Home          Issues          Meet Andy          Get Involved          Media          Ask Andy

Click here to watch story.

Click here to read story.

Click here for story.

Click here to read an article that named Sheriff Andy Lee.

Open letter to Quorum Court; reference Juvenile Detention Facility (Note: each member of the Quorum Court has received a copy of the following letter.)

Date; October 17, 2007
To; Benton County Judge and Quorum Court Members
Ref; Jail Expansion

WE ARE SPENDING OUR MONIES IN THE WRONG PLACE

I am perplexed on why we are expanding the number of jail beds in the Benton County Jail when we are not full, at least not full with inmates arrested in Benton County.

Last year in a Long Range Planning Meeting, the Sheriff asked to expand the county jail by 250 beds. This would entail adding an additional pod because the current jail was at capacity. The Sheriff went on to say he was hoping to expand his housing of federal prisoners by not only holding federal prisoners from the Western District of Arkansas but he wanted to secure the Eastern District federal prisoners as well.

Why? If our jail is full and we are turning away prisoners arrested in Benton County why does the Sheriff not phase out the holding of other county and federal prisoners? The program of holding state prisoners from other Arkansas county jails and federal prisoners started under my watch. We had jail space and other counties did not. We explained to the members of the county court, at that time, this practice could bring in a net revenue of over one million dollars annually. We also made it clear that when the time came and Benton County needed those leased beds for subjects who were arrested in our county the program of holding out of county and federal prisoners would be phased out. I also suggested that any net revenues generated from housing prisoners not from Benton County should be put to the side for future maintenance and or expansion and the monies should never be used as anticipated revenues in the general budget.

I see where the Sheriff wants to downsize his expansion plan of 250 beds to 136 beds and I still ask why?

Why are we even thinking about expansion while we are holding other agencies prisoners?

When the Quorum Court went out to the citizens of Benton County and asked for a half cents sales tax for a new jail there was never a mention of building a jail that in the future would hold outside agencies prisoners while turning away and releasing prisoners back into the streets that have been arrested in Benton County. Something is wrong with that picture!

Now let’s get to the Sheriff’s recent pod proposal. I see he has dropped the request for the 250 bed pod at a cost from 12 to 14 million dollars to a 136 bed pod built by inmates at a cost of 2 or 3 million dollars.

My first point of interest would be 2 or 3 million dollars, which is it? Then the Sheriff said it would only require nine additional personnel to run the new pod. I don’t think so. Unless the operations of that jail have changed, it will require at least 18 additional personnel just to operate the pod. That does not include the additional personnel that it will take to handle the additional duties and issues put on the jail.

Duties and issues like:
• transporting prisoners to the courts, to the state prisons, to outside medical care etc.
• booking and releasing the additional inmates
• the handling and storage of inmates personal property
• the additional requirement of supervising visitation for inmates
• the supervision of additional inmate trustees who will do the increase of laundry, cleaning and food preparation of the new pod.
• jail clerks will have to deal with the increase of family members requesting visitation.
• If we increase the jail by 30% will that require another nurse and another medical doctor to meet the inmate’s medical needs?
• Will the pharmaceutical cost go up by 30%? If so how much of an increase is that?
• How much will it increase the utility cost of gas, electric and water?
• Will the current emergency generator cover the new pod or will there be a need to put in a second emergency generator?
• Will we need an additional maintenance person?
• With the increase of 136 prisoners will this require an additional judge to come on site to hold the additional bond hearings?
• Is the parking for the staff adequate for the additional personnel?
• Is the public parking adequate for the additional public that will be visiting the jail? If not what will the cost for additional parking be?
• With an increase of 30% of inmates will there need to be an increase in the public defenders office to provide legal service for the additional inmate population?
• Has Jail Standards reviewed the new pod plan and given it their blessing as required?

The Sheriff has stated he is currently understaffed in the present jail, what will this do to his under-staffing issue if he adds an additional pod and under-staffs it?

It is important to note that the members of the Quorum Court are the good stewards of our tax monies. Again it is important to remember the current jail was not sold to the public and built under the premise that someday Benton County would become a Federal Housing Prison and a State Housing Prison and at the same time turn away men and women who have been arrested in Benton County only to be released back into our streets.

Once the Sheriff unloads all the State and Federal prisoners and runs the jail efficiently, if then it shows signs of overcrowding, we should support his expansion.

WHERE THE MONIES NEED TO BE SPENT

Jail expansion is not what the county should be looking at now; this is where the monies need to go. A much needed new, modern, state of the art juvenile detention facility. The county had better pay attention to our juvenile Judge, Judge Jay Finch when he tells you the juvenile justice system is in a hole. If you would take the time to listen to him you will see he has a very long list of reasons why we need a new Juvenile Detention Facility. I would like to add that if you ever expect to reduce the adult population of inmates in Benton County then the starting place is with our juvenile offenders. All adult prisoners were juveniles at a time in their life. If there had been proper intervention when they were juveniles I wonder where the majority of our adult prisoners would be today.

Thank you for your time.

Sheriff Andy Lee, retired
Benton County