LITTLE ROCK – At his weekly news briefing today, Governor Asa Hutchinson addressed the issue of prison space in Arkansas and the work the Arkansas Department of Corrections will be doing to address issues.

He said that over the past two years the Department of Corrections had seen a decline in prison population but that was artificial. COVID-19 created a restraint on bringing inmates into the system. Current projections show that the population of prison inmates will continue to increase over the next 10 years.

Governor Hutchinson will be supporting a plan to utilize part of the surplus to expand the North Central Unit in Calico Rock to add about 498 additional prison beds. He said the cost has not been fully estimated but is hopeful it will be approximately $60 million.

“The first responsibility of government is public safety,” Governor Hutchinson said, “I look at our prison population and we need to address the issue of adequate space.”

COVID-19

Governor Hutchinson presented the COVID-19 report for Thursday noting that active cases have been cut in half over the last week. As of Thursday, there were 1,825 new cases in the last 24 hours. Active cases are down 2,790 for a total of 24,274 and there were 10 deaths due to COVID-19.

Vaccinations have slowed down with only 17,000 doses given over the last week. Vaccinations reported today saw 3,865 more doses given in the last 24 hours.

Hospitalizations have decreased by 66 over the last 24 hours with patients on ventilators decreasing by five.

You can watch the full briefing HERE.

You can view the slide presentation from today’s briefing HERE.

CONTACT: Press Shop ([email protected])