Inspection reveals continued deficient county jail operations
The unmet standards include improperly documenting sight checks, lack of proper bedding and failure to timely report inmate injuries.
On August 7, officials with the Oklahoma State Department of Health (OSDH) performed an annual unannounced inspection inside the Comanche County Detention Center (CCDC). The findings report multiple shortfalls that affect the health and safety of the inmates inside. The unmet standards include improperly documenting sight checks, lack of proper bedding and failure to timely report inmate injuries.
While these documents share the county jail's poor conditions, this isn’t anything new as the facility has a history of maintaining a subpar environment. Documents reflect the facility repeatedly failed to meet state standards for years, with the last inspection with no reported deficiencies was in 2020.
Dark Roast spoke with Geoffrey Tabor, a lawyer based in Norman, OK, who has multiple lawsuits filed against the facility following inmates. Tabor has also cited the conditions of the jail using these inspections to reflect their deplorable conditions.
Photos from the OSDH were taken during this year's annual inspection of the CCDC.
“Same story, different verse,” Tabor said when asked about his initial reaction to the report. “The OSDH has continually found violations in this facility.”
CCDC has been out-of-compliance with the state for the past five years, and many deficiencies have repeated themselves. This has raised the question among taxpayers: where is the actual accountability? In Tabor’s opinion, it’s a tough question to answer considering the same issues are still prevalent years later.
“What I do know is that in our imperfect world and imperfect system it’s cases like ours that maybe will change things,” Tabor said.
Another person who hopes for change within the facility is Vickie Dorrell. Vickie lost her son Terry during his stay within CCDC. According to Terry’s autopsy report he suffered over 30 stab wounds.
“I would’ve thought that after Terry’s death- I would’ve thought they would’ve done something different,” Vickie stated.
One of the deficiencies cited was a failure to document site checks. Policy states there are to be hourly site checks throughout the facility. According to the documents, over a span of multiple days, out of the 131 possible checks, 119 were undocumented. Vickie believes had the guards kept up with documenting their hourly sight checks, it could’ve changed Terry’s circumstances.
“I think it might’ve stopped a lot of the deaths that year,” Vickie stated.
The detention center receives a majority of the county’s budget. This is an issue for both Tabor and Vickie. While they understand the importance of having a facility, they are not seeing any kind of return on investment.
“The residents of Comanche County have to know what’s going on because they’re the ones funding this,” Vickie said.
The Dark Roast reached out to multiple officials with the detention center and county but have not received a response. However, there have been recent items on the commissioners agenda set to address some of the technical issues.
Another one of the deficiencies noted was the number of inmates left sleeping on the floor. Despite being under capacity at the time of the surprise inspection, 6 inmates were left to sleep on the floor. Tabor said this isn’t surprising as the facility is still functioning as over capacity with the several contracts they have with other county jails to house Comanche County inmates in.
“I don’t even want to say I’m an Oklahoman because of this detention center and how the state has allowed them to operate,” Vickie expressed.
Some are questioning the future of the facility if things continue at this rate.
