BY KENNETH HEARD
Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
NEWPORT, Ark. — Jackson County justices of the peace agreed Tuesday night to replace two heating units at the county’s 26-bed jail in an attempt to ward off the jail’s permanent closure.
A state jail standards inspection team recommended the jail, in downtown Newport, be closed for at least two months while the units are replaced. The team toured the jail Dec. 24 and last week presented its recommendation of closure to Attorney General Dustin McDaniel.
“Jackson County cannot do without a jail,” said Paula Breckenridge, who conducted the jail’s inspection. “It’s too expensive to farm out inmates to other jails.” Because of the broken heating units, Jackson County Sheriff David Lucas has closed a portion of the jail and is sending inmates to Independence, Craighead and Poinsett counties. The county must pay those facilities $45 a day per inmate to house them, he said.
The Jackson County jail will be closed for two to three months while the work is performed, Breckenridge said. It will reopen and be placed on probation for six months while other problems are resolved. If those problems are not resolved, the jail could be ordered closed permanently.
In addition to the heating problems, the inspection noted that the jail is understaffed and prisoners cannot be separated by sex or by criminal offense, both violations of state jail standards.
“We’ve been letting misdemeanor offenders go for the past two years to avoid lawsuits,” Lucas said. “I turn prisoners loose every day. If you’re arrested for a misdemeanor, you won’t set foot in the jail. I’ll write you a ticket and send you home.
“We’re in a bad situation here.” The county did receive a break, however, when heater bids were opened Tuesday night.
Four bids to replace the two broken 10-ton heating units came in at more than $20,000. But one, from a Beebe company, offered to replace the heaters for $13,800. When Lucas called the company to confirm the cost, he learned that the price should have been for only one unit. The company agreed to stand by its original bid and give the county a financial break, replacing the two units for the cost of one.
“We’re at a crunch for money,” County Judge Kerry Tharpe told Quorum Court members. “We’ll never see a bid like that again.” Justices of the peace voted 7-2 to accept the bid, which was submitted by Oakwood Construction of Beebe.
Breckenridge said she did not know when the jail would be closed for the work.
The county has been placed on six-month probationary periods continually for the past two years, she said.
“How long before the attorney general gets tired of putting you back on probation again?” she asked. “We don’t know.” The jail was built in 1978.
Since he became sheriff in 2005, Lucas has spent $15,000 on new lights at the jail and repaired the leaking roof for $34,000. He’s also recently painted the inside of the jail, he said.
“It looks brand new,” he said. “But beauty is only skin deep. What’s under the paint is giving us problems.”
Copyright 2009 Little Rock Newspapers, Inc.