Arkansas lawmakers told helping inmates return to society will ease prison overcrowding

Arkansas lawmakers and criminal justice reform advocates agreed Wednesday that improving the systems that help inmates return to society after incarceration will alleviate the state’s prison overcrowding problem.State correctional facilities have 15,362 beds and 16,804 inmates as of Sept. 1, and county jails are often tasked with holding inmates waiting for state prison beds. “We also need to examine what happens before someone reaches those prison beds,” said Marybeth Hi