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.
Across Franklin County, residents heard this broadcast, shocked and uneasy. Questions are swarming, like how close is this going to be to my house? Where are people visiting their loved ones going to stay? There are no hotels in Charleston. There are no hospitals.
“On the radio, they were talking about how the infrastructure is there, how the fire station is nearby,” said Franklin County Justice of the Peace Cody Sosebee. “And we're going, 'no, we live here.'”
To assuage concerns, Charleston hosted a town hall inside the school's gymnasium. The room was packed. Longtime resident Rosemary Underwood opened an almost two hour Q&A with a homily of opposition.
Standing alone before a line of public officials, Underwood is pleading on behalf of her town; please, do not give us this prison.
“The prospect of a prison being built in our midst threatens to shatter our quiet peaceful existence.”
Underwood has lived in town for decades, two-and-a-half miles from the land the state bought for just under $3 million. She told Little Rock Public Radio she’s “not a happy camper.”
And documents released through FOIA requests made by the townspeople make this land purchase even more puzzling. The state considered a dozen other sites before settling on Charleston. It seems the town came in second place to the far more populated city of Fort Smith.
And the state didn't talk to Charleston residents before they closed the deal. Public officials, like local state representatives, say they didn't know about it.
Little Rock Public Radio talked to roughly a dozen people living near the prison. They wondered if the current fuss in their town would have been avoided if they had a chance to say no.
When Underwood made this point in her speech, the people responded with roaring applause.
It's hard to count the reasons she and other other people in the town oppose the facility. There are these big gaping mysteries like: will this chop down my property value? Do we have enough water and power? Should we be worried about the six school districts within a few dozen miles of the facility?
On the radio, Sanders said the prison will create jobs.
“The facility will employ nearly 800 people,” she said.
But, Charleston doesn't need jobs. Residents say they’re struggling to fill the jobs they already have, and this could leach their limited pool of workers. This is something state officials have admitted. In an email, Shelby Johnson, the state’s Geographic Information Officer, said of Charleston “Workforce numbers are not great.”
Justice of the Peace Sosebee echoes other people in the town who say they need workers not jobs.
“You see signs all the time saying: ‘cooks, start tonight,’” he said. “So to come into the middle of this area and to offer all these jobs we’re like: ‘that's mighty nice of you but we don't have the workforce.”
Little Rock Public Radio went to Charleston to visit the landsite. It's large, boasting beautiful rolling hills, vast horizons and a sliver of a stream.
Several people compared Charleston to Mayberry, the fictional town from the Andy Griffith Show. In Charleston, the police are volunteers. There isn't much crime, so they can get off and go to bed early.
Charleston is a place so quiet you can almost hear the silence. And residents say this is what called them to the town, the calmness, the isolation. People want everything to stay the same.
"Right now things are community-focused, community-driven," said resident Justin Jones.
"We don't have Uber, we don't have DoorDash, we don't have Lyft, and we're getting along just fine," Sosebee said.
And among those concerns is that a prison is too bright. Community member Taylor Watson is sad to think that with a prison she may no longer be able to see the stars.
“The only light you can see from here is the baseball field,” she said. “It's pretty incredible.”
People in the town have responded to the prison in different ways. Some are talking about moving. But others, some who have lived in their land for years, want to hunker down and fight.
Local politicians from the area are generally standing with residents in opposition. But, perhaps one of the prison's biggest dissenters is Sen. Bryan King, R-Green Forest. He’s expressed persistent agita against parts of Gov. Sanders' administration, but especially the new prison which he sees as playing fast and loose with the budget.
“There’s nothing wrong with waiting for the legislative session,” he said, at the town hall meeting. “Get the real figures on what this is going to cost.”
King repeatedly points to a prison in Alabama that was planned to cost over $600 million dollars and now will cost $1 billion.
“I would pose the same question whether it's Franklin County or Timbuktu,” he said.
The Arkansas Board of Corrections voted yes to approve the prison. The plan is moving forward. At the last meeting, board members almost sounded like they were telling residents to relax.
Board chair Benny Magness lives near two prisons. He says Charleston may not want the facility now, but one day they will be so glad their town is home to one.
“The people of Franklin County can look back and say…this has benefited our community,” he said.
Towns with prisons sometimes see their culture and economy interwoven to the correctional facility. Their townspeople become prison guards. Their income is funded through prison salaries. A company town where the product is incarceration.
