Oklahoma lawmaker plans interim study to uncover the truth about conditions inside state prisons

Despite chairing a House committee which oversees the prison system in Oklahoma, Representative Justin Humphrey says he simply can’t get any answers from the Department of Corrections about what he says are the worst staffing levels in the United States.

That issue may underlie many of the other major problems Humphrey says make the state’s prisons particularly dangerous, both for inmates and for those whose job it is to not only guard them, but to feed them, and care for their health.

He says if the Chairman of the House Criminal Justice and Corrections Committee can’t get basic information on staffing levels or other issues inside the prisons, he doubts any of his fellow lawmakers are well-informed on those issues.

So, he’s requested, and received the green light, to hold an interim legislative study to present his concerns to those fellow lawmakers.

“My thing was is to try to put something together to show all the misinformation that we’re getting, and to show a lot of the issues that are in the prison system that are not being reported,” Humphrey told KRMG Monday.

He says he’s managed to learn the truth, despite the DOC’s lack of cooperation, about just how bad the staffing levels are inside Oklahoma’s prisons.

“Based on numbers from the federal DOJ - which they will get the numbers from the Department of Corrections - and the numbers from the Labor Commission - uh, that it shows we have the worst numbers in the United States.”

He hopes to conduct the interim study in October.