Staff turnover is staggering in Arkansas' prison system
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Nearly 46% of the entry-level corrections officers and corporal jobs overseeing Arkansas' inmates were unfilled on average in fiscal 2022, the most recent data available.
Why it matters: The health and well-being of inmates and the safety of prison employees and the public depend largely on adequate staffing.
- The vacancy rate for all security personnel — which counts for nearly 80% of the department's jobs — was 36%.
The big picture: Franklin County residents were caught off guard in October when Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders announced a proposal for a 3,000-bed prison to be built there.
- It will employ almost 800 people and the state estimates the average salary will be more than $46,600.
Reality check: Salaries for entry-level corrections officers at most locations in the state are $38,324 per year. The next step up to corporal earns nearly $43,000 annually at most locations, but some units specify that's after a year on the job.
By the numbers: Arkansas' Department of Corrections had 77 job openings on Monday. Forty-three of those were for positions directly related to security duties.
- Most of the others were ancillary positions within the prison system — food preparation, chaplaincy, maintenance technicians and the like.
Threat level: Some of the highest inmate-per-staff-member ratios in 2022 were at the state's maximum-level prisons. The Cummins unit near Pine Bluff was 7.7 and the East Regional unit in Marianna was 7.9.
What they're saying: The selected site isn't close enough to a labor pool that will sustain the prison, Natalie Cadena, a representative of the Franklin County & River Valley Coalition, told lawmakers on Dec. 6.
- Towns with populations of 3,000 or more are at least 30-minute commutes, with larger towns like Fort Smith, Van Buren, Alma, Clarksville and Russellville being 50 to 80 minutes or more away, she said.
- "With unemployment rates in the River Valley being among the lowest in the state, placing the bulk of the labor pool at such a distance with poorly maintained roads to travel on is another reason the site selection for this build is ill-informed," Cadena said.
The other side: The Arkansas Department of Corrections did not respond to multiple requests for information from Axios.
The bottom line: The Arkansas Board of Corrections approved the lease of the property in Franklin County from the state Development Finance Authority to the Department of Corrections on Dec. 10.