Sheriff faces questions from Arkansas lawmakers over Netflix collection filmed at county jail

 Sheriff faces questions from Arkansas lawmakers over Netflix collection filmed at county jail


LITTLE ROCK, Ark. — Arkansas lawmakers on Tuesday raised questions on a sheriff’s resolution to permit a Netflix documentary collection to be filmed on the county jail, with one critic saying the transfer exploited inmates.

Pulaski County Sheriff Eric Higgins defended the choice to permit the collection, “Unlocked: A Jail Experiment” to be filmed on the county jail. The eight-episode collection, which premiered final month, highlights a program giving some inmates extra freedom on the Little Rock facility.

The choice has prompted scrutiny from native and state officers, who stated they weren’t conscious of the collection till shortly earlier than its premiere. The collection focuses on a six-week experiment that gave inmates in a single cellblock extra freedom by unlocking their cell doorways. Higgins stated he didn’t strategy Netflix or Fortunate 8, the manufacturing firm that filmed it, concerning the collection.

“I took motion to make sure that we’ve a reentry program to assist those that are booked into our facility to return out and be higher people,” Higgins informed members of the Joint Efficiency Assessment Committee.

Republican Sen. Jonathan Dismang stated he would not have an issue with the sheriff’s reentry program or attempting one thing new to handle recidivism. However he stated he was involved with it being the main focus of a present, and questioned the way it may very well be thought-about an experiment if it was being filmed.

“I feel it is an exploitation of your prisoners that you just allowed a movie crew to return in,” Dismang stated.

One other Republican lawmaker stated he was apprehensive about what the present would do to the state’s repute, evaluating it to a 1994 HBO documentary about gangs in Little Rock.

“For most people that watched this docuseries, that is the primary time they’ve ever been uncovered to Pulaski County, or maybe to the state of Arkansas,” Rep. David Ray stated. “I fear concerning the model injury that our state sustains from this being the primary notion of our state to different folks.”

Pulaski County Choose Barry Hyde — the county’s high elected administrator — stated he wasn’t conscious of the collection till he noticed a trailer earlier than its premiere. Hyde has stated that the settlement between the sheriff and the manufacturing firm was unlawful as a result of Hyde did not signal it. The county has since returned a $60,000 verify from the manufacturing firm that filmed the collection.

Higgins, a Democrat who was first elected in 2018 and is the county’s first Black sheriff, has had the backing of some group members. The Little Rock chapter of the NAACP has supported Higgins’ resolution, and supporters of the sheriff crammed a committee room for Tuesday’s listening to.

Democratic Sen. Linda Chesterfield stated Higgins’ supporters are on the lookout for “somebody to supply humane therapy for individuals who have been handled inhumanely.”

“We’re viewing this by completely different lenses, and it is necessary we respect the lenses by which we view it,” Chesterfield stated.



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