From the Arkansas Advocate:
It’s been nearly two decades since Ruby Welch was released from prison, but she’s “still not free,” she said, because financial and emotional burdens remain.
After serving seven years on a drug charge, Welch left prison with a $15,000 restitution that she’s still paying off. Until her ledger is cleared, the Hot Springs native will remain on parole, which requires her to submit notification about out-of-state trips.
“I call ‘em my slave papers,” she said. “Before I can go to anybody else’s plantation, I got to let them know that I’m leaving the plantation in Arkansas.”
Since her release, Welch has become a resource for incarcerated individuals through her organization F.E.L.O.N. — Formerly Incarcerated Empowered Leaders Overcoming Negative Stigmas. She’s also worked on criminal justice legislation.
Despite trying to move forward, Welch said she still feels like the “property of the state of Arkansas” because fees keep her tied to the prison system.
“I call it ‘pimping my pain for their profit’ because I served my time, I did my time, I did exactly what the state of Arkansas required of me and some, and still you’re holding me hostage, at least in fear of being a hostage again,” she said.
Failure to pay fines and fees can result in more time behind bars, and Welch said there have been instances when she chose to pay fines over rent.
“I packed up all my stuff, put it in storage and I went to a homeless shelter so I could pay my fines and fees,” she said. “That ought not to be. People shouldn’t have to live in that type of trauma on a daily basis.”
Welch’s experience exemplifies how expenses that accumulate inside and outside prison can keep formerly incarcerated people who may struggle to find employment stuck in the carceral system for years.
Court-imposed fees, fines and restitution are not part of the Arkansas Department of Corrections’ budget, according to Chief of Communications Rand Champion, who said in an email that former inmates can be required to serve the remainder of their time without a new sentence if fines and fees aren’t paid in a timely manner.
Officers do have discretion to delay a supervision fee for those on community supervision, Champion said. The $35 monthly fee, which hasn’t increased since 2011, could be split into two separate payments, for example.
“The Department has routinely worked with individuals to reduce and/or waive supervision fees if a financial hardship exists, and at times it is possible to convert those into community service work hours,” he said.
Staff also assists with “suitable employment or career education,” Champion said.
“Most offices maintain lists of employers in the field that are felon-friendly, and there are platforms such as Good Grid that can also help with employment,” he said.
People who are incarcerated can incur charges for court proceedings, restitution, parole and a variety of services. In Arkansas, they pay a $3 co-pay per sick call, 6 cents per minute for phone calls and $5 for a 30-minute video call. Adults on work release are charged a $22 daily room and board fee.
There’s also a range of prices for commissary products, which are set and approved by the Board of Corrections. Prestamped envelopes are sold at cost, while healthy food items and over-the-counter health aids are sold at 40% above cost, including state and local taxes, according to the corrections department’s commissary policy. All remaining items are sold at 50% above cost.
Commissary prices differ between locations. At the Cummins Unit’s main canteen, for example, prices range from 1 cent for postage to $151.90 for an MP3 player, according to data provided by the corrections department. The difference in taxes brings that same device’s total to $154 at the North Central Unit’s main canteen. Some items are available at no cost, including certain types of candy and snacks.
The North Central Unit near Calico Rock houses about 800 inmates. Established in 1902, Cummins Unit near Grady is the state’s oldest and largest in terms of population, housing around 1,950 inmates, Champion said. The Ouachita River Correctional Unit in Malvern is the largest in terms of square feet and houses around 1,920 inmates, he said.
Arkansas has 22 units, including six Work Release Units and the newly opened Dr. Mary L. Parker-Reed Women’s Health Unit, Champion said. There are also five Community Correction Centers.
Family costs
Inmates can purchase writing supplies from the commissary to stay in touch with loved ones. In-person visitation is another option, if families can afford it. Almost all of the state’s prisons are located in eastern or central Arkansas, eight of them in communities around Pine Bluff, which means money for gas and child care, and lost wages for taking a day off work.
Purchasing items and services behind bars also depends on whether family members can afford to place money on inmates’ accounts, Arkansas Justice Reform Coalition Executive Director Sarah Moore said.
“We’ve seen families forgo paying their rents, cutting back on groceries, not being able to afford other obligations they have in their budget because they’re putting hundreds of dollars on the jail commissary,” Moore said.
The carceral system is “very extractive” because it’s structured to “profit off of very vulnerable and very poor Arkansans,” Moore said. It starts with cash bail, which can leave those who are “impoverished and too poor to buy their freedom” behind bars for long periods of time, she said.
“They’re not convicted, they’re facing charges, but they deserve their liberty, they deserve to be back with their families,” Moore said. “They deserve to be able to maintain their jobs and their housing and those familial ties, which really get ripped apart whenever they’re stuck in prolonged detention, which is very common in our state.”
As a nonprofit working to end mass incarceration, AJRC educates the public about the cost of the current system and the return on that investment, she said.
“We are finding we don’t like that, so our organization ultimately wants to create systems of care, and we really want to obliterate and abolish and end all of those that create harm in our communities and across the state,” Moore said.
Taxpayer costs
That return on investment is part of the ongoing debate over construction of a proposed prison in Franklin County that’s expected to cost around $825 million, according to preliminary estimates. Once the prison is built, there will be additional operational costs.
The average cost per day per inmate in fiscal year 2025 was $74.46, according to an annual report the corrections department is required to submit to the Arkansas Legislative Council. The average cost per day per bed was $75.41. Both represent a roughly $4 increase from the previous year.
Meanwhile, the total direct and indirect cost for the fiscal year that ended June 30 was $452.9 million. That represents an increase of $35.4 million from last year and $92.8 million from a decade ago.
Significant changes that affected these costs include an increase in the total inmate population as the corrections board “endeavored to provide additional capacity to ease the burden of overcrowding on county jails,” according to the report.
Between July 1, 2024, and June 5, 2025, the corrections department reimbursed county jails more than $27.7 million for housing prison inmates, according to an annual report.
Of the increased total direct and indirect costs, 39% was attributable to increased personnel costs of salary, personal services matching and overtime, 24% came from increased medical costs and 6% from increased overhead costs.
After reviewing the annual report at its Nov. 18 meeting, Chairman Benny Magness told the corrections board that costs per day will continue to increase as the department opens up smaller units to increase bed capacity.
“You’re going to have a certain amount of administration at every unit, and it’s just going to go up,” Magness said.
In addition to expanding prison capacity to alleviate overcrowding in county jails, officials anticipate more space will be needed as a result of the Protect Arkansas Act, a 2023 bill that, among other things, ended parole for the state’s most violent offenders and required others to serve more of their sentences.
Arkansas’ inmate population is expected to increase from around 20,000 today to 25,000 in 2035, according to an analysis by consulting firm CGL. The state will need an additional 1,500 to 2,000 beds through 2040 once the Protect Act is fully implemented, according to the study.
System reform
Welch has tried to improve the state’s prison system through legislation, including Act 566 of 2019, which among other things, requires correctional facilities to provide necessary hygiene products.
When Welch was incarcerated, she said inmates had to buy extra feminine hygiene products if they needed more than their allotment, and they could be disciplined for sharing products with other inmates. Disciplinary action came if inmates were trafficking and trading items for illegal activities, such as drugs and gambling debts, Champion said.
Welch also worked on a provision in the Protect Act that suspends fines for 120 days following a defendant’s release from custody. However, Welch said she’s heard feedback from people who were once incarcerated that the grace period is not always applied.
“It’s all about money. It’s not about restoring, rehabilitation, and that’s what we need to make it about,” she said.
Proponents of harsher sentencing and expanded prison capacity have argued they’re needed for public safety. While Moore supports making communities safer, she said it’s important to look at data to make better decisions about how taxpayer money is used to achieve that goal.
“We talk oftentimes like we’re resource poor, but we have all the resources we need. We just really have to make better decisions about where we’re spending our funding, where we’re putting staffing,” she said. “The things that we’re saying that we care about we really have to invest in.”
The current system is punitive, Moore said, and accountability needs to be looked at in a different way. As an example, she pointed to how people can rack up debt by missing a court date, but officials don’t send meeting reminders like a doctor’s office does to remind patients of a medical appointment.
Moore said the system is also disenfranchising and keeping a certain part of the population from participating in society in a way that could help push Arkansas forward.
“It’s all intertwined…we say our recidivism is too high, I hear people saying they don’t like where we’re at on violent crime, but we keep pursuing the same methods,” she said. “And so if we keep doing that, we’re going to get the same outcomes. It’s definitely time that we approach things in a different way.”
