State Rep. raising questions on ODOC budget appropriations

OKLAHOMA CITY — The Department of Corrections is facing tough questions from lawmakers as the agency lays out its budget request.

There are just a few items they are asking for, flex benefits for employees, a debt service repayment and body cameras.

However, one representative questioned, will this help the staffing shortages, drug smuggling, fights and overdoses that have plagued Oklahoma prisons.

"They steal it from the taxpayers of Oklahoma," Rep. Justin Humphrey, (R) Lane said.

Oklahoma Rep. Justin Humphrey, a frequent critic of the Department of Corrections, is upset with their latest budget request of $552 million.

That is a slight increase from the request they made last year of $544 million.

Director Steve Harpe addressing the Appropriations and Budget Public Safety Subcommittee Friday.

"I am on my third year now as director," Harpe said. "We change our vision and we change lives. Most of the people that are incarcerated go home, and we believe they should go home better than we found them."

However, in his two years, these are the reported inmate death counts.

126 inmate deaths in 2023, and 140 in 2024, the most since 2019.

"We have people being murdered at a rate I've never heard of," Rep. Humphrey said.

Humphrey says the budget request doesn't align with steps on slowing this rate down.

"They are doing nothing," Humphrey said.

However, Director Harpe disagrees with Humphrey who said staffing issues have led to the majority of problems inside state prisons.

"Oklahoma is actually doing a better job in this space then maybe what you have heard or what you have been led to believe," Harpe said. "We have actually seen an uptick in out officers. We have rebuilt our academies and we did that in May of 2023. Since then, with the class right now, we will graduate close to 400 officers. In the last year, we have retained 80% of those officers."

Also included in the budget request is one million dollars for body cameras for all officers. They began testing them last year as a way to improve conditions inside prisons.

Harpe says they're working.

"It doesn't detour everyone, but we are definitely seeing benefits from that already," Harpe said.

Harpe also acknowledged the agency faces ongoing problems such as aging facilities, tele-health needs, and the rise of new technology used to bring contraband into state prisons.

Another big item, the attempt to buy the lawton Correctional Facility from the privately owned GEO Group.

"We are going to restructure the private prison contract that we got and that is Lawton, and hopefully that will become a purchase," Harpe said. "That is up to the legislature and the governor but that is our ask."

This is something Humphrey feels would not be a good purchase.

"He's talked about giving $340 million for that prison," Rep. Humphrey said. "Again, has any of these legislators ask, what does it cost to build a prison? Certainly we build two or three for that."

We reached out to the Department of Corrections for further comment on the meeting today; after a brief email conversation, they stopped responding.