Arkansas Community Correction (ACC) residential facilities hold nonviolent criminals who have been convicted of non-sexual crimes. I recently wrote about the ACC’s cult-like “Modified Therapeutic Communities” for inmates convicted of drug- and alcohol-related offenses here.
On April 8, Arkansas Representative Jamie Scott wrote to Governor Hutchinson about the current risk of coronavirus infection within prison communities. She particularly mentioned nonviolent inmates like these, asking for their early release.
An outbreak of COVID-19 in our prisons would be very dangerous, deadly, and hard to contain. In light of the pandemic our country is experiencing, I consider it inhumane to leave our institutions at the current capacity. I respectfully ask you to please consider the dangers to our prison population should we continue with the status quo and consider releasing those who would pose no danger to society.
Rep. Jamie Scott, 4/8/20
As Scott was writing her letter, ACC employee Richard Richardson (a former Razorback football player) was losing his battle against COVID-19 in an Arkansas hospital. Governor Hutchinson announced Richardson’s death on April 10.
At the press briefing where he announced Richardson’s death, Hutchinson failed to disclose crucial information about Richardson’s work with Arkansas prisoners. To fill in the gaps, attorney Autumn Tolbert wrote “First state employee to die in Arkansas from COVID-19 worked at the Central Arkansas Community Correction Center.” In her article, Tolbert expresses frustration with Hutchinson’s omission, and explains what the CACCC facility (where Richard Richardson worked as a substance abuse counselor) really is:
I’m frustrated that Hutchinson and crew did not inform the press today at the briefing that Richardson worked in what is basically a minimum security prison in Arkansas, no matter what the Department of Correction calls the unit.
Autumn Tolbert, 4/10/20
Asa Hutchinson knew that Richard Richardson was a prison substance abuse counselor, working directly with ACC inmates until April 2, a week before his death from COVID-19. What else does Hutchinson know, but refuse to acknowledge?
The families of ACC staff are sharing information on Facebook because the Arkansas governor has been unresponsive and the “official” COVID-19 reports are unreliable. These Facebook reports suggest that ACC staff and inmates are experiencing high rates of exposure and infection that aren’t being reported to the public.
Even more shocking, it seems likely that the protective masks being issued to ACC inmates and staff are being manufactured by inmates at the Cummins Unit (which has already reported several COVID-19 cases) and distributed across the state without being sanitized first. These masks are modern-day “smallpox blankets” for Arkansas prison populations.
Heidi Widder, who is currently incarcerated at an ACC facility in West Memphis, is a recipient of one of these cloth masks. She was technically “granted parole” in early March. If Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson had any intention of releasing parolees, expediting parole hearings, or releasing nonviolent criminals, Heidi Widder would already be home with her family. Instead, she is still incarcerated, providing daily updates on the conditions at her ACC facility to her mother, who passes them along to journalists, activists, and lawmakers.
On April 13 — the day after Asa Hutchinson announced the death of ACC substance abuse counselor Richard Richardson — Heidi’s mother, Carol Widder, updated our group via email:
- “All inmates have been issued a cloth mask (they did have paper masks which they were originally told they would have to use for 30 days straight). I assume the cloth masks will have to be re-used every day without washing;
- I had informed Heidi of the death of Richard Richardson who was the head of “treatment” at the central Arkansas CC. She told some others and was chastised. She was told, “We are not going to discuss gossip and rumors about a state employee dying of the virus”;
- Heidi says that they are all resuming classes (“treatment” classes based on Modified Therapeutic Communities”), but in smaller groups. I asked her how big a smaller group would be, she said about 20 women. I responded, “What?!?, How big are regular classes?” She said there are normally 40 people to a class.
- While they are not having classes, inmates are expected to sit erect in their hard plastic chairs in their room for hours at a time. They are not allowed to lean back, walk around and stretch. They are not allowed to lay in their bed in read. They are not allowed to even lean back or slouch in their chairs.
- Inmates are not allowed to sit or lie on their bunks between the hours of 4:00 am and 7:45 pm.
- They are using clorox rags to wipe down tables and chairs in the cafeteria. It is not clear how often they are doing that.
- Heidi said that yesterday there was something big going on, that all the staff had gathered outside the building. They appeared to be meeting and she wondered if they were being tested for the virus.“
Widder concluded her April 13 email:
This is still an unacceptable situation. Memphis is exploding with cases of COVID19 and many, many employees at Heidi’s facility live in Memphis. 95% of the staff in her facility are African American, which statistics show are hit much harder by this virus. They just brought in 21 new inmates around a week ago. This is just pure insanity. Every person in this facility are non-violent offenders and are under the Dept. of Community Corrections, not Criminal Corrections.
Carol Widder, 4/13/20
At Heidi Widder’s ACC facility, inmates are sick, but cannot get tested. Staff tell inmates that “…they are safe because they are a contained group and haven’t been exposed to the outside,” even though both parts of this statement are demonstrably false.
Asa Hutchinson refuses to honor even the most mild, reasonable requests for expedited parole hearings. He has failed to stop inmate transfers that expose uninfected prison populations to COVID-19. He is not even washing the masks made by prisoners from an infected facility prior to distribution at other prisons throughout Arkansas.
By his negligent inaction and outright dishonesty regarding COVID-19 in Arkansas prison facilities, Asa Hutchinson is sentencing low-level, nonviolent criminals (including ones eligible for parole) and their guards to death.
Thank you again for bringing attention to this most important issue. The day after this email, things loosened up a little in Heidi’s facility. They were allowed to drink coffee after 3 pm and allowed to sit on their beds after 3 pm. They have been less strict about leaning back or slouching in their hard plastic chairs. Instead of classes, women are watching HBO programs about addiction. The drug “counselors” are being used for security detail. Sleeping arrangements are being rearranged, but no one knows why.
Thank goodness that Heidi and the women who are incarcerated with her are being treated a little more humanely!