Joe Allbaugh told fellow professionals Tuesday of what he has learned in his first 96 days on the job as interim director of the Oklahoma Department of Corrections: State-run prisons are overcrowded and understaffed, agency operations underfunded, and record-keeping remains three decades behind technological advancements.
“This is what runs our system in Oklahoma today,” Allbaugh said, holding up a large folder containing a former inmate’s records. “It’s sad, and I’m here to change it. It’s going to be difficult to do, because software costs a lot of money.
“The software that we operate on was 10 years old at the time we bought it 20 years ago. You can’t rely on it for anything. If this (folder) gets misplaced, that person’s life is on hold until we find it.”
Allbaugh was a guest speaker during the North American Association of Wardens & Superintendents annual conference, which brought officials from all over the United States and Canada to DoubleTree Tulsa-Downtown for sessions Tuesday and Wednesday.
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Participants have the option to tour the Tulsa Jail and Dick Conner Correctional Center on Thursday in Hominy before the conclusion of the conference Friday.
Allbaugh has shown the folder to media during a series of interviews he’s given since being appointed interim director in January. In every session with reporters so far, Allbaugh has discussed the challenges the DOC faces in funding, infrastructure and employee retention — statements that continued during Tuesday’s talk.
“Our particular hole was $38 million just to make it to July 1 this year,” he said. “Thankfully, several weeks ago the governor and the Legislature gave us $27½ million to plug that $38 million hole. You all have dealt with legislators, and you know that they think 38½ equals a 27½ replacement.”
Allbaugh told the audience insufficient funding and overcrowding take away from inmates’ chances for rehabilitation while imprisoned. DOC’s most recent weekly count report indicates 55,900 people are in the prison system, with 27,949 of those being incarcerated. Oklahoma is No. 1 per capita in incarceration of women and in the top five for imprisonment of men, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics.
“We’re at 122 percent capacity, and you know what goes first? Programs — the very programs they need to survive on the outside,” Allbaugh said. “It’s nuts. It’s absolutely nuts.”
The capacity issue — augmented by an increase in backups of inmates in county jails — has compelled the DOC to look at shifting inmates to private prisons that are currently closed, Allbaugh said. The Board of Corrections on Thursday approved his request to begin discussions about leasing beds with Corrections Corporation of America, which manages the empty North Fork Correctional Facility in Sayre and Diamondback Correctional Facility in Watonga.
“I don’t want them to operate ’em. I think I can do it better and cheaply,” Allbaugh told the audience. “I don’t really have anything against private prisons. I just philosophically believe that the state ought to be incarcerating their own folks who break the law and not paying a premium for the beds.”
He additionally called the current situation in Oklahoma “déjà vu,” saying the Texas Department of Criminal Justice had similar problems as the DOC in the 1990s. However, he commended the officials in attendance for their work in a difficult industry.
“Transplanting myself from Texas back to Oklahoma after 22 years, fighting the same fights with the Legislature, fighting with the governor … it’s a tough challenge,” Allbaugh said. “If we didn’t have men and women like yourself committed to corrections, committed to the lives of women who have made mistakes, sometimes serious mistakes, we would be in worse condition.”
