Arkansas Correctional Industries

General information

September Edition

Segment 1.1

In 1973, Act 279 established the school district within the Arkansas Department of Correction. Mr. Jerry Campbell, who was the warden at the Tucker Unit (and later went on to be the Administrator for Correctional Industries), realized the need to offer further education for the inmate, but also to provide them with an opportunity to learn a marketable skill that could be used upon release. Thus, he began the laborious activity of lobbying for an industrial division within the prison system. This turned out to be a much more troublesome task as many of the free world industrial operations in the state saw this in an unpleasant light. Their main issue being, how could they compete against it since the inmates would not be receiving a salary? However, in the face of every obstacle, in 1977 in the old strawberry field behind the Tucker unit, ground was broken on the building that is now known as the Bus Factory.

Mr. Campbell was appointed as the overseer of this project; thus, Mr. Campbell, during the erection of the Bus Factory and after its opening in 1978, carried the responsibility of being Warden of the Tucker Unit, and Mr. Bob Fletcher was the new Industry Administrator.

Arkansas sent a delegation to Texas to see how their bus repair shop/school and mattress operations were set up. They then worked Ward Bus in Conway to establish a source for replacement parts and toured their factory to see how they assembled the bodies to the frame. ACI determined do a complete restoration of a bus for half the price of a new bus. With extensive interest from the schools, the Bus Barn was born. Mr. Ed LaGrone was the first Bus Barn Plant Manager and his Assistant was Mr. Lynn Carr. Mr. Mike Grimes became the traveling salesman, and it was his primary responsibility to spread the news of the new prison industry business to the schools, churches, and other non-profit organizations across the state.

The first inmates assigned to the Bus Factory mostly had prior experience in mechanical, painting, and upholstery refurbishing; there were a couple of welders, and a couple of licensed bus drivers. This was a necessity to get the program up and running and to be successful. At the time of its opening, the Bus Factory had a state-of-the-art Binks spray paint booth large enough to paint school buses and fire trucks. This was a great selling point to the public, and soon it was not out of the ordinary to look on the Bus Factory parking lot and see 10 to 15 school buses parked and waiting for whatever work was needed. It had a mechanics shop capable of any type of automotive and diesel mechanic repair. Along with the paint booth was an auto body repair shop. As such, the number of inmates assigned grew, and along with that, came the intention of training.

As time passed, the Bus Factory did indeed expand, and a chair assembly area was created with the assurance of a state contract for all city and state agencies. Within the decade, the inmate work crew had expanded to nearly 80.