OKLAHOMA CITY (KFOR) – The Oklahoma County Detention Heart’s certification to deal with juvenile offenders has been revoked.
The Oklahoma State Division of Well being (OSDH) visited the jail unannounced and inspected the ability.
Detention Heart directors acquired a 61-page report from OSDH on Tuesday. The report detailed OSDH’s findings from the unannounced go to.
“Of most urgent concern was the willpower that the detention middle wouldn’t retain its certification to deal with juvenile offenders after this Friday, July 16, 2023,” mentioned Mac Mullings, Packages and Providers Coordinator for the jail.
OSDH and the Oklahoma Workplace of Juvenile Affairs certify metropolis and county detention services to carry juvenile offenders based mostly on the ability’s compliance with relevant guidelines acknowledged inside Title 310, Chapter 670 of the Oklahoma Administrative Code.
The Workplace of Juvenile Affairs and OSDH despatched a letter to Greg Williams, administrator of the Detention Heart, informing him that the jail was not licensed to deal with juvenile offenders. That letter is as follows:
OSDH Letter to OCDC by KFOR on Scribd
Mullings mentioned jail directors are actually working to determine which juveniles the choice impacts, and are making preparations to search out applicable placement for them.
“As of [Tuesday], just one juvenile meets the statutory definition of a ‘baby’ or ‘juvenile’ and will likely be returned to the Oklahoma County juvenile detention facility as quickly as potential earlier than the OSDH deadline,” Mullings mentioned.
The jail isn’t barred from housing juvenile first-degree homicide defendants.
Detention Heart directors will evaluate the remainder of the report over the approaching days.
“We stay dedicated to creating all vital repairs to the ability to enhance the protection and high quality of life for all who work and dwell inside its partitions, mentioned Greg Williams, jail administrator. “Whereas the employees and contractors have labored diligently and over lengthy hours to make the infrastructure enhancements which are already accomplished, there may be far more to be finished. A long time of bodily plant neglect and poor building can’t be overcome in just a few months. I’m happy with the work the employees, together with our exterior companions like Oklahoma County, has accomplished in such a brief timeframe.”
Detention Heart Chief Operations Officer William Monday mentioned that a number of the deficiencies listed within the OSDH/Workplace of Juvenile Affairs report will not be correct. He mentioned jail officers will look into the best way to talk about the alleged inaccuracies with OSDH.
“Though we acknowledge the various points we face on the detention middle, we wish to be sure that everyone seems to be focusing consideration on the right issues. Nobody desires this place to be in the absolute best situation it may be greater than we do,“ Monday mentioned.
Detention Heart officers have wrestled with a number of points this yr, together with a disaster scenario by which inmates took a Detention Heart official hostage and one of many inmates was shot, a number of inmate deaths, inmate claims of inadequate meals, scarce possibilities to bathe and backed up bogs, in addition to dad and mom of inmates protesting circumstances contained in the jail.
Click on the above tweet to view KFOR reporter Jessica Bruno’s whole Twitter thread on this essential subject.
