All Roll Calls
Yes: 128 • No: 0
ArkansasSB5902025 Regular SessionSenateWALLET
TO CREATE THE RECIDIVISM REDUCTION SYSTEM WITHIN THE DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS; AND TO DECLARE AN EMERGENCY.
Sponsored By: Howard M. Beaty, Jr. (Republican), Ben Gilmore (Republican)
Enacted
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Bill Overview
Analyzed Economic Effects
6 provisions identified: 2 benefits, 1 costs, 3 mixed.
More transition help for released inmates
The law creates a Deputy Director of Reentry and dedicated facility coordinators with housing and employment counseling experience. Coordinators develop release, housing, and employment plans with each inmate’s input, starting at intake. They provide transition and family-reunification lessons, required documents, and a handbook updated annually. They also arrange resume, application, job-fair, and job-placement help and explain fines, fees, and child support owed at release. People diagnosed with serious mental illness, substance use disorder, or significant cognitive impairment receive help continuing health care after release. For substance use disorder, help includes a treatment-center referral and a prescription for opioid-use-disorder medicine. Coordinators help transfer medical records and connect people with community care, available health benefits, and eligible veterans’ services. Released inmates can call a business-hours hotline for transition information and referrals.
Some inmates face education access limits
People sentenced to death cannot join educational programs. Foreign citizens or nationals are also barred if they lack legal U.S. status or have a detainer or removal order. People in maximum custody or detention are barred unless a digital-learning educational program is available. Legally present foreign citizens or nationals without a detainer or removal order may qualify.
Inmates get training and participation duties
Arkansas corrections must provide risk-matched programs and require participation throughout incarceration, with more intensive programming for higher-risk inmates. Programs cover literacy through college, learning-disability services, job skills, substance-use and sex-offender treatment, self-improvement, and family, faith, community, and art activities. An annual facility catalog must list programs, delivery methods, needs addressed, and instructor qualifications; similar-risk inmates are grouped when safe and practical. Required partnerships connect nonprofits, colleges, and employers with prison programs, while annual workforce coordination aligns training with jobs after release. College instruction must not add to the department’s budget; industry training must be voluntary and free except for a possible license fee.
Vacant prison jobs support reentry services
The corrections secretary must convert up to 150 vacant correctional officer positions into jobs needed for the new system. The secretary can later ask lawmakers for funding to restore some or all of those officer positions. That request requires all remaining vacant officer positions to be filled and the converted positions to be deemed necessary.
Inmate privileges depend on program participation
Inmates can earn added privileges through successful program participation and sustained positive behavior. Rewards may include longer calls or visits, higher commissary limits, more personal property, preferred work, and extra recreation. Refusing an offered assigned activity makes an inmate ineligible for rewards. Inmates removed for failing program requirements remain ineligible until they reenroll under their case plans.
New plans guide inmates toward release
The law creates Arkansas’s Recidivism Reduction System, which the corrections secretary must implement within 180 days of the law’s effective date. Each inmate receives a validated risk-and-needs assessment at intake and a written or electronic case plan discussed with them. Plans are updated after reassessments that track progress, behavior changes, and completed programs. The secretary must develop a plan for current inmates to receive assessments by December 31, 2026. Placement rankings favor inmates at highest risk of returning to crime, consider sentence length and time remaining, and retain custody restrictions.
Sponsors & Cosponsors
Sponsors
Howard M. Beaty, Jr.
Republican • House
Ben Gilmore
Republican • Senate
Cosponsors
There are no cosponsors for this bill.
Roll Call Votes
House vote • 4/14/2025
House Vote - Monday, April 14, 2025 7:15:42 PM
Yes: 94 • No: 0
Senate vote • 4/7/2025
Senate Vote - Monday, April 7, 2025 5:05:25 PM
Yes: 34 • No: 0 • Other: 1
Actions Timeline
Notification that SB590 is now Act 769
4/18/2025SenateDELIVERED TO GOVERNOR.
4/15/2025SenateReported correctly enrolled and ordered delivered to the Governor.
4/15/2025SenateORDERED ENROLLED
4/14/2025SenateReturned from the House as passed.
4/14/2025SenateReturned to the Senate as passed.
4/14/2025HouseEMERGENCY CLAUSE ADOPTED
4/14/2025HouseRead the third time and passed and ordered transmitted to the Senate.
4/14/2025HouseReturned by the Committee Do Pass
4/10/2025HouseRead the first time, rules suspended, read the second time and referred to the Committee on JUDICIARY COMMITTEE- HOUSE
4/7/2025HouseRECEIVED FROM THE SENATE
4/7/2025HouseOrdered immediately transmitted to the House.
4/7/2025SenateEMERGENCY CLAUSE ADOPTED
4/7/2025SenateRead the third time and passed.
4/7/2025SenateRules suspended.
4/7/2025SenateReturned by the Committee, with the recommendation that it Do Pass
4/7/2025SenateRe-referred to JUDICIARY COMMITTEE - SENATE
4/3/2025SenateREPORTED CORRECTLY ENGROSSED
4/3/2025SenateAmendment # 1 read the first time, rules suspended, read the second time and adopted, ordered engrossed.
4/3/2025SenatePlaced on second reading for purpose of amendment.
4/3/2025SenateRules suspended.
4/3/2025SenateReturned by the Committee, with the recommendation that it Do Pass
4/2/2025SenateRead first time, rules suspended, read second time, referred to JUDICIARY COMMITTEE - SENATE
3/31/2025SenateFiled
3/31/2025Senate
Bill Text
SB590 - Introduced
3/31/2025
Act Version
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