The leader of the Oklahoma Department of Corrections says he wants to transform the agency that has been plagued by problems. Listen above for a story from KWGS’ Elizabeth Caldwell.
TRANSCRIPT:
Ambient sound of rain, a woman singing “snack time”
Elizabeth Caldwell (byline): It’s a rainy day at Eddie Warrior Correctional Center in Taft. Prisoner Belinda Becktol is trying something new: hummus.
Becktol: It’s quite interesting, I must say. Now, it would be good on a sandwich, mhm.
EC: Volunteers were allowed to bring snacks to the inmates for the first time. Another first: a professional photographer, Lisa Loftus, is here, taking portraits. Loftus, who’s based in San Diego, says she got an urgent call from another volunteer telling her the good news.
Lisa Loftus: Well, I was on a job, and Ellen called me, and said, or texted me, do you have a minute? Call me right away. And she said, can you get back to Tulsa? I said, what do you mean, what’s happening? And she goes, they’re letting, they said you can come in.
EC: An office for offender advocacy is also new at ODOC. Seana Maloy, who’s one of three workers in the advocacy office, says she’s planning to bring more programming to Oklahoma’s prisons.
Seana Maloy: Let me put it this way, I feel that you’re brought into corrections and it’s to build and to learn and to gain education because I feel anybody can go anywhere if they have the skills.
EC: These efforts are part of a public push by ODOC to reform its image marked by overcrowding, understaffing, and allegations of abuse. Most recently, the agency has been plagued by rape and retaliation allegations. A whistleblower at Eddie Warrior says she was fired after reporting sex between staff and inmates. Steven Harpe is the director of ODOC. He says internal investigators cleared the agency in the rape cases and the state’s top prosecutor agreed.
Steven Harpe: You know, the AG, the attorney general, he did an overview of our work, and said he agreed with our outcome. Some people don’t wanna hear that but that’s the truth.
EC: Just because nothing was substantiated doesn’t mean nothing happened. A representative from the attorney general’s office said at a recent hearing he doesn’t doubt some of the things described by the whistleblower occurred, they just couldn’t be proven. Harpe says he wants to make sure that inmates can reliably report grievances. He says prisoners will soon be able to use electronic tablets to send requests to officials outside of their prison.
SH: When the inmates, when they have this ability, and it's coming, and they’re sending information in, we’re gonna have technology in front of that just like Google and anyone else has, that is able to parse that information, and then we can get it to the right people so then they can look at it.
EC: Harpe also says he wants people with loved ones in jail or anyone with questions to be able to get answers, which has not been easy in the past.
SH: Call center is another thing we’re bringing in. The second largest agency in the state of Oklahoma, drives me crazy that we don’t have a call center where citizens, family members can call in, and not only do I know what’s going on, but we get statistics on how fast we’re answering them, ‘cause right now the perception is we’re not very responsive and I think we’ve earned it.
EC: Ultimately, Harpe says he’s on a mission to make ODOC an attractive employer, as well as a communicative, rehabilitative agency.
SH: Long story short, we really just want corrections to view its mission differently. We changed the vision statement to 'we change lives' because we literally have the power to do that if we do our jobs right.
EC: ODOC says the call center is in its initial planning stages and the tablet reporting feature for inmates should be rolled out within a year. For KWGS News, I’m Elizabeth Caldwell.
