Sheriff Jeff Yates of the Lawrence County Sheriff’s Office released a statement this week  after a “Letter to the Editor†was printed in local papers. This letter reads as follows:
To The Editor,
I am writing this letter to defend my decision to stop the inmate work program. Before I took office I was told about the inmate work program in Hoxie and Walnut Ridge. I did not know a lot about what type or how many inmates were involved. I told certain people if I could continue the program I would. When I was elected Sheriff I was placed in charge of arresting and convicting people who committed crimes in Lawrence County. After taking office I was faced with the possible closing of the county jail and I have had to keep inmate numbers down to continue to keep the jail open. Most of the county’s jail population now consist of inmates sentenced to go to prison or those charged with felony crimes waiting for trial. These inmates are not in jail for being hard workers or model citizens. They are there because they are thieves, sex offenders, sold drugs or committed a violent crime. These inmates are not the type of people I want in your neighborhoods without supervision by law enforcement. They would be supervised by your average citizen a lot of who don’t know what they are capable of. These inmates have nothing to lose, they are convicted felons and waiting to go to prison. They look for any opportunity to be let out to work so they can either escape or bring contraband back to the jail. This causes a safety issue for my staff. The inmates that want to work can do so when they get to prison where they will have at least two armed guards on horseback watching over them. Because of the response I was getting for shutting the program down, I consulted the Circuit Judge responsible for sentencing these inmates and he told me under no circumstances to let convicted felons out. I hope when the new jail is built we will be able to have more misdemeanor inmates and things can be different. If I allowed one of these inmates to go into your neighborhood and something happened to you, your children or grandchildren, I would be the one responsible. Not only am I not willing to take that risk in a legal aspect but I do not want that on my conscience. In closing I apologize if discontinuing the inmate work program has upset or inconvenienced anyone. I was elected Sheriff and as such it is my job to protect the citizens of Lawrence County to the best of my ability. Therefore I stand by my decision  to shut down the program. If anyone has any questions please feel free to call me at 870-886-2525.
Thank You,
Sheriff Jeff Yates
For more information on the Lawrence County Sheriff’s Office visit www.lawrencecountysheriffsoffice.com .