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CRIME AND PUNISHMENT ARE TOPICS OF NEW EXHIBIT
April 15, 2009
LITTLE ROCK--Arkansas developed a reputation as a rough place early in its history. Though sparsely populated, criminal activity was common and law enforcement limited. State and local government struggled to create a safe environment for its citizens and justice was often administered by vigilante groups. When state and local authorities did bring criminals to justice, the judgments levied against them were typically harsh and often inhumane. Conditions improved dramatically from the 19th through the 20th century, especially in the later decades, as they did for all aspects of the state’s society. The Old State House Museum’s new exhibit, Badges, Bandits and Bars: Arkansas Law & Justice, explores the state’s history of crime and punishment from pre-territorial days to the mid-1980s. The exhibit will be on view from April 24, 2009 to March 6, 2011. Museum hours are: Monday through Saturday 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., and Sunday 1 p.m. to 5 p.m.
Badges, Bandits and Bars examines this part of Arkansas history from four different perspectives: crime, law enforcement, courts, and prisons. The exhibit includes compelling artifacts and photographs from collections recently donated by the Arkansas State Police and the Arkansas Department of Correction, as well as objects loaned by other institutions and individuals, and those from the Old State House Museum’s permanent collections. Among the artifacts to be exhibited is the winter uniform coat of the Arkansas State Police’s first superintendent, A. G. Albright, brozine tokens used by inmates at the Cummins Prison commissary, improvised weapons confiscated from prison inmates, gaming dice seized in gambling raids by the state police, the badge of an assistant chief with the Little Rock police, an image of Al Capone relaxing with fellow gangsters in Hot Springs, and a portrait of Cherokee Bill, an outlaw from Oklahoma’s Indian Territory. Cherokee Bill was convicted of murder in “Hanging Judge” Isaac Parker’s federal court in Fort Smith. The exhibit also includes the gavel used by Judge Parker, on loan from the Fort Smith National Historic Site.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Serving as guest curators for the Badges, Bandits and Bars exhibit are Brian Robertson, Tony Perrin, and Bobby Roberts. Robertson is an Arkansas historian and archivist for the Butler Center for Arkansas Studies. Perrin is the Region II Supervisor for Arkansas State Parks, a former police officer, and a national authority on crime and law enforcement history. Roberts is Director of the Central Arkansas Library System and served on the Arkansas Board of Correction from 1986 to 1993. Steve Shults and Vince Chadick served as technical advisors for the exhibit.
THE ARKANSAS STATE POLICE COLLECTION
The Old State House Museum’s Arkansas State Police Collection provides a major contribution to the Badges, Bandits and Bars exhibit. Its unique assortment of objects and documents give us an exciting, yet thoughtful, glimpse of the service that our state’s law enforcement officers have provided to their fellow citizens over the past 74 years. Their service began at the Old State House, then known as the War Memorial Building, where the newly-created Arkansas State Police established headquarters in March, 1935. Consisting of just thirteen men, led by Superintendent A. G. Albright, their primary obligation initially was highway safety enforcement, but over time their responsibilities grew to include liquor and gambling law enforcement, criminal investigation and identification, riot and crowd control, drug enforcement, and SWAT (Special Weapons and Tactics) team operations.
Donated by the Arkansas State Police Museum in the spring of 2007, the collection, one of the museum’s most diverse, includes more than 400 objects, photographs and other documents. Highlights include two patrol cars, a 1959 Ford Fairlane and a 1995 Chevrolet Caprice, confiscated gambling equipment from illegal Hot Springs casinos, uniforms from different eras of state police history, and badges of the 13 original Arkansas State Rangers. Also included is an array of law enforcement equipment, including two-way radios, handguns, rifles and shotguns, a 1970s-era crime scene kit, automobile sirens and lights, a protective bomb squad suit from 1975, “Mike the Talking Bike,” a child’s bicycle once used for safety demonstrations, and hundreds of photos that chronicle the agency’s existence from its beginnings to the present. These and many other artifacts will provide lasting opportunities for visitors to better understand and appreciate the important ways the Arkansas State Police impacts our history and society.
THE ARKANSAS DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTION COLLECTION
Last summer, the Arkansas Department of Correction donated their collection of artifacts and archival materials to the Old State House Museum. The collection is a remarkable inventory of historical objects that tell the story of Arkansas’s prisons. The state’s prison system began in 1838, with a commitment to the fair treatment and rehabilitation of prisoners. However, problems with inmate control and a lack of state funding forced Arkansas to adopt a prison lease system in 1847. This system alleviated much of the state’s administrative and funding difficulties but invited harsh abuse of prisoners by leasing agents. Governor George Donaghey, a strong advocate of reform, succeeded in breaking up the lease system in 1912, but the state’s use of trusties to maintain authority over inmates and its insistence on a self-sufficient operation meant prisoners’ living and working conditions only marginally improved. Facilities remained poor, food and medical care substandard, and abuse common until Governor Winthrop Rockefeller’s reform efforts ultimately led to a federal court’s declaration that the prison system was unconstitutional in 1970. Today, the Arkansas Department of Correction is accredited by the American Correctional Association and oversees a modern, safe, and humane correctional system that includes medical care, educational programs, substance abuse treatment, boot camp and work release programs.
A variety of artifacts from the Department of Correction’s collection is included in the new Badges, Bandits and Bars exhibit, but the depth of the collection goes far beyond what can be shown in any single exhibit. Containing over 500 historical objects, documents and photographs, some of the highlights include: an extensive collection of brozine (prison currency) and coupons used by prisoners to purchase commissary items, a leather strap once used for the punishment of inmates, a large assortment of confiscated weapons and drug paraphernalia, the infamous “Tucker Telephone” torture device, and Tucker Prison’s two electric chairs, “Sparky I” and “Sparky II.”
Other interesting artifacts include a camera used to take mug shots of prisoners, items from the prison rodeo, and a confiscated still. These artifacts in the Department of Correction collection provide physical links to the legacy of our prison system and the significance it holds as part of the state’s history.
ABOUT THE OLD STATE HOUSE MUSEUM
The Old State House Museum hours are 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Saturday, and 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. on Sunday. Guided tours are available seven days a week; please call in advance for group tour reservations at (501) 324-9865. Admission to the museum is free.
The Old State House Museum is a museum of the Department of Arkansas Heritage and shares the goal of all seven Department of Arkansas Heritage agencies, that of preserving and enhancing the heritage of the state of Arkansas. The other agencies are the Arkansas Arts Council, Arkansas Historic Preservation Program, Arkansas Natural Heritage Commission, Delta Cultural Center, and Mosaic Templars Cultural Center.
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