LAWTON - Regularly overcrowded and unhygienic, the Comanche County Detention Center did little to fight the Covid-19 outbreak and, instead, packed inmates into overcrowded cells and break rooms, state documents show.
Health Department Inspection reports obtained by the Southwest Ledger along with interviews with a former staff member and a current inmate of the facility, show a pattern of overcrowding, hygiene problems and a lack of medical screenings.
This week, DOC officials stepped in to assist staff at the facility after the jail reported that 128 inmates and staff had tested positive for the Covid-19 virus. Corrections department officials announced they were transferring inmates who had tested negative for the coronavirus to a facility in Sayre.
On May 16, the facility was placed under a quarantine compliance order by the State Health Department. That order noted the facility had a 28 percent positive test rate for Covid-19 among the 363 tests administered. Records show the jail was designed to hold 283 inmates. However, during its December 2019 inspection, 347 inmates were housed there.
Ongoing problems.
Problems with the facility are longstanding.
Inspection documents indicate the facility “failed to ensure the number of inmates in a cell did not exceed the rated cell capacity for 1 of 2 cells measured for capacity,” a December 2019 inspection report said.
In one instance, documents revealed that 21 inmates were packed into a single cell, listed as Cell No. 154, with a single leaking toilet and a one shower. At least five inmates were forced to sleep in ‘boats,’ a plastic canoe-shaped tray that can be used as a barrier between the floor and an inmate’s sleeping mat.
A second cell, listed as Cell No. 251 on the report, housed 31 inmates with only 16 beds. That cell, the report noted, had just over 730 square feet, about 23 square feet per inmate -- far less than the American Correctional Association’s standard of 35 unencumbered square feet per inmate. Previously the standard was 65 feet.
State Department of Health standards show that all cells and living areas “shall have at least 40 square feet of floor space for the initial prisoner and at least 20 square feet of floor space for each additional prisoner occupying the same cell.”
“Double-celling of prisoners is permitted if there is at least 60 square feet of floor space between two persons,” the inspection document said.
In another instance no boat was available and the inmate was forced to sleep on a mattress placed on the floor, the report said.
One CCDC inmate, who asked that his name not be used because he feared retaliation, said he is currently one of 21 people in a 12-person cell at the facility. He said he was incarcerated on a misdemeanor.
The inmate said CCDC officials refused his and other inmate’s requests to see a doctor.
“None of us have seen a doctor,” the inmate said. “They originally kept telling me I was fine since I only had a fever of 99.4. I had sharp pains, difficult breathing but they wouldn't let any of us see a doctor. If you didn't have a 100-degree temperature they didn't consider you sick. We are over it now, but we had a rough week.”
The inmate said jailers stopped opening cell doors, and instead, opened the cell’s small window to ask how many inmates were in the cell and if the inmates were okay.
Inspection documents echo the inmate’s statement. A January 2019 inspection notes the facility was cited for failure to provide medical-mental health screenings for an inmate.
“Based on record review and interview, it was determined the facility failed to record a medical-mental health screening for one inmate,” the jail inspection report said.
Corrections officials become involved.
After stories surfaced about the detention center’s condition, the inmate said Department of Corrections officials pushed jail staff to make changes. “Since DOC showed up, they open the door, do a headcount and ask if you are ok. They have been giving us cleaning supplies. Before that we went days without cleaning supplies. We couldn't even get a broom to sweep our cell out.”
And while center officials did, eventually, ramp up their testing program, the inmate said, the overcrowding has remained.
“They tested more people today, but it all seems pointless,” he said. “We are crammed in really small spaces, some of us sicker than others and three or four weeks none of us have seen a doctor, our family, much anything else.”
A former employee of the center echoed the inmate’s statement. She said it doesn’t surprise her that the jail had as many Covid19 cases because jail officials have been slow in addressing previous medical conditions at the detention center.
“I was there when they had a meningitis outbreak in one of the pods. It took them like two weeks to issue masks for officers and inmates and they didn’t even give masks for them to wear inside the pod,” said Kate Smith, a former Comanche County Detention Center employee whose name was changed because she feared retaliation for speaking about.
“They gave them masks when they came outside of the pod because they didn’t want to infect anyone else. I’ve heard from people who still work there that they really didn’t want to do masks,” she said.
Smith said inmates regularly slept on the floor in plastic boats. She said staff members were told during training that every inmate who doesn’t have a bunk bed is supposed to have a boat.
“That’s not how it works,” she said. “Not everybody gets a boat because there are not enough boats in the facility for that.” Smith said CCDC has people sleeping on the floor with only a mat and a gray, roughly spun, wool blanket.
Smith’s statement was underscored by an inspection report which said, “one inmate without boat. Just mattress.”
She said inmates were packed into rooms because cleaning supplies were limited and the rooms quickly became unhygienic.
“There is a pod called 305 on the third floor,” she said. “(Cell) 305 has what is called a day room. In that pod, there are two cells. Inside of those cells have four bunk beds each, so [pod] 305 has eight built-in bunk beds. Inside each one of those cells is a toilet and a sink combination. You would think 305 would have eight inmates. Wrong. 305 usually has 16 or more, I’ve seen 18 in there.”
Overcrowded and unsanitary conditions.
Smith said right down the hall, pod 309 was even worse.
“Pod 309 has within it four cells,” she said. “They’re those very small, minimum standard sizes so they’re like nine square feet,” She said. “There is enough room for the bunk bed and you to stand near it, and a toilet at the end and that’s it.”
During Smith’s employment, one of the cells in pod 309 was closed because the toilet did not work. She said most of the time, inmates have to sleep under the tables in the day room because there wasn’t enough space in the cells. She also said the pod was packed so tight, she could hardly walk around without stepping on something. “There were usually no boats in this pod because the boats wouldn’t fit in the pod,” Smith said. “If you were to put a boat down on the ground for everybody that’s supposed to be in that pod there would be no room to walk, you would have to put them in the showers.”
Smith, who worked at the detention center for six months, said the jumpsuits issued to female inmates were ‘beyond inadequate.’
“I’ve had female inmates on the 3rd floor who don’t have a crotch to their jumpsuit and also don’t have underwear,” she said. “They have to find another inmate in the room to trade something with so that they’re covered.”
The detention center, she said, takes inmate overcrowding to the next level.
Problems at the beleaguered facility have forced state officials to act. On Wednesday, the Comanche County Facilities Authority, the entity which oversees the jail’s operations, signed an agreement with the Oklahoma Department of Corrections to house COVID-19 negative county jail inmates.
Corrections department transport vans arrived at the county jail Wednesday morning to transport inmates with two consecutive negative tests. These inmates will remain in the legal custody of the Comanche County Detention Center while ODOC provides male inmates housing, board, and routine medical care at North Fork Correctional Center in Sayre.
Comanche County jail inmates testing positive will remain quarantined in the jail. The current agreement lasts through June 10.
By KaraLee Langford And M. Scott Carter, Ledger Staff Writers