Comanche County housing jail inmates in two new counties

Comanche County is housing inmates at locations other than Tillman County.

Comanche County Detention Center Administrator Bill Hobbs said this week that 96 inmates from Comanche County were being housed in three other counties, action that allowed him to reduce the inmate count of the Comanche County center. It’s the beginning of an expanded effort that Western District Commissioner Josh Powers and others have said is vital if the county wants to take its daily count down to the 283 inmate population mandated by state health officials.

Monday, inmates being held in the Comanche County Detention Center numbered 293. At the same time, the county was housing another 73 inmates in the Tillman County jail, 10 in the Grady County jail and 13 in Okmulgee County. While Comanche County Commissioners have held an agreement with Tillman County for years, the agreements with Grady and Okmulgee counties are new, set into place in November under action pressed by Powers earlier this year to identify entities willing to sign agreements with Comanche County to house inmates.

While the agreement with Tillman County has been successful — that county will provide housing for up to 100 Comanche County inmates — it hasn’t been enough to draw Comanche County’s population below 300, let alone the 283 the county needs. The new agreements commit Grady County to 15 beds and Okmulgee County to 20.

Hobbs said his office still is working on agreements with Seminole and Pottawatomie County. He said officials in Greer County recently approached him to talk about housing Comanche County inmates, a proposal Powers said would be ideal because of Greer County’s proximity to Lawton.

The additional counties are important because Tillman County’s agreement doesn’t always provide enough beds to cover all of Comanche County’s needs. And the bed counts provided by Grady and Okmulgee counties are not set in stone. Hobb said the actual number of prisoners those counties can take will depend on how many beds they have available when Comanche County needs them.

While Tillman County will remain Comanche County’s first housing option because of its proximity, Powers said the county needs the flexibility of “standby” beds, given the distance Okmulgee and Pottawatomie counties are from Lawton. The distant locations provide flexibility, but they also are more costly solutions because they involve a per-prisoner per-day fee as well as transportation costs.

Powers said the county needs to continue exploring housing options with others, both as a housing option and to find counties that are more convenient.