Comanche County Commissioners weighing solutions to jail overcrowding

Comanche County Commissioners are continuing to look at outside-the-county jail space as they weight solutions to overcrowding at the Comanche County Detention Center.

The issue has been the topic of meetings for weeks, and one of the recent proposals centers on agreements with other counties to house Comanche County inmates. County staff members are working on agreements with entities in three counties to provide housing and board: Pottawatomie County Public Safety Center, Grady County Criminal Justice Authority and Okmulgee County Criminal Justice Authority.

Jail Administrator Bill Hobbs said while there is a potential of housing up to 70 inmates at these out-of-county facilities, that number will be fluid because beds that would be available to Comanche County on any given day will depend on what is going on in that county. Comanche County already can house up to 100 inmates at the Tillman County Jail, under an agreement that Comanche County Commissioners has with that county, and Monday’s count was 68.

Hobbs said attorneys are working through the details of the new agreements with Grady, Okmulgee and Pottawatomie counties, with those agreements slated to return to commissioners for formal approval sometime soon. County officials have indicated Tillman County will remain Comanche County’s first housing option because of its proximity. Comanche County pays that county $40 per prisoner per day.

District 3 Commissioner Josh Powers, who has taken the lead role in working on the issues, said beds in other facilities will help Comanche County reach the 283 maximum limit that it is allowed to hold in its detention center, but the county routinely tops that limit. The daily number actually is 269 because the jail must hold 14 beds for quarantined inmates, under state health mandates.

“This is our temporary fix,” Powers said, of the plan to develop housing agreements with other counties.

Powers and other commissioners have said while Comanche County must find a permanent solution to the problem, there isn’t a clear answer.

“I don’t know what the answer is,” said Central District Commissioner Johnny Owens, whose Lawton-centered district includes the county jail.

Owens said he is concerned about how much longer county funding can cover expenses, in terms of paying other county entities to house Comanche County inmates. Powers and District 1 Commissioner John O’Brien said it is time to look at what other entities pay Comanche County to house their prisoners, which include surrounding towns without jails of their own and inmates holds for the Department of Corrections until they can be transferred to DOC custody. DOC pays Comanche County $27 per prisoner per day for those DOC-bound prisoners, but county officials said that doesn’t cover the daily cost of holding those prisoners. And, some towns may not pay anything when the county holds their prisoners.

Owens said it costs Comanche County $50 per day to hold a prisoner, adding there are some things the county could do to generate more revenue to cover its full cost.

“We could be charging for some things. Others do,” Owens said of charges and fees other counties assess for inmates that are not their own, adding that would generate revenue to help Comanche County cover the cost of housing its inmates in other counties.

Owens said a recent ruling from the Oklahoma Supreme Court could help the situation, after another county successfully argued the DOC should pay the actual cost of housing its prisoners (officials still are arguing exactly what expenses could be used to calculate that cost). Hobbs said the DOC recently rejected a letter he submitted seeking a higher reimbursement for Comanche County.