By Murray Evans
The Associated Press
OKLAHOMA CITY — A U.S. Department of Justice report on the Oklahoma County Detention Center has led to the removal of 160 federal inmates from the facility.
Constitutional issues raised in the report, issued on Thursday, included reasonable protection of inmates from harm, constitutionally required mental health care services, adequate housing, sanitation, environmental protections and protections from serious fire safety risks.
The report recommended 11 remedial measures be taken to address the concerns.
According to the report, “several factors make the jail an unsafe environment for detainees and staff, and have resulted in serious harm to detainees.”
Sheriff John Whetsel said Monday he was surprised at the tenor of the 28-page report and that most of the issues already have been addressed.
He said an inspection of the jail in December by another federal agency, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, “found no major issues” with the facility.
“We run a professional operation here at this jail,” Whetsel said. “We care enough to address every issue that gets brought to our attention.”
He said he’s willing to meet with Justice Department officials “today or tomorrow” to answer any questions they might have about the jail’s operation.
The report said that if the Justice Department is “unable to reach a resolution regarding our concerns,” the U.S. Attorney General could file a lawsuit “to correct deficiencies” noted in the report “49 days after appropriate officials have been notified of them.”
The report is signed by Grace Chung Becker, an acting assistant attorney general.
The inquiry into the jail began in 2003. Officials from the Justice Department visited the facility three times that year, and again in April 2007, when Whetsel said they conducted an exit briefing with county officials.
Whetsel’s office sent a 148-page response to the Justice Department addressing concerns raised during the April 2007 visit, but that response is not referenced anywhere in the Justice Department report.
Whetsel said his office will produce a “line-by-line” response to the report.
The inquiry covered the 13-story jail, built in 1991, and the jail annex, which was built in 1936 and is located on the top three floors of the Oklahoma County Courthouse.
The 160 federal inmates were transferred to jails in Grady and Tulsa counties after the county received the report on Thursday.
According to figures provided by the Tulsa County jail, the number of inmates booked into that facility rose from 92 on Friday to 184 on Saturday.
The transfer of the federal inmates could result in a loss of up to $3.2 million annually in operating funds for the jail, Whetsel said.
Whetsel said he has ordered a freezing of staff positions at the jail and has asked “all commanders to begin reviewing potential budget reductions agency-wide.”
The Oklahoma County jail’s capacity is 2,890 inmates. Whetsel said the facility usually houses about 2,350 inmates. According to the Justice Department report, the jail was originally designed to hold 1,250 inmates.
“Throughout the facility, we found detainees sleeping on the floor and three or four detainees locked in two-man cells,” the report said, noting that “the detainees spend nearly 24 hours per day in these cramped quarters.”
Whetsel said that the jail no longer has any cells that house four inmates.
Whetsel said the report noted that some of the Justice Department’s findings were “caused by the very nature of the building structure, which requires officers to physically move inmates from their housing units” for things such as visitation, attorney visits and religious and educational programs.
“This is an extremely difficult building to work with and to work within,” he said. “This is a very, very labor-intensive facility.”
The report noted there “is an inordinately high risk of detainee-on-detainee violence at the jail as a result of the jail’s chronic overcrowding, the staff’s inability to supervise detainees, and the ability of detainees to bypass at will the security of their cell doors.”
Whetsel said incidents of uses-of-force and inmate-on-inmate violence at the jail had decreased each year since 2003.
He said he has “no problem in telling family members their loved ones are safe” when at the jail.