Editorials

A common-sense move

There are worse places than Bowie County, Texas.

That's the first thought on hearing that Governor Asa Hutchinson is going to use $2.65 million from a rainy-day fund to pay folks across the state line to hold our prisoners.

Bowie County is . . . well, almost Arkansas.

It does hold half of Texarkana, doesn't it? So it can't be all bad. And the state of Arkansas needs this deal badly. Word is that the state has space for 14,331 inmates. But actually has 15,324. Many of them are farmed out to local jails, but that wasn't enough. So the contract with Bowie County to house 288 inmates will relieve some of the pressure.

Also, at $38.42 a day per inmate, the deal with Bowie County is cheaper than the $60 a day the state estimates it costs to house inmates in Arkansas prisons. And a lot less costly than building a $100 million prison, which even if it proves needed in this state, can now be delayed.

It's a common-sense move. Which is becoming SOP in the young Hutchinson administration.

Editorial on 03/27/2015

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