Izard County Quorum Court approves $2.6 million jail expansion to meet housing needs
IZARD COUNTY, Ark. – A perpetual squeeze for space has led the Izard County Quorum Court to approve funding for a $2.6 million expansion of its county jail.
The expansion need was due to an increasing number of inmates in the county, coupled with the need to house inmates awaiting space in the Arkansas Department of Corrections prisons.
The court recently approved $2.1 million from federal American Rescue Plan Act funds for jail expansion. That money, coupled with $500,000 of jail maintenance fees currently on hand, will pay for the expansion, Izard County Sheriff Charley Melton said.
According to a release from the sheriff’s office, the need for expansion was highlighted in a review by the Arkansas Department of Public Safety Criminal Detention Review Committee, formerly known as Jail Standards, that had called out Izard County for a lack of space going back to 2019.
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The jail currently has 34 beds, with a committee-recommended 80% housing resulting in an optimal number of 27 inmates in jail at any time. Melton explained that the jail has been over that number for a long time, averaging 32.2 inmates per day in 2021, 39.1 in 2022 and 41.5 in 2023. At times, the jail has had over 50 inmates being housed, the sheriff said.
According to its online roster, the Izard County jail is currently housing 41 inmates, including three state inmates under the ADC 309 work-release program.
In 2023, the jail averaged 9.7 ADC inmates per day, Melton said, adding that currently, there are 1,863 ADC inmates in county jails across the state.
Melton said the recent increased sentencing legislation passed in 2023 is expected to increase the number of state inmates in county jails, including his own.
“It is no secret that the ADC is overcrowded, causing a vast backup of State inmates across all County and local jails across the State,” Melton said in a statement.
Lack of ADC staffing has led to the Board of Corrections not opening additional beds in state prisons despite requests from the governor’s office. Currently ADC security staffing vacancy rate is an average of 32.38%, although some units are approaching a 50% vacancy rate.
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Standards required the 80% figure to allow room for appropriate health care, classification, and separation of trustees from the general population. A member of the state detention committee had addressed the Quorum Court about these issues in 2022 and advised them to plan for jail expansion.
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