Crumbling prisons make job hard for employees
Correctional staff in Oklahoma don’t just face the obvious workplace difficulties that come with working in a prison, such as the threat of violence.
They must also find ways to deal with poorly laid out and deteriorating facilities, overcrowding and low staffing levels.
At the John H. Lilley Correctional Center in Boley, where staffing levels are slightly higher than most state prisons, many of the dorms at the former sanitarium are poorly designed to house inmates, who need constant supervision. The layout of the old dorms makes it too difficult and costly to put the proper number of security cameras on the units, and the lack of air conditioning in the newer, overcrowded cell blocks makes the summer days feel much longer.
“You say you don’t want to give inmates money, well that’s fine but he’s got to work here,” said Warden Ken Klingler of an officer in a muggy, concrete unit. “People forget, staff has to be here with the inmates.”
A single officer oversees two connected units, each housing about 200 inmates.
“Most of the money that’s coming in to the Department of Corrections is not going to an inmate, it’s helping the people that protect those inmates and protect you every day,” Klingler said. “I have to be here because I choose to be here. I don’t want to be in a building that’s falling down. I don’t want my staff to be in a building that’s falling down.”
“You’re talking about 162 inmates to one officer. It’s quite an undertaking,” said Gregory Breslin, deputy warden at the Eddie Warrior Correctional Center in Taft, describing similar circumstances at his facility.
“Basically you’ve got 160 little heaters, and the air conditioner has a hard time keeping up, especially when you get into the hot months of July and August.
“When I first got here we had 350 inmates. Over time we just kept adding, adding and adding.”
The facility now holds nearly 600 inmates.
Winter months can be harsh, too, especially when the prison is without heat because staff is scrambling to find a replacement part for a heater that may be 40 or 50 years old.
“We’ve went as far as Christmas to turn on the heat, because I was waiting on parts,” said William Monday, warden at the William S. Key Correctional Center in Fort Supply. Officers and staff use plenty of aging equipment, he said.
“I could show you a vehicle I’ve got right now with 430,000 miles on it, and I’m transporting inmates on it every day of the week,” Monday said.
The officer who drives the transport van snapped a photo and sent it to Monday when the vehicle hit 400,000 miles.
“He swears he’s going to get it to 500,000, and I bet he does.”
‘A tipping point’
Corrections Department staff “have gotten used to doing a whole lot with a little and a lot more each and every subsequent year with less and less,” said Kevin Duckworth, interim warden of the Oklahoma State Penitentiary. “We’re kind of at, in my opinion, a tipping point maintenance-wise. Things need to be addressed.”
Funding levels for the department have changed little over the last decade. Funding for the 2017 fiscal year was actually $4 million less than the 2007 budget. The department has fewer than 70 percent of its officer positions filled, and officers start out making less than $13 an hour.
“From an officer’s perspective I’m never going to say they are in fear, but they are certainly concerned about their safety when so outnumbered and so little backup is available,” said David Ramsey, a training officer at the Lexington Assessment and Reception Center and president of Oklahoma Corrections Professionals.
Case managers, maintenance and safety staff and administrators don’t fare much better, said spokeswoman Terri Watkins. A recent in-house study found 37 percent of staff members departmentwide qualify for food stamps under the federal government’s requirements for a family of four.
“We’re an afterthought,” said Interim Director Joe Allbaugh, who said he has been making efforts to find savings in the budget to hire more staff and improve conditions.
“They bring their inmates to join the rest of our population, drop them off at the back door at (the Lexington Assessment and Reception Center) and wash their hands of it. Somebody else’s problem.”