Oklahoma County Jail remains dangerously overcrowded By: Keaton Ross Oklahoma Watch April 14, 2021
The Oklahoma County Detention Center. (Courtesy photo/Oklahoma Watch)
When U.S. Department of Justice investigators inspected the Oklahoma County Detention Center in April 2007, they discovered that severe overcrowding was causing significant harm to detainees.
“Throughout the facility, we found detainees sleeping on the floor and three or four detainees locked into two-man cells,” investigators wrote in a 2008 report that found conditions inside the facility did not meet constitutional standards. “The detainees spend nearly 24 hours per day in these cramped quarters.”
The jail’s population has dropped by about a third over the past 12 years – from 2,412 in June 2009 to 1,595 on March 31. The Oklahoma County Criminal Justice Advisory Council, a group tasked with recommending solutions to reduce the jail’s population, attributes the decline to changes i
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Oklahoma Watch
When U.S. Department of Justice investigators inspected the Oklahoma County Detention Center in April 2007, they discovered that severe overcrowding was causing significant harm to detainees.
“Throughout the facility, we found detainees sleeping on the floor and three or four detainees locked into two-man cells,” investigators wrote in a 2008 report that found conditions inside the facility did not meet constitutional standards. “The detainees spend nearly 24 hours per day in these cramped quarters.”
The jail’s population has dropped by about a third over the past 12 years from 2,412 in June 2009 to 1,595 on March 31. The Oklahoma County Criminal Justice Advisory Council, a group tasked with recommending solutions to reduce the jail’s population, attributes the decline to changes in state law and an expansion of local diversion programs.