Tucker Unit News

The head of the state Department of Community Corrections has announced plans to retire.

The state Board of Corrections gave a vote of confidence today to Prison Director Larry Norris, whose leadership has been questioned in recent months by some lawmakers concerned about a rash of serious incidents earlier this year.

Inmates attend a class in the Island of Hope chapel at the Tucker Unit of the Arkansas Department of Correction on Friday.

Winthrop Rockefeller started a decades-long push to overhaul the statea s a oebarbaric prison systema could be razed after falling into disrepair.

Legislators are planning another trip to a state lockup as they continue to look at problems in the state prison system.

A prison guard has just been fired for allegedly having a romantic relationship with a Death Row prisoner and doing various favors for him .

The state Board of Corrections voted today to ban maximum and medium security inmates from manufacturing guard uniforms after the May escape of two murderers who walked out of a prison unit dressed as prison guards and fled in a waiting car.

The state Board of Corrections voted today to ban maximum and medium security inmates from manufacturing guard uniforms after the May escape of two murderers who walked out of a prison unit dressed as prison guards and fled in a waiting car.

An incident in which an Arkansas prison inmate nearly died after he was left lying naked in his own feces over a weekend was not serious enough to merit discussion by the state Board of Corrections, the board's chairman said Thursday.

LITTLE ROC - Fingerprint scanners now keeping track of visitors to Arkansas state prisons will soon monitor the guards as well.

Gov. Mike Beebe met privately Thursday with the head of the state prison system for the first time since a series of revelations about guards' lapses, a fatal shooting and an escape by two convicted murderers.

Upset over guards' lapses that allowed two convicted murderers to escape and caused an inmate's near death, Arkansas lawmakers called for a subpoena-powered inquiry in the state prison system Tuesday.

An Arkansas prison guard fired after an inmate was left in his own excrement for a weekend and nearly died had been previously fired for having stolen food and rehired by the prison system, documents obtained by The Associated Press show.

The director of state prisons told lawmakers Tuesday he was "embarrassed" over recent serious incidents in the system, but that they were isolated and not part of a bigger problem.

Little Rock - A ranking state House member says recent problems at Arkansas prisons ranging from escapes to an inmate's near death could warrant "a full-scale investigation by some outside agency." Democratic majority leader Steve Harrelson told The Associated Press on Monday he had a series of questions for the head of the state prison system.

It got so bad, the report says, the inmate -- who had smeared the feces on himself and was, uh, playing with it -- almost died, AP reports .

Last month two convicted murderers somehow got into prison guard clothing and walked right out of the Cummins Unit and into a waiting car.

An Arkansas state prison lieutenant was fired after an inmate left lying naked in his own feces for a weekend nearly died from septic shock.

An inmate at the state prison system's Tucker Unit who was found hanging in his cell has died.