The question is no longer whether taxpayers will pay to fix problems at the Oklahoma County jail.
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County officials and the leader of a committee formed to deal with the jail’s problems say the county will either fix the problems on its own or be forced by federal authorities to fix them.
District 3 County Commissioner Ray Vaughan formed the committee a month after the U.S. Justice Department ripped the county jail on allegations of mismanagement, rampant inmate-on-inmate violence and medical neglect. The committee’s initial report, released Monday, recommends a litany of changes.
Most will carry a price tag that hasn’t been determined but likely will exceed $60 million, the report said.
Attorney Kieran Maye, who led the committee, said the county has no choice but to pay one way or another.
"I’m afraid some of the problems in the jail reflect a societal choice that we want to lock a lot of people up but we don’t want to pay the cost of doing it properly,” Maye said. "The county can do this voluntarily or it can do it when it is forced to do it by the federal court, and the latter will be more expensive.”
The report’s conclusion quoted Winston Churchill, who said, "Society can be measured by the way its prisoners are treated.”
"If that is true, Oklahoma County is failing,” the report stated.
It goes on to say that the county must take action. Previous committees have recommended some changes mentioned in the latest report, but nothing has been done with those recommendations.
"What the county does in response to this committee’s recommendations is a question of political will,” the report states. "However, we demand that the county take some action.”
Sheriff John Whetsel said he hasn’t finished reading the report. He has some concerns about the recommendation that a trust similar to one in Tulsa County be formed to oversee the jail’s finances. But he said he agrees wholeheartedly with much of what he has seen in the report.
"The citizens I talk to want this issue solved once and for all,” Whetsel said. "This report better be a start. It has to be the beginning of the ending of the issues that have plagued this jail for years.”
More people needed
The most glaring problem identified in both the committee’s report and the Justice Department report is understaffing.
Fixing the problem isn’t simply a question of hiring more jailers. The county pays starting jailers $25,000 a year, and retaining qualified employees has been a problem.
Whetsel said he has funding to hire 30 more jailers, and an academy begins this month to fill those spots.
Still, he expects he’ll have fewer jailers on staff at the end of February than he does now.
"We will lose more people in the first two months of the year than what we pick up in the academy,” Whetsel said.
Currently, jailers monitor many areas with cameras because there aren’t enough staff members to directly supervise each wing in each floor of the county jail.
"We believe many, many issues such as inmate-on-inmate violence will be resolved with a philosophical change that direct supervision will require,” Maye said.
The committee is expected to continue meeting to come up with a specific cost for the changes and how to pay for them.
"The reality is the suggestions we are making are not free, and there aren’t sufficient funds in general revenue to pay for it,” Maye said.
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Michael, don't disagree...the county jail has had problems from its conception (designed by people who had never designed a jail before, etc). It has been a multi-million $$$ money pit. The question is, can it be fixed cost effectively, or is it better to just start over? It is going to take a lot of money and most likely another vote. There was an article a week or so ago that City leaders are considering delaying a MAPS 3 vote because of "voter fatigue". But if they wait until after the Ford tax increase ends in 15 months, taxes will fall and they won't be able to make the mis-leading claim that we can spend an estimated $3 billion (just for the Core-to-Shore aspect of MAPS 3) without a tax increase. There was some concern about voter fatigue when they had the Tinker bond issue vote (parts passed, but other parts failed). This was just after the Ford tax vote, a school bond issue vote and a general obligation bond issue. The design problems of the jail Whetsel inherited and I don't blame him for those. To his credit, a couple of years ago, he did try to get a tax issue passed to create a funding source to fix the jails problems. Mayor Mick wasn't behind it and from a marketing standpoint, it needed to be called MAPS for Inmates, or something like that (don't think a single tax or bond that has been directly linked to MAPS or MAPS for KIDS has failed at the ballot box). It was interesting that after this very paper ran several articles about this report and conditions of the jail, they still endorsed Whetsel for re-election! There endorsement made it sound like he had just got there and had inherited all of these problems. Fact is, he has been in office for 10 years! As the quote of his posted below says, there aren't really any problems...the report is a year old...yet a couple of days later he hired someone to oversee correcting the problems that don't exist? He took County and City leaders thru a tour of the jail to show them all of the problems (wait, he said they had been fixed)????
I agree that the OK Sheriff's Department's duplication of other law enforcement agencies is very poor stewardship of tax dollars. It's idiotic to me for government agencies & departments to duplicate what others are doing. A better idea would be to form a cooperative relationship with sister agencies & departments, but you know since 9/11 every law enforcement agency that I've observed has a very gung-ho police state approach to their jobs. With rare exception there don't seem to be any public servants in the city, county , state or federal law enforcement field, including Whetsel. And that's presuming he ever even had a public servant attitude.
It really looks like all of them want to be in charge of the incident & fight each other for jurisdiction, except when a situation is low profile. When that happens it seems they want to suffle the problem from department to department & it doesn't matter if the citizen gets help or not.
Concerned, Central Oklahoma - Jan 7, 2009 at 5:16 pm
Whetsel is more concerened with patroling and showing off his command centers and other million dollar equipment. When Whetsel was cheif in Choctaw he would call channel 9 to tell them about a raid or arrest so he could be on the news. He has no bussiness running the jail. His job description says he will run the jail but he he wants his men to write tickets even in the okc metro and on the highways and be involved in every raid or bust. He doesn't need to overlap other law enforcement agencies. The money saved would help. He has the manpower but refuses to put them where they should be. I don't know how he got reelcted, when he ran the first time he said he could fix the jails problems within budget. He should be impeached. I was always taught that crap rolls downhill. The top is the problem not the bottom. I'm not saying he isn't a good man he doesn't have the knowledge to run a large county operation like the county jail.
Larry; it takes money to fix things i.e. the County's Jail...look no further than the Commissioners to find out who is to blame for dragging their feet and for not demanding accountability from Sheriff Whetzel, and for not finding a way to build and pay for a new jail.
From what I have heard (all around town) the reason for the shortage
of jailers isn't necessarily the compensation but more the administration. The fish starts to stink from the head down!
I have to agree for one the County needs to ACT now to improve the jail.
Simply hiring more consultants to review the need will be another waistful expenditure so I think it is time to act on the suggestions that the committee has put forward.
People arrested should at least have a jail cell free from physical abuse and should have working plumbing!
The County needs a new jail - and it needs to relocate the new jail outside of the OKC downtown area with the new buildings built no taller than 4 stories each and more campus like!
Inmates should have a right to fresh air and open spaces it will do alot to reduce tension!
The year-old report was delivered to Oklahoma County officials last week, and Sheriff John Whetsel quickly responded Monday that most of the problems the agency found have already been corrected.
______________________________________________________________________________________
“I am confident that our work to resolve these issues will satisfy the concern expressed by the Department of Justice,” Whetsel said. “I have no problem in telling family members that their loved ones are safe.”
______________________________________________________________________________________
He added, “I can tell you this report is one year old. We have made the corrections.”
How about deciding not to lock everybody up, which leaves room for those who absolutely must be locked up. As long as locking people up has a political component there will always be problems because there will not be justice for all.
Amazing that the Sheriff got re-elected recently. He has had 10 years to fix the problems at the jail (and according to him, when the year old report 1st hit, he claimed almost all of the problems had been fixed already).
The panel recommends ...
• Hire adequate staff and pay well enough to retain qualified employees.
• Keep the existing Oklahoma County jail with some modifications, including replacing doors to provide better visibility into cells, updating locks and control panels, updating the control center and installing more cameras.
• Adopt direct supervision in most areas of the jail, meaning a jailer would be physically in the day room with inmates rather than simply monitoring the rooms with cameras.
• Build an annex to the county jail on adjacent land, which could be obtained from Oklahoma City at reduced cost. The annex should include a clinic, kitchen, laundry, improved booking area, property storage and minimum security housing.
• Separate the jail’s accounting from its operation and establish a trust, similar to what Tulsa County has in place, to oversee the jail’s finances.
• Find a dedicated funding source to operate the jail rather than relying on annual allocations from the county’s general fund.
KEY FACTS
The Oklahoma County jail
Built: 1991
Cost: $52 million to construct
Capacity: 2,890 inmates
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It really looks like all of them want to be in charge of the incident & fight each other for jurisdiction, except when a situation is low profile. When that happens it seems they want to suffle the problem from department to department & it doesn't matter if the citizen gets help or not.
From what I have heard (all around town) the reason for the shortage
of jailers isn't necessarily the compensation but more the administration. The fish starts to stink from the head down!
Simply hiring more consultants to review the need will be another waistful expenditure so I think it is time to act on the suggestions that the committee has put forward.
People arrested should at least have a jail cell free from physical abuse and should have working plumbing!
The County needs a new jail - and it needs to relocate the new jail outside of the OKC downtown area with the new buildings built no taller than 4 stories each and more campus like!
Inmates should have a right to fresh air and open spaces it will do alot to reduce tension!
______________________________________________________________________________________
The year-old report was delivered to Oklahoma County officials last week, and Sheriff John Whetsel quickly responded Monday that most of the problems the agency found have already been corrected.
______________________________________________________________________________________
“I am confident that our work to resolve these issues will satisfy the concern expressed by the Department of Justice,” Whetsel said. “I have no problem in telling family members that their loved ones are safe.”
______________________________________________________________________________________
He added, “I can tell you this report is one year old. We have made the corrections.”