LAWTON — Two out-of-town jails have sent proposed contracts for housing Comanche County inmates to the Comanche County Detention Center, but the contracts need to be revised before county officials can consider them, said CCDC Administrator William Hobbs.
“We’re working on the wordage to get those corrected, and then we’ll bring them and present them over here,” Hobbs told the Comanche County Commission during the board’s Sept. 25 meeting.
He said the Okmulgee County and Pottawatomie County jails were the only ones to express interest in housing inmates from Comanche County.
County officials are looking for ways to relieve overcrowding at the jail, which has room for 239 inmate beds plus another 30 in the quarantine area, for a total of 269 beds. However, the jail’s average daily population was more than 300 inmates in recent weeks.
The county currently houses some inmates at the Tillman County Jail, located in Frederick, in a bid to help solve the overcrowding problem.
Hobbs said the Okmulgee County and Pottawatomie County jails both reported that their inmate populations are fluid, so Comanche County should move as quickly as possible to secure beds in those facilities.
“The sooner we’re able to act on it, the better off we are as far as the number of inmates,” Hobbs said.