by Ainsley Platt, Arkansas Advocate
September 9, 2025
A motion to subpoena the former secretary of the Arkansas Department of Corrections failed on a voice vote of senators on the Joint Performance Review Committee during a hearing Tuesday on alleged impropriety in the site selection process for the Franklin County prison.
Multiple legislators voiced anger over Joe Profiri’s absence at the hearing, which was called in response to a petition by Adam Watson and Natalie Cadena, members of a coalition of opponents to the location of the 3,000-bed prison near Charleston.
The committee did not take any action during the four-hour hearing, with JPR Co-Chair Sen. Terry Rice of Waldron saying the hearing was primarily informational and for the sake of “transparency.” He thanked Watson and Cadena for their presentation. Joe Profiri
The Board of Corrections fired Profiri at the beginning of 2024 after weeks of tensions between him and board members. After he was fired, Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders hired him to advise her on corrections matters — but Watson and Cadena alleged in their petition and during the hearing that Profiri is still deeply involved in running the department. Sanders tapped Lindsay Wallace, Profiri’s then chief of staff, as his replacement, and the board agreed to hire her.
Watson said Profiri’s continued involvement in the proposed prison after Wallace’s appointment amounts to duplication of two high-salaried positions.
Rep. Jim Wooten, R-Beebe, expressed frustration over water supply issues at the site and anger over Profiri’s failure to appear before the committee despite being invited by committee co-chairs Rice and Rep. Bruce Cozart of Hot Springs. Wooten said he is “for the prison,” but after hearing the detailed presentation from Watson and Cadena, he said “the location we picked is the wrong one.” He criticized selecting the site without the many preliminary tests necessary to determine if the site was truly viable, such as soil testing.
“Somebody needs to kick the chair back and tell the governor how it is,” Wooten said. “For one, I’m furious about the fact that Mr. [Profiri], whatever his name is, from Arizona, didn’t get here. … Committee members, that’s a slap at every one of you that the governor’s office is not here.”
“I think it is a slap at this body not to even answer us and say he cannot be here,” Rice said.
Sam Dubke, a spokesperson for Sanders, said her office would continue to meet with legislators to answer questions and get the prison built.
“The Governor’s Office provided the committee with two experts [from the Division of Building Authority] who have been intimately involved in the Franklin County prison project, and since the announcement of the new prison, the Governor’s team has held a town hall in Franklin County to answer questions from the community and has been in contact with Franklin County leaders,” Dubke said in a text message.
Many local community members, however, remain adamantly against the prison’s location, accusing the state of not talking with them nor listening to their concerns. That anger drove the petition submitted by Watson and Cadena. Their complaint argues that:
- “It is improper for Arkansas taxpayers to be burdened with supporting the salary of two leaders of the Department of Corrections.”
- “It is an improper use of taxpayer funds to pay a consultant for a task while simultaneously having an unqualified state agency perform the same task.”
- “Expending taxpayer funds on a capital project without funding for such [a] project is irresponsible and improper.”
- “Failing to conduct proper due diligence on real property prior to its purchase is irresponsible and improper.”
Watson and Cadena’s presentation primarily focused on point four — whether the state had done proper due diligence when selecting the site. They argued the area didn’t have sufficient infrastructure — from water sources to suitable roads to a sufficient workforce — to support a prison for 3,000 people, and that the state didn’t conduct any adequate testing until after the purchase of the 810-acre property.
They presented legislators in attendance with internal communications and documents obtained via the Arkansas Freedom of Information Act that they said showed due diligence had not been done. By the end of the presentation, some lawmakers expressed their concerns, but many remained silent.
Rep. Jon Eubanks, R-Paris, who represents parts of Franklin County, said that if half of what Watson and Cadena presented to the committee was accurate, then he didn’t believe the state had done what it needed to do.
“I don’t think we should expect our state employees necessarily to have the expertise to make these decisions,” Eubanks said, adding that he wasn’t blaming state employees for that. “There seems to be an unwillingness to even consider another site at this point, and I don’t understand that either.”
Rep. Brit McKenzie, R-Rogers, asked Anne Laidlaw, director of the Division of Building Authority, and Shelby Johnson, who heads the geographic information services office, whether they had been asked to consider other sites for the prison since Sanders announced the decision to locate the prison in Franklin County last year. They said no.
Republican Sen. Jimmy Hickey Jr. of Texarkana said he was at the hearing to find a way to vote to fund the prison’s construction, “but all I’m doing is getting further and further and further away.” An appropriations bill to fund prison construction, authored by Republican Sen. Jonathan Dismang of Searcy, was voted down in the Senate five times before the 2025 regular session ended earlier this year. Hickey voted no each time.
“Obviously, with what’s come out, this isn’t going to work,” Hickey said. “I heard you say earlier that” an existing water line “had the potential” to supply the prison, “well, the potential is going to cost how much more now?”
Some of the criticism relating to the prison site came from allegations that the state didn’t follow its own site selection criteria. Watson pointed to criteria for community buy-in as a chief example of this. Watson and Cadena also argued that DBA staff were not qualified to do the site selection.
Johnson and Laidlaw said they made recommendations on the site, but didn’t make the final decision. And Johnson pushed back on Watson’s assertion that his staff wasn’t qualified, rattling off the academic credentials of the eight staffers who worked on evaluating sites for the prison.
“I have one registered forester on staff. I have one person on my staff that’s a level four certified appraiser from the Assessment Coordination Division. And I also have two licensed surveyors,” Johnson said, in addition to multiple master’s and bachelor’s degrees in a variety of fields. “When we put that team all together, I have over 100 years of combined experience … I would like to make sure that the committee is aware that we, we did have experience.”
Arkansas Advocate is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Arkansas Advocate maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Sonny Albarado for questions: info@arkansasadvocate.com.
ICYMI: https://conduitnews.com/2025/09/08/franklin-county-prison-debate-heads-to-capitol-tuesday/
