Oklahoma Prison Officials Seek Funding Increase - KTEN.com - No One Gets You Closer

Oklahoma Prison Officials Seek Funding Increase

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According to the Oklahoma department of corrections,  the state's prison system needs $6.3 million before the next fiscal year, Or they'll be forced to start refusing inmates which then leads to overcrowding at the county jails.

"As it is right now we're running at probably 98 to 99 percent capacity. I'm sure I'm not the only in the state because most of us are. There's close to two-thousand inmates waiting to go to the department of corrections," Carter County sheriff Ken Grace said.

D.OC officials saID right now there are 1,700 inmates that have been sentenced to prison and are waiting to be transferred from county jails.

'Normally in the past whenever we go over what we're licensed for we notify the department of corrections and declare an emergency that we're over populated and at that time they usually make room to take five or ten inmates to get us back to where we should be."

D.OC officials said their inmate population continues to grow.

"We've had a net growth of about eight to nine hundred inmates this last year," Department of Corrections P.IO Jerry Massie said.

Officials also said the main problem is they're facing is not having enough beds. They also said it costs them about 16 to 17 thousand dollars a year just to house one inmate.