How OKC police are helping to arrest jail overcrowding

Fewer people are expected to head to jail in the coming months as local law enforcement and the courts continue to look for ways to reduce overcrowding.

Oklahoma City will use 29,200 “prisoner days” at the Oklahoma County jail during fiscal 2018, which is down nearly 30 percent from 41,200 just two years ago, according to projections released by the Oklahoma City Police Department.

The estimated reduction in prisoner days meant the city saved more than $626,000 when officials hammered out a $1.4 million county jail contract during budget proceedings in June.

Aggressive efforts by the courts to release more arrestees on their own recognizance, working with people who cannot pay bond on low-level crimes and cutting the number of arrests made of those who have warrants for unpaid criminal justice fees are the biggest reasons why the number of prisoner days is falling, Police Chief Bill Citty told

the City Council during an Aug. 29 meeting.

The number of people jailed on municipal charges fell 26 percent — from about 12,900 to 9,500 — from fiscal 2015 to fiscal 2017, according to police figures. The fiscal year runs from July 1 to June 30.

Citty praised the courts for their efforts and also touted the department’s implementation of cite and release practices.

“We’re just putting fewer people in jail,” he said.

“Anybody that has failed to pay and they have a warrant for them — we are not putting any of those individuals in jail. They will have an additional court hearing, but we’re just not putting people in jail for not being able to pay.”

Outside of violent crimes, the police department is looking to identify

more charges for which people do not need to go to jail. The department projects about 23,000 arrestees will be processed in fiscal 2018, which would mark a nearly 20 percent reduction from two years ago.

“It’s very helpful,” said Mark Opgrande, a spokesman for the Oklahoma County sheriff’s office. “They’ve been doing a lot to keep their arrests down. When you have fewer people brought in, it puts less strain on us, and when you get people out sooner, it helps the process.”

In 1991, the 13-story county jail opened in downtown Oklahoma City. Originally built to hold 1,200 inmates, the jail routinely swells to twice that many. However, figures released by the sheriff’s office suggest recent criminal justice reform efforts have proven fruitful.

In August, the the jail’s daily population average was 2,220 inmates. On Sept. 8, the population

stood at 1,952 inmates, marking the first time in several years that the number dropped under 2,000, according to the sheriff’s office. At the beginning of the year, more than 2,400 inmates filled the jail.

“Cite and release policy is one of the biggest things they’ve been working on, and that’s been very effective in a lot of places, particularly in New York,” said Alex Roth, a representative of the Vera Institute of Justice, a nonprofit group hired by the business community to look at overcrowding in the Oklahoma County jail and failures in the criminal justice system.

The county charges Oklahoma City $42.88 per prisoner per day.

The sheriff’s office does not project the number of arrests it will make because the figure is a fraction of what the Oklahoma City Police Department produces.

For example, the sheriff’s office processed 1,371 arrests in fiscal 2016.