Arkansas Blog

Cycle Breakers meeting today at the Statehouse Convention center. That's the private probation program established by Judge Willard Proctor and which has figured in a critical state audit of the judge's probation program.

Judge Proctor hightailed for the door with a cellphone in his ear when he saw our tape recorder and notebook, but City Director Joan Adcock was more accommodating, ushering us past the stern-looking men with handcuffs on their belts who barred the casement when the reporter tried to enter. In attendance: around 75 probationers.

After the administration of a short reading assessment test, possibly connected to Judge Proctor’s requirement that probationers read and give reports on four books a year from an approved reading list, Adcock led a line of attendees next door, where she delivered a rousing pep talk on interview decorum. Afterwards, they crowded around as she handed out applications for local manufacturers, hotels and burger joints.

As the applications were being filled out, Adcock took advantage of the lull to tell the reporter that her 12-year-old Hope Center, Inc., the University Ave. non-profit center that had provided clothing, a food pantry, education, employment advice and training for the homeless and working poor, will be closing this week. The state cut off funding for Hope Center in the last session, saying they preferred instead to handle services to the poor “in house.”

Adcock spoke up for the social programs offered by Cycle Breakers, saying that the cost of continuing the program was much less than putting each of the participants in jail. On the issue of whether Cycle Breakers should be financially divorced from Proctor’s court, Adcock said that the fate of her Hope Center was proof that services for the poor need to be creative in finding funds. As for the often-complicated fine structure imposed by Proctor on participants who miss Cycle Breakers meetings or otherwise run afoul of the rules: “It’s teaching them responsibility. One way you teach adults is through penalty. We don’t park in the no parking spot because it’s going to cost us money.”

Proctor has not been returning our calls about an out-of-state retreat for his office for which he sought public money; the firing of an employee who said health problems prevented her attendance; a question about the participation of public employees in the private Cycle Breakers activities, and other issues.

-- David Koon