need to find out when you are a violent offender, particularly repeat, we need to keep you locked up, you have proven that you do not want to assimilate to society,” he said.
Democratic Senator Greg Leding says he hasn’t gotten the chance to read the bill yet but thinks both sides can agree on about 60 or 70% of the bill.
“It does sound like there's an elder parole component in there, which is something that I had talked with some of the sponsors that had legislation about it earlier this session. [I'm] glad to see that included so that there's going to be a pay raise for correction staff, which is great as mental health components in there,” said Sen. Greg Leding.
Leding says there can be work done when it comes to the amount of time prisoners serves, but he wants to make sure only people who pose a true threat to public safety are being held. He says he does not agree with the massive price tag to maintain 3,000 new prison beds, saying that we might not need them with more practical and constructive sentencing.
But Leding says we still need to address public safety.
“That's one of our top priorities as lawmakers. But I think there are ways that we can address that more constructively, and at a much lower cost to the state. Again, it's not just the massive upfront cost of building a new facility, but it's at $31 million a year they're estimating this is going to cost every year to keep the facility safe and functional,” he said.
There are less than two weeks left of this legislative session, so it’s expected this bill will move very quickly.
Download the 5NEWS app on your smartphone:
Stream 5NEWS 24/7 on the 5+ app: How to watch the 5+ app on your streaming device
To report a typo or grammatical error, please email KFSMDigitalTeam@tegna.com and detail which story you're referring to.