While coronavirus cases are being reported in two of Arkansas’s Department of Correction units, no testing has been conducted at the North Central Unit at Calico Rock.The chairman of the DOC board, Benny Magness of Gassville, tells KTLO, Classic Hits and The Boot news the prison system has 27 units, with COVID-19 cases reported only in the Cummins Unit at Grady and at an Arkansas Community Corrections Center facility in Little Rock.
Magness says inmates from the North Central Unit will be among more than 1,200 eligible for release statewide, pending a Parole Board decision.
On Friday, the Board of Corrections voted unanimously to invoke the expanded Emergency Powers Act (EPA) and certified a list of inmates to be considered for release.
Magness says all inmates approved for release under the EPA will be quarantined for 14 days.
KARK Little Rock reports Dina Tyler, the director of communications with the ADC, said Friday the list of inmates is larger than usual because the requirement that inmates must spend at least six months in ADC before being considered has been suspended, which was authorized by Governor Asa Hutchinson’s executive orders regarding the public health emergency.
According to Tyler, all inmates under consideration have been convicted of crimes that are not sexual and not violent.
In order for the inmate to be released, according to ADC, they must be granted an early release by the Parole Board and must have an acceptable parole plan.
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