Senator Brad Simon
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Committees
- Judiciary Committee (Senate & House)
Recent Meetings
| Date | Committee | Speaking Time |
|---|---|---|
| Aug. 25, 2026 | Judiciary Committee (Senate & House) | 371s |
Recent Transcript Excerpts
canceled officials working on plans to expand existing prisons is that an accurate statement as far as the
one last question if i may just to kind of follow up on what senator king said to understand if we need more prison beds i think it's important for this committee to know if there are other plans in place already and just i just want to read this directly so i don't misquote it but the article last week said franklin county prison proposal
vacancies are mostly because most of the facilities are out in rural areas where there's not a lot of population and it's very
other facilities okay and i was looking at the shared services report comparing them from like march march and june and i noticed there were as far as security security positions in march or in february there were 2472 security positions total in june it's listed there's only 2078 security positions so why did we lose almost 400 security positions in just a few
have to be transferred to other places that have more staff? Or how is that handled? Well, hopefully we won't get to
thank you mr chair my questions revolve around staffing and in particular security officers staffing um can you speak to how the difficulty of retaining security offer officers
in particular Counties such as Northwest Arkansas where populations doubled recently and so it's projected to double again So this is an
I think we'd all agree to that. We've got to figure out a solution to that. And, you know, Sheriff Holloway, you mentioned basically you haven't had misdemeanor justice in seven years. Is that correct? And, yeah, Mr. Hanford, you did mention that some of the counties are expanding and have expanded their jail space. Two counties in my district have actually built new prisons or built new jails Within recent years. Can you speak to what the larger more populous counties are are doing and how they're addressing that with their jail space?
Chair, and thank you, gentlemen, for coming, and I especially thank you for the work that you do. It's extremely important. Misdemeanor justice is, that's the gateway drug to felonies.
think throwing money at the problem is the solution here y'all do an amazing job with the resources that you have
I do just want to clarify I don't
coming into this september 30th meeting is we're spending less than most states on corrections we're incarcerating more people than most states on corrections so we need a deep analysis on exactly what's going wrong and i just want to make that point well and i and to your
All right, thank you, Mr. Chair. And you answered my second question about the types of beds needed because we would all agree all beds are not created equal, correct? That is correct. My first question goes more to do we need the topic of this entire conversation, do we need prison beds? You both emphatically stated yes, but it's been qualified. Yes. Yes, we need prison beds based on the current system that we have set up, correct? Yes. and that is the distinction that i want to make sure that we all keep in the back of our minds
prison beds I think it's important for this committee to know if there are other plans in place already and just I just want to read this directly so I don't misquote it but the article last week said Franklin Countyrison proposal canceled officialcials working on plans to expand existing prisons is that an accurate statement? as far as the ranklin
Chair just one last question if I may just to kind of follow up on what Senator King said to understand if we need more
fair to say these vacancies are mostly because most of the facilities are out in rural areas where there's not a lot of population and it's very difficult to
to transfer them to other facilities and I was looking at the shared services report comparing them from like March, March and June and I noticed there were as far as security security positions in March or no in February there were 2472 security positions total in June it's listed there's only 2,078 security positions so why did we lose almost400 security positions in just a few months
they have to be transferred to other places that have more staff or how is that handled? Well hopefully we won't get
questions revolve around staffing and in particular security officer staffing. can you speak to how the difficulty of retaining security officers of impacts
within recent years. can you speak to what the larger more populous counties are are doing and how they're addressing that with their jail space in particular counties such as northwest Arkansas where population's doubled recently and it's a it's projected to double again. so this
Bills Discussed
No bills found.