LAWTON – Comanche County has spent more than a quarter of a million dollars to house some of its inmates in the Tillman County jail, in order to comply with an edict from the Oklahoma State Department of Health (OSDH).
In the wake of a severe outbreak of the coronavirus in the Comanche County Detention Center, the state health commissioner issued a “Quarantine Compliance Order” on the CCDC in mid-May. Initially 109 inmates and 17 staff members tested positive for COVID-19, but ultimately the numbers increased to approximately 150, records indicate.
Scores of uninfected CCDC inmates were transferred to state prisons for about five weeks: men to North Fork Correctional Center at Sayre, women to Mabel Bassett Correctional Center near McLoud.
The CCDC has an authorized maximum capacity of 283 inmates, a level that was established by the OSDH. Until May 16, though, the Comanche County jail had exceeded that number repeatedly for at least 13 years.
Prior to the coronavirus outbreak in the jail, the detention center was “always 60 to 80 detainees over” that limit, Administrator Bill
Hobbs told the Comanche County commissioners.
For instance, the CCDC inmate population on Dec. 13, 2019, was 347, an OSDH official told the Ledger. And the jail’s website showed that 340 inmates were confined in the detention center on May 17, 2020.
“I do not want us to get back into that situation again,” Comanche County District 2 Commissioner Johnny Owens said Monday.
CCDC INMATE LIMIT SET AT MAXIMUM 269
Barry Edwards, manager of the OSDH Detention Program, directed Comanche County officials to develop a plan that would allow the CCDC “to resume operations with a census that does not exceed 95% of your rated capacity and allows sufficient cells for three 14-day cohorting groups of future detainees” should the need arise to resume quarantining.
Limiting the number of inmates to no more than 95% of capacity reduces the CCDC maximum number of detainees to 269. The unused space will remain in reserve should the need to quarantine inmates arise again, Hobbs said.
A “Plan of Correction” approved by the Comanche County commissioners includes a pledge that “all detainees above the 95% [mandatory threshold] will be housed within another contract facility.”
Also, the Board of County Commissioners, Jail Administrator Hobbs, and “other key stakeholders” such as the district judges, the district attorney’s office and the Indigent Defense System vowed to “collaborate to address procedural issues that will assist in alleviating overcrowding” in the CCDC.
The Comanche County Detention Center is “a holding facility,” Commissioner Owens said Monday. “We’re not a prison.”
Getting detainees “in and out” of the CCDC involves coordination among the district judges and the district attorney’s office and others, Owens said. As an example, “We have to take prisoners from the City of Lawton. They hold them for only three days max,” he said. “COVID-19 has helped either,” he added.
OVERFLOW DETAINEES HOUSED IN TILLCO JAIL
Comanche County has ‘outsourced’ detainees to the Tillman County jail since mid-May, at a cost of $45 per inmate per day. The Comanche County commissioners have renewed their agreement with Tillman County month-by-month.
Through September, Tillman County billed Comanche County $281,790 for housing and feeding detainees, invoices show.
The CCDC inmate headcount Monday was 268 and 40 others were in the Tillman County jail, for a combined total of 308 detainees, Hobbs informed the Comanche County commissioners. Seventeen felons were transferred to the state prison system recently and 14 other convicts are awaiting transfer to state penal institutions, he said.
The Tillman County Jail, built in 1999, has sufficient space to accommodate Comanche County’s needs so far.
The Frederick jail has a maximum capacity of 107 detainees, Administrator Mike Logan said. Tillman County can take up to 80 prisoners at a time from Comanche County, Hobbs said recently. “That leaves room for 27 for us,” Logan confirmed on August 18. Furthermore, “We need contract beds more than anything,” Logan said.
The expense of housing Comanche County inmates in facilities other than the CCDC is “a major concern of ours,” J.P. Richard, chairman of the Comanche County Excise Board, said on September 8. “We’re pulling that money out of our contingency fund.”
Although the cost of outsourcing detainees is costing Comanche County a substantial sum of money, it’s cheaper than the expense of building a new and larger county jail, Owens noted.