District 11 state Rep. Efrem Elliott stands by a statement he made at a debate with his opponent, incumbent state Sen. Stephanie Flowers when he asserted that the Arkansas Department of Community Correction plans to open a halfway house in Pine Bluff for high level sex offenders and other high level offenders, although department officials say they haven’t determined which type of parolees would be housed there.
Both are candidates for senate District 25. They were among candidates speaking Tuesday night at an Arkansas Black Caucus candidates’ forum at the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff.
Elliott promotes the halfway house as a key issue in the race.
Meanwhile, a circuit court judge decided that the community correction department would have to make its presentation to the Pine Bluff Planning Commission before proceeding with its plan for halfway house.
“An article by the Democrat-Gazette said that the proposed halfway house in Pine Bluff would house parolees who are high-level sex offenders and other high-level offenders who are not allowed to parole out to their families,” Elliott said Tuesday.
Independent reporting for Pine Bluff & Jefferson County since 1879.
In a conversation Thursday afternoon Elliott said that he was referring to an article that ran in the Feb. 27 edition of the Democrat-Gazette.
“This is the article that alerted Earl and Ora Mays to the situation and that prompted my concerns,” Elliott said of the Pine Bluff couple who organized the March 12 community meeting at St. Andrew AME Church.
When asked for comment, Board of Corrections Chair Benny Magness said that Elliott’s claim is not the whole story.
“The terms Mr. Elliott uses in terms of saying that this will be a halfway house for violent offenders and sex offenders are not completely accurate because all applicants for the halfway house will be subjected to a secondary screening process after they have been approved for parole,” Magness said. “Only those who stand the best chance for successful reintegration back into the community will be selected because we want the program to be successful.”
“The thing that I keep getting frustrated about on the halfway houses is that Mr. Elliott and other people say that it is to be used totally for sex offenders and violent crime offenders,” Magness said. “It is wrong to paint that scary picture. There are also nonviolent offenders including check forgers who are eligible to be paroled to the halfway house. We do not want restrictions on who can apply because we don’t want their crimes to be held against them.”
Elliott said that the statements made by Magness and David Eberhard, director of the DCC, at the March 12 meeting were decidedly different.
“That is not what they said when they first came down here,” Elliott said. “Me and 700 people did not hear that. That did not happen. What they said is they were going to have high level offenders and level three and level four offenders and violent offenders. What they are doing now is trying to change their story up so people won’t be as alarmed as they need to be.”
“Even Judge [Robert] Wyatt sided with us on the halfway house as well,” Elliott said. “What they said is they were going to have high level offenders at the halfway house. We asked them if there would be sex offenders there and they said there would.”
“We were told that these would be parolees who could not parole out to their families but were eligible for parole,” Elliott said. “Because of this the state would allow them to parole out to the halfway house.”
Elliott said that Magness apologized at the March 12 meeting for not soliciting community input before deciding to open a halfway house.
“Magness said ‘I should have called a meeting to let everybody know’,” Elliott said. ‘It is written in my notes. He said it was his fault that he did not call a meeting. He said he thought it would be okay.”
Flowers
Flowers wanted it known that no decision has yet been made on who will be housed at the proposed halfway house.
“The Department of Community Corrections and the Board of Corrections have not yet established or created the process for selecting those eligible for parole to be housed in this halfway house,” Flowers said. “Now that we have Judge Wyatt’s decision from Monday requiring the Department to go before the Planning Commission this all adds to the uncertainty of exactly who will be housed.”
“At the community meeting in March at St. Andrews when Director Eberhard and others from the Board of Corrections appeared, it was made clear that there was no established policy to place just violent offenders or sex offenders there. My concern has been the limited resources of the DCC and that is primarily the fault of the legislature in not providing adequate funding to provide parole officers and supervisors and more services to parolees. Our community lacks the necessary resources for many people that would be coming out of prison.”
While she supports the idea of a halfway house, Flowers emphasized that she does not think housing sex offenders there is a good idea.
“I don’t think it’s appropriate to have more sex offenders here because we already have 300 sex offenders here half of whom are off parole and not supervised and the other half are on parole,” Flowers said. “We don’t have the resources to adequately provide for the sex offenders who are already here.”
“This is more of a concern for public safety to me and I don’t think my opponent is clearly thinking this through,” Flowers said. “He is just trying to scare and alarm and get a vote with some buzz words.”