Arkansas Jail Preps New Employees
It won’t be long before the new Boone County AR Jail opens and there will be a lot more staff to maintain all those extra beds. In preparation for that, Mike Rainwater, the Little Rock lawyer who handles litigation for many counties in the state, visited with the new staff earlier this week to give them an idea of what to expect and how to professionally handle the new jail.
Rainwater stressed that while some county jail inmates are state 309 prisoners (who are convicts working at the jail), are waiting transport to prison after conviction or have been sentenced to serve time in the county jail, most are ones awaiting trial. “They haven’t been convicted of anything,” he said …
[C]ounty jail standards are governed by the 14th Amendment, which guarantees a defendant dues process of law and equal protection under the law. The job of jail personnel, then, is to maintain order, security and peace and nothing more, Rainwater said … As jailers, they have few rights, other than as a person, once they put on the uniform. Conversely, inmates have all the rights guaranteed them under the Constitution. Still, he said, jail staff have the power to keep the peace and there is no need for rights when you have the power.