During a hearing of the Oklahoma House Criminal Justice and Corrections Committee Wednesday, witnesses discussed staffing levels at state prisons.
Former Chief Security Officer Jason Lemons testified that he often staffed a prison holding roughly 1,450 prisoners with as few as 15 officers – a ratio of 83:1.
The Oklahoma Department of Corrections (DOC), he noted, claims to have a ratio of roughly 15:1.
[ Hear the KRMG In Depth Report on the DOC response to its critics HERE ]
The issue, it seems, is that those two figures are calculated very differently, according to Kay Thompson, Chief Public Information Officer for the DOC.
The DOC, along with prison systems nationwide, calculates the ratio based on system wide figures, in other words, the total number of security personnel throughout the state and the entire prison population.
They do not calculate a ratio based on the number of security personnel at a given facility during a given period of time.
She admits that the total number of security personnel used to come up with that ratio includes administrative staff, wardens, and other people who may not work as security officers, but says they are trained and do step in when necessary to meet minimum staffing requirements.