​In every strategic plan since 2015, the Arkansas Department of Corrections has set a goal of reducing the number of people in restrictive housing. But in 2022, the ADC tightened the disciplinary guidelines so that people can officially be sent to solitary for things they couldn’t before, like having red eyes—even if a urine drug test comes back clean. And your team has told me that restrictive housing stays continuously full.
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• Can you speak to what the ADC has been doing to reduce the number of people in restrictive housing, if anything, given that this is an ongoing stated goal for your department?

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The proposed new 3,000-bed prison is set to be a supermax. 
 

• Does the ADC support the decision to make this prison a supermax, and if so, how do you square this with the department’s stated goal of reducing the number of people in restrictive housing? 

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In the ADC’s response to this 2021 DecARcerate report, the department stated that “inmates who are seriously mentally ill are NOT placed in extended restrictive housing.” But reports from incarcerated people contradict the ADC’s claim, and we know that nationally, people with mental illnesses are overrepresented in extended restrictive housing. The ADC's April 2023 quarterly report says that 59 people classified as having serious mental illness, or SMI, were in restrictive housing. It does not provide information to assess how long each person is there or how people’s conditions change over time. 
 

• Given this, where does the department place seriously mentally ill people after they’ve gone to restrictive housing to avoid leaving them there on an extended basis, and can you share documentation to show that they are never placed in extended restrictive housing?

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A March 2024 ADC report on suicides stated that “single-cell occupancy significantly increases the odds of suicide. Therefore, this type of practice should be utilized with caution, not as the normal process…Our findings came from data gathered from mental health assessments and encounters. The notes/writing were fraught with grammatical errors, redundant, and demonstrated a lack of understanding of the predictors of suicide and how to treat mental illness.”

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• No Board of Corrections minutes between March and September include any mention of this report. Can you confirm that the board never discussed it? And has the ADC made any changes in light of the report’s findings (and if so, what have they been)? 

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On the night of October 27/early morning of October 28, 2020, Adam Green was found hung in his cell at Maximum Security Unit. ADC policy is that guards are required to check on each person in restrictive and punitive housing at least twice an hour. The official log from that night suggests regular movement by the guards all night, with an 85-minute gap between 2:35am and 4:00am. But the surveillance video timeline shows that no one passed by Green's cell for five hours, between 11:17pm and 4:15am.

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• How would you explain this discrepancy, and how do you check for and address inaccurate documentation among staff within the ADC?

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In their witness statements following Mr. Green’s death, multiple prisoners pointed to the precipitating event being an interaction between Mr. Green and Sgt. Ridley earlier on October 27. A review of Sgt. Ridley’s personnel records showed that this was not addressed with her.

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• What, if any, are your practices for ensuring that correctional officers are interacting with prisoners in a professional and humane manner?

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I know the ADC gathers witness statements after a prisoner dies. Many of them are quite graphic. 

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• Does the department currently have any practices to proactively support prisoners’ mental health and well-being after they’ve witnessed a death, and if so, what are they?

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