Most people in the Franklin County city of Charleston learned a prison was coming to town the same way: they heard it on the radio.

In an interview with KDYN radio host Marc Dietz, Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders said she's fed up with the current state of prisons. There are too many inmates, and not enough space to hold them. Arkansas needs a new prison, and to hear the governor tell it, the land in Charleston is the best the state could ask for.

“So instead of letting people free, we can put them in this facility and make sure our state and our communities are infinitely safer,” she said.

This prison will have 3,000 beds in a town with less than 3,000 people.

Residents voice opposition to planned Charleston prison

*Josie Lenora/Little Rock Public Radio*
A gate sits at the entrance to the 815-acre site in Charleston where Arkansas officials are planning to build a new, 3,000-bed prison.

by Michael Tilley (mtilley@talkbusiness.net)

The Arkansas Board of Corrections (BOC) on Friday (Nov. 8) voted to accept the land for a planned 3,000-bed prison in Franklin County. The move comes after considerable protest from county residents and Arkansas legislators who represent the area.

Six of the seven-member BOC voted to accept the land, with one member abstaining.

Gov. Sarah Sanders, Arkansas Department of Corrections Secretary Lindsay Wallace, Arkansas Board of Corrections Chairman Benny Magness, and other state and local officials announced Oct. 31 that the state has purchased land north of Charleston in Franklin County to build the prison. The cost for the 815 acres was $2.9 million.

More than 1,800 area residents attended a town hall Thursday to ask questions about the prison and push back against it being built in Franklin County.

Board of Corrections votes to accept land for planned prison