The number of people in the Department of Corrections system has grown to a record 62,000. The number was revealed at the Board of Corrections meeting in Hominy on Tuesday.
“Today we have 62,000 in our system,” said DOC Director Joe Allbaugh. “What bothers me is back in December we hit a record population of 61,000. It has taken just four months for an additional 1,000 people to be included in our numbers of incarcerated, supervised, and county jail backup.”
As of April 25, 2017, there were 26,380 incarcerated in prisons or halfway houses. The number of people under supervision which means GPS monitored, community supervision or probation/parole, was 33,865. The backup in county jails totals 1,755 inmates.
State prisons are at 109 percent capacity.
“Programs are the way to get us out of this pickle long-term. In the short-term the only thing we can do is hope and pray the Legislature will step up and give us the necessary money to acquire, rent, beg, or borrow more additional beds to handle the influx.”
Allbaugh also pointed out the workloads that DOC employees are carrying. Currently, 261 probation officers are averaging 130 cases each. There are 1,803 correctional officers working in Oklahoma’s prisons.
It is projected by the Crime and Justice Institute and the Pew Charitable Trusts, if the Legislature doesn’t act, Oklahoma’s prison population will increase by 25 percent over the next ten years. To house that increase, the state would need to build three prisons.
