Audit finds other issues

Auditors found $3.1 million in major repairs needed at Big Mac, but it wasn't the only prison with infrastructure problems.

The audit, conducted by MGT America, identified one prison where inmates, including convicted murderers, sleep in cells that lack functioning door locks. Electrical and plumbing deficiencies were found at other locations in the state's corrections system.

Jackie Brannon Correctional Center, adjacent to the state penitentiary at McAlester, is an abandoned hospital converted to prison use in the 1980s. Northeast Oklahoma Correctional Center in Vinita and William S. Key Correctional Center in Fort Supply are both former state mental hospitals. John Lilley Correctional Center in Boley and James Crabtree Correctional Center in Helena were originally built to hold juveniles.

At James Crabtree, medium security inmates, including murderers, are sleeping in cells without working door locks, auditors found.

Other facilities have antiquated wiring, and water and sewer systems on the verge of failure, auditors found.

Privatization of state prisons could be one of the state's best options, auditors found. Even if the state were to build a new, efficient prison, it would still be slightly cheaper to let a private company build and run the prison, auditors said.

Private prisons are currently cheaper to operate, and private developers can complete construction much more quickly than public projects, according to auditors.

"I don't have a problem with private prisons,” Oklahoma State Penitentiary employee Terry Crenshaw said. "If they are not going to fund us, they might as well let private prisons take over.”

However, Crenshaw said he doubts that any private company would be willing to take the risk of housing inmates as violent as the ones in McAlester, many of whom are sent there only after private prisons send them away.