TULSA — The Oklahoma Department of Corrections has come under fire, from within prison walls and from outside the agency.

This week, KRMG reached out to the DOC’s Chief of Public Relations, Kay Thompson, who addressed several of the issues raised by lawmakers, prisoners, and private citizens.

[Hear Part Three of the KRMG In-Depth Series on Oklahoma prisons HERE]

Staffing levels, she admitted, are not where they need to be, with only 85% of positions filled agency-wide, and a vacancy rate of 19.5% for security staff.

“Our staffing, inmate to security staff ratio, is fifteen to one,” Thompson said. “Ideally, we would like to be less than probably ten to one. I think Texas right now is seven to one.”

On a more hopeful note, she says the attrition rate for employee leaving service has declined sharply since DOC Director Steven Harpe assumed his role in late 2022.

The annual rate of employee attrition was 27.9% at the time; under Harpe, she says, it has dropped to less than ten percent.

And, she added, Harpe has a passion for changing the culture of the prison system in Oklahoma.

“We have moved away from warehousing inmates,” Thompson said. “Our new vision statement is ‘We Change Lives,’ and honestly that is what our goal is to do.”

In furtherance of that goal, the Oklahoma DOC has established what may be the first Offender Advocacy Unit in the country, and has fielded an extensive survey of prisoners.

“Director Harpe wanted the voice of the inmate at his executive table,” Thompson told KRMG. “We have over 21,000 people that we take care of, we need to hear from them directly.”

The results of the survey are in, but the DOC hasn’t released them yet because the agency is following up to get more information about the answers it received from inmates, who were asked to score several things on a scale of one to five.

“That team is going out and they’re asking inmates ‘why did you rank it, you know, this number? Why did you rank the food this number?’” she explained. “And so, we’re finding reasonings behind these numbers.

Another recent initiative is to equip correctional officers with body cams, and Thompson admits the reaction from the COs has been mixed.

She says the goal is not to catch anyone doing wrong, but to help ensure safety for prisoners and staff alike.

Thompson admits that contraband remains an issue - and one could argue that body cams could help curtail some of that activity.

They should also help protect both staff and inmates from violence, or false accusations of violence.

She points out that the large majority of these inmates will one day walk out of prison and re-enter society.

“We exit, I think the last number I got was like 110 people a week from our prison system,” she told KRMG. “So, they’re going to move next door. They’re going to be working next to you.”

It’s to everyone’s benefit that those former prisoners have the training and/or education they need to be successful on the outside, for many reasons.

So, she added, “It’s our job to make sure that they serve their time as humanely - and as properly - and that they get the most out of their time with us” as possible.

Still, she admits, it will take time.

You can read part one of this series, and hear the KRMG In-Depth version, HERE.

You can read part two of this series, and hear the KRMG In-Depth version, HERE.