Two years after the “Protect Arkansas Act” was passed in 2023, the resulting prison overcrowding and secretive state plans for added prison facilities is changing how many of the State’s residents view mass incarceration.
The Protect Arkansas Act (Act 659) is a 2023 Arkansas law that includes stricter sentencing and parole rules for certain violent felony offenses. Key provisions include requiring a minimum of 85% of a sentence to be served for serious offenders and that individuals convicted of specific serious crimes, such as capital murder, murder in the first degree, and kidnapping, must serve 100% of their sentences without parole or early release. These changes, which are intended to increase public safety by keeping violent offenders incarcerated longer, took effect on January 1, 2025.
However, this new legislation, passed under the “tough on crime” messaging that’s often based in fear and rhetoric and not on any concrete data indicating that mass incarceration and harsher penalties are effective deterrents to crime, makes it even harder for people to get out of Arkansas’ already overcrowded and understaffed prisons. In 2023, before Act 659 was implemented, the Board of Corrections requested help from the national guard to cover staffing shortages.
Key issues:
Mandatory 100% Sentencing: The most significant criticism comes from the provision that mandates certain convicted felons (including those convicted of murder, rape, aggravated robbery, and drug trafficking) serve 100% of their sentences without the possibility of parole or early release for good behavior.
Reduced Incentive for Rehabilitation: Sentence statues implemented removes the incentive for incarcerated people to participate in rehabilitation programs or maintain good behavior while incarcerated, potentially making prison management more difficult.
Increased Prison Population: Mandatory sentences inevitably lead to a drastic increase in the prison population and associated costs, necessitating the construction of new, large-scale prisons, such as the controversial proposed 30,000-bed facility in Franklin County Arkansas, opposed by many in the ideologically conversative rural county.
“As I’ve come to know more and more, I’ve just been horrified about our entire prison system,” Shannon McChristian, whose family has lived in Franklin County for generations, told Bolts Magazine. She talked about wanting state officials to tackle root causes of crime, like poverty and poor education, and prioritize programs to keep people out of prison after release. “My NIMBY stance was for my family property in the beginning. Now it’s for my whole state,” she told me. “I say no, we don’t want a prison. We don’t want this mega prison in this state. We don’t need this mega prison in this state.”
You can read more in “The Prison Next Door; How Arkansas’ secretive plan for a new state lockup angered people in a deep red corner of rural America—and changed how some see incarceration” at the Bolts Magazine website. Bolts Magazine covers the nuts and bolts of power and political change, from the local up. We report on the local elections and obscure institutions that greatly shape public policies but are overlooked in the U.S., and the grassroots movements that surround them.
