New Inspector Threatens Fall Shut Down of Jail

BY MELANIE BUCK –

Polk County Sheriff Mike Godfrey addressed the Polk County Quorum Court in their regular monthly meeting tonight (Tuesday, June 22, 2015) and said that the County Jail is in danger of being closed by this fall following a June 17 state inspection.  In fact, Godfrey was following the inspection to shut it down voluntarily. Godfrey did refuse a voluntary shutdown, however, the state is quickly pushing for closure.

Godfrey explained that Sterling Penix, who was recently appointed as the Governor’s Appointee Over Jail Standards, inspected the current facility on June 17 and is not pleased with the outcome. Godfrey said that Penix stated, “I’ve shut down better jails than yours.” Penix left a list of standards with the Sheriff that must be completed in order to keep the current facility running. Some of the standards in which the jail is non-compliant include poor food storage facility, no exit door in west wing, no commercial vent hood and Ansul fire-suppression system in the kitchen, non-handicap accessible, needs permanent wiring, no exercise yard, and lack of segregation of inmates, and more. One cell would be lost in order to make a new exit door and another cell would be lost for a new food storage facility causing the jail to lose space that would normally house four inmates.

Penix is set to come back to the County in August to address the Quorum Court and explain why the standards are in place and why the jail must be in compliance. After that date, Penix will allow the jail to remain open for 30-60 days before shutting the facility down to a 24-hour holding facility only. “That is not what I want but that is better than getting it shut completely down,” Godfrey said.

If that were to occur, the process when someone in the county is arrested grows dramatically, as does the cost. Godfrey explained that as a 24-hour facility, anyone arrested could be held in their facility for no more than 24 hours before they either have to be released or transported to another jail. To transport an inmate, a deputy must take a minimum 90-mile round trip, causing fuel costs to rise and adding a lot of wear-and-tear on the county’s vehicles, plus the cost of not having a deputy close enough to respond to a call. He also said that on Fridays, for example, court is held and to bring the inmates in, he would have to send deputies to go get the inmates, bring them to court, and then return them if the judge chooses to keep them in jail.

Another point raised by the Sheriff was that even if the Quorum Court does come up with the money for a remodel, there still wouldn’t be enough cells to segregate inmates which is one reason why Penix won’t guarantee how long he would allow the jail to remain open even if the remodel is completed on time. “He could not tell me, if we do all of this, how long our jail will stay open. We’re still undersized for what we do, we still have other problems, this is what he wants us to fix immediately,” said Godfrey.

The closing of the jail won’t just affect the County deputies, but the Mena Police as well. Since Mena houses their prisoners in the County jail, they would become responsible for transporting their arrested individuals to other facilities, creating a larger gas budget as well as wear-and-tear on their vehicles.

The Justices of the Peace asked several questions, including, what will it cost to house the inmates in other jails? Godfrey said that it costs $40-$50 per day to house inmates at other facilities and that the number could rise because each jail can, “charge what they want to.” If they were to “farm out” their long term inmates, Godfrey estimated that just half of the prisoners they had last year would cost the County approximately $250,000 a year.

Another JP asked why they couldn’t remodel the current jail to house more inmates. Godfrey pointed out that for one, there is not much room on the property, and that if you added more space for inmates, you would in turn have to make the kitchen and dining areas bigger as well, and there isn’t enough room for that.

JP Harold Coogan said they had had problems getting funding for a roof, how can they afford this? Godfrey said he isn’t sure how much the cost would be to make the improvements but is sure it will not come at a small price. Polk County Judge Brandon Ellison said, “We are going to have to raise money whether we are putting it into not a great investment of this jail or we’re going to have to give the Sheriff money to keep prisoners somewhere else, or the Sheriff is going to have to make the terrible decision as to whether he can arrest someone or not.”

JP Terry Terrell shared his views of the situation, “We have a good sheriff in Polk County and we wouldn’t trade him for any other Sheriff in Arkansas, he’s honest, he does his job, and he’s catching heat for no reason. It’s not his problem, it’s a state problem. It’s not our prisoners that are killing us, it’s the state’s prisoners. They are shutting our jail down for their problem. They are paying us $26 per day to keep their prisoners and they’re paying Texas $46 a day for their prisoners, $20 more than they’re paying Polk County.”

Godfrey said that he had talked to Penix about that very subject. “We talked about the fact that half to two-thirds of the prisoners that we are holding are state prisoners either doing sanctions for parole violations or people just waiting to go to prison. They are hurting themselves by doing that. He reminded me that while they’re in our facility, they are supposed to be held jail standards and we’re not.”

Godfrey said, “I’m mandated to have a jail and you are mandated to fund it. We have to make a decision, do we want to spend a quarter to a half million dollars on a jail that’s too small. Because as of August, we’ve got 30-60 days and if we don’t make these improvements we will be shut down to a 24-hour facility and if we still don’t make the improvements, we’ll be completely shut down,” said Godfrey, “My recommendation is to do whatever we need to do to keep our current jail open and not turn our deputies into transport officers.”

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