ARKANSAS, USA — On April 11, 2023, Governor Sanders signed the Protect Arkansas Act into law. Now, parts of the new law are taking effect.
Parts of the new law went into effect on Jan. 1, 2024. The law enhances existing laws in the state when it comes to criminal offenses and parole.
The goal of the law is to expand prisons and sentencing for violent crimes. Within this act, the laws that went into effect this month were:
- Increased penalties for certain crimes like manslaughter and negligent homicide
- Expansion of the courthouse dog program
- An extended list of serious violent offenses that require 100% of the sentence to be served
On top of that, the law also requires bail bond companies to collect 10% of any bond upfront.
"Oftentimes, families in the state of Arkansas don't have $100 for an emergency. and so if you imagine if somebody set your bond at 1000, or more dollars, which is very commonplace in the state of Arkansas, this new bill doesn't allow for you to do a payment plan to your bondsman legally," Sarah Moore with Arkansas Justice Reform Coalition said.
Benton County Chief Deputy Prosecutor Bryan Sexton said he doesn't think a new law will affect how bonds are assigned.
"I don't honestly think that there'll be major changes on what we recommend on our bonds. Most of the time, our on-call prosecutors have kind of a general idea, depending on the defendant, if they have criminal history and the type of case that's involved," Sexton said.
"If it is a serious crime of violence, obviously, we're going to recommend a higher bond than a property crime with somebody who has no previous history of failing to appear for court. So, a lot of that's just going to depend, I think, still on a case-by-case basis. I'm not expecting huge changes on the way that we handle those cases," Sexton said.
One of the provisions of the law is a jail expansion on the state level, including here in 5COUNTRY, but it brings concerns about overcrowding in jails.
"I think part of the hope is that will allow us to reduce the population here for people who are waiting on a bed who have been already convicted in one of our circuit courts and can be transferred into state authority a little quicker, which hopefully will allow us some additional space to use for other inmates," Sexton explained.
Even though taxpayers said "no" during the November 2022 election to a jail expansion in Benton and Washington counties, it's not completely off the table.
Sexton said in the long term, with the growing population, a jail expansion of some form will have to happen.
"We're gonna have to work within our means on this. I think the people of Benton County have spoken pretty loudly on this, and I think what we're going to have to do is take a look at what steps we can make right now with the resources we have; I think there are some steps that we can do. The county continues to work hard on that, and I feel relatively assured we're going to get a solution," Sexton said.
However, Moore said the Benton and Washington County communities have spoken about their feelings toward jail expansions.
"We have said, as a community, we don't want more incarceration, we've had it on ballots, we don't want to pay for it. Additionally, we know that those same taxpayer dollars when they're put into community investments that dollar is returned to the community multiplefold when it's put into things like after-school youth programming, job training, education opportunities," Moore recalled.
Kelly Cantrell, spokesperson for the Washington County jail says the law is still too fresh to see its effects.
"It's still too early to tell if the new law will lead to overcrowding. My understanding is that the bail bond is a contract between the bail bonding company and the arrested person. We’re continually monitoring the jail population," Cantrell said.
Many of the changes to parole eligibility won't come into effect until January 1st, 2025. Additionally, while all this is happening, a lot of transitions are happening on the prison board.
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