The Twin Lakes Recovery of Northern Arkansas will have another public meeting Thursday night to discuss the possibility of relocating the facility to Marion County. The meeting will be held at 6:00 in the evening at the Fellowship Hall of the Flippin Christian Church at 306 East Main Street.
The recovery center was previously located in Cotter but forced to shut down by the city for failing to notify surrounding residents of it’s existence and not having an updated registration. At the time it had ten inmates who have been relocated to similar facilities around Arkansas.
In a June meeting held in Cotter most of the attendees said they were not against the program itself, but their main issue was the location. The center was located on Highway 62 less than a mile from the Cotter School District campus and the Walnut Lane Apartments, a senior apartment complex.
Baxter County Sheriff John Montgomery was in attendance at the meeting in June and said the location was also his main concern. Montgomery says he feels the program has merit, however he will not be involved in the relocation process if it moves out of Baxter County.
The Twin Lakes Recovery of Northern Arkansas program is one of a state wide series of community based reentry centers designed to try and cut the recidivism rate of parolees returning to prison. Carlos Parker, the facility directors, says he hopes the meeting will help citizens in Marion County understand the benefits of the program.
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According to Parker, qualifying to participate in the re-entry program is not an easy task.
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Parker says the goal is for the inmates to have jobs and have their fines and child support, if applicable, paid off before they exit the program, which he says probably wouldn’t happen without the type of structure the program offers. He goes on to say there is a zero tolerance policy for violations of the facility’s rules and the inmates are drug tested twice a week.
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