With growing inmate population and aging prisons, Oklahoma lawmakers tour private prison

LAWTON, OKLA. — Members of an Oklahoma House committee that allocates money to the state prisons toured a 2,500-bed private prison in Lawton on Tuesday as they search for ways to house Oklahoma’s growing inmate population and replace crumbling state buildings.

A sprawling facility tucked amid rural farmland on Lawton’s far southeast side, the prison operated by Florida-based GEO Group Inc. is the largest in the state, housing about 2,400 medium-security Oklahoma inmates.

Committee Chairman Rep. Randy Terrill said private facilities are one way to replace state prisons that, in some cases, are 100 years old.

“Nobody is talking about building an Embassy Suites or a Hilton for these guys to live in,” said Terrill, R-Moore. “But we do have some very legitimate prison infrastructure needs that adversely impact public safety.”

A private study commissioned by the Legislature earlier this year recommended about $220 million in renovations to Oklahoma’s 17 state prisons and another $292 million to add 2,600 beds.

The study also urges the Legislature to consider demolishing and replacing at least three prisons — the Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAlester, the Oklahoma State Reformatory in Granite and the William S. Key Correctional Center at Fort Supply.

The Lawton Correctional Facility is one of six private prisons in Oklahoma, four of which house only Oklahoma inmates. The Lawton prison, which has about 450 employees, charges the state $45.73 per inmate per day, which is the lowest rate of all the private prisons in Oklahoma, said Renee Watkins, the Department of Corrections’ private prison administrator.

Not all members of the committee were eager to endorse private prisons as part of a solution to the state’s overcrowded prison system.

“I have concerns with privates — they’re in the business of profiteering over other people’s misery,” said state Rep. Richard Morrissette, D-Oklahoma City. “Their motive is to lock up more people.”

Morrissette and other lawmakers on the tour said they were impressed with the 11-year-old prison, where inmates are housed in pods overseen by guards in neat, pressed uniforms. But Morrissette argued state workers could monitor inmates just as efficiently in a new state prisons.

“Incarcerating people is a government function that should be run by government, not by private entities,” he said.

Terrill said no decisions have been made about how large a role private prisons will play in Oklahoma’s system and the committee plans to tour other private and state facilities in the upcoming months.

Meanwhile, GEO officials say they are considering building a new 1,600-bed facility next to the Lawton prison. GEO consultant Don Houston told lawmakers the company bought 244 acres of land, completed designs and received approval from the county.

By: SEAN MURPHY
Associated Press
08/12/09 10:50 AM EDT

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