The NBIS mission was to place children – who would otherwise have been sent to adult prisons – on its working cotton farm, and the first superintendent was Dr. Tandy Washington Coggs.
According to "Negro superintendent of the reform school" L. R. Gaines, "most of the boys in the dormitory were in for minor offenses such as hubcap stealing, or because their parents had split and there was no place for them to go.
[1]: 22–23 Graduate student Gordon D. Morgan wrote a report in which he stated, "Many boys go for days with only rags for clothes ... More than half of them wear neither socks nor underwear during [the winter] of 1955-56".
The committee concluded that the correctional facility, the State of Arkansas, and the local community held responsibility for the incident, but recommended no course of action.
A Pulaski County grand jury returned no indictments, but stated: The blame can be placed on lots of shoulders for the tragedy: the Board of Directors, to a certain extent, who might have pointed out through newspaper and other publicity the extreme hazards and plight of the school; the Superintendent and his staff, who perhaps continued to do the best they could in a resigned fashion when they had nothing to do with [it]; the State Administration, one right after another through the past years, who allowed conditions to become so disreputable; the General Assembly of the State of Arkansas, who should have been so ashamed of conditions that they would have previously allowed sufficient money to have these conditions corrected; and finally on the people of Arkansas, who did nothing about it.
"[9] Frank Lawrence, brother of one of the victims, attempted to make a documentary and brought the fire more widespread attention in the early 21st century.