During a hearing of the Oklahoma House Criminal Justice and Corrections Committee Wednesday, witnesses discussed staffing levels at state prisons.
Former Chief Security Officer Jason Lemons testified that he often staffed a prison holding roughly 1,450 prisoners with as few as 15 officers - a ratio of 83:1.
The Oklahoma Department of Corrections (DOC), he noted, claims to have a ratio of roughly 15:1.
[Hear the KRMG In Depth Report on the DOC response to its critics HERE]
The issue, it seems, is that those two figures are calculated very differently, according to Kay Thompson, Chief Public Information Officer for the DOC.
The DOC, along with prison systems nationwide, calculates the ratio based on system wide figures, in other words, the total number of security personnel throughout the state and the entire prison population.
They do not calculate a ratio based on the number of security personnel at a given facility during a given period of time.
Those numbers have also been a bone of contention between the DOC and its critics.
Lemons, and State Rep. Justin “J.J.” Humphrey - who chairs that House committee - have claimed that the DOC artificially lowers the number of “pins” or security personnel required to staff a prison, in order to make its overall percentage of staff on duty appear higher.
Thompson, though, says that the DOC has to budget for open positions, so lowers the number of pins to be closer to what they can actually get trained, hired, and assigned.
“It’s not advantageous for us to have all of these positions open, because we have to actually budget that money into those positions,” she explained. “So if they (lawmakers) see that there’s $20 million over here that we didn’t use, there’s an opportunity for them to pull that money back from us the following year.”
Thompson does admit that staffing is a major concern, and says her agency has not and does not claim to be fully staffed.
“I don’t think we’ve ever come out and said ‘we’re doing great,’” she said. “We’ve been very, you know, honest and vocal about the fact that we need more people. That’s not something that we’re trying to hide, or change. We’re not saying that we’re fully staffed, or we’re happy with our staffing levels, at all.”
She also called into question some of the numbers Rep. Humphrey and others have used publicly to criticize the agency.
“Some of these claims that are being made, I would like to know where they’re getting the data,” Thompson told KRMG. “Because we do have the data, I see the data, and I stand behind the numbers that we put out.”
Moreover, she claims Humphrey has not actually approached her agency for the accurate figures.
“We cannot find any record of him asking for data,” she said. “We put out our weekly count sheet on our website, so he could be pulling that from our website, you know, that’s public. But as far as our internal information about staffing, he has not requested that from us.”
Thompson said their data shows that violent incidents are down, thanks to an initiative which began late last year, and says she has the data to back up her claim.
She also says the agency continues to ramp up recruitment, has increased the physical requirements for correctional officers, and continues to look at ways to increase pay and produce better-trained officers who are more likely to stay on the job and do it well.
“We’re... not just putting cheeks in seats any more,” Thompson said.
[Hear Part One of our series on Oklahoma prisons HERE]
[Hear Part Two of our series on Oklahoma prisons HERE]
[Hear Part Three of our series on Oklahoma prisons HERE]
[Hear Part Four of our series on Oklahoma prisons HERE]
[Hear Part Five of our series on Oklahoma prisons HERE]