TWO-THIRDS OF JAILS FAIL STATE INSPECTIONS

Alternating head to toe, sleeping prisoners line the floor of the
Pottawatomie County jail holding cells, rusted enclosures where up to
80 inmates try to live in a space built for 35. On the walls, dank
grime competes with chipped, off-white paint for exposure and plastic
box fans around the holding pens blow a mixture of musty air,
cigarette smoke and the smell of urine throughout the facility.

"The conditions in here are deplorable," said Pottawatomie County
Sheriff Kurt Shirey.

The jail was among 49 across the state that failed inspection last
year by the Oklahoma Health Department. Twenty-eight jails passed.

Shirey moved the prisoners to the city jail in Shawnee so repairs
could be made to the building. But officials had to move the inmates
back to the county facility April 19 when state inspectors closed the
city jail because of understaffing, no fire alarm system and a
shortage of smoke detectors.

Health Department inspectors cited two-thirds of Oklahoma's county
jails last year for a variety of deficiencies such as crowding, a lack
of personnel to monitor inmates, construction problems and poor health
care.

Oklahoma jails have become the wreckage from a collision between
increasing inmate populations and dwindling county budgets.

An Associated Press survey of county jails found that there were 7,427
inmates confined in the state's jails in May 2002. The U.S. Department
of Justice counted 6,743 inmates confined in a 1999 jail census.

Jail administrators and sheriffs in 49 of Oklahoma's 77 counties
reported significant overcrowding problems in an AP survey this year.
Health Department inspections last year found that nearly one-third of
the state's jails were crowded.

According to the inspections:

42 percent of Oklahoma's jails lack enough staff and equipment to
properly monitor inmates.

36 percent of jails have been cited for structural
decay.

35 percent of jails were cited for improper sanitary practices and
health code violations.

Sheriffs have tried for years to patch the jails and maintain funding
to keep key staff, but budget cuts prevail in many counties.

"In Oklahoma, jails outside of Oklahoma City and Tulsa, most of the
facilities are mom-and-pop places," said Ken Kerle, a national jail
consultant and managing editor of American Jails magazine. Kerle has
toured more than 700 jails in 49 states, including Oklahoma.

"They say they don't have anybody on the midnight shift, but say the
night patrolman stops by and makes sure no one's hanging
themselves."

In Logan County, inmates exploited the failing structure in April by
smashing through an air-conditioning duct and climbing to freedom over
a razor-wire fence. A similar escape happened in April 2000, officials
said.

On a busy weekend, the jail building, which is more than 100 years
old, holds up to 80 inmates in two dormitory-style cells designed to
house 15 to 20.

"With the jail being so old, it doesn't take much for an inmate to dig
a brick out of the interior walls," Logan County Sheriff Randy
Richardson said. "The prisoners have 24-7 to do something like that
back there."

According to a U.S. Department of Justice Bureau of Justice Statistics
survey of national inmate populations, the nation's jails held 631,240
inmates in 2001, up 10,091 from midyear 2000.

"Jails have traditionally been overcrowded, that's nothing new," said
Darrell L. Ross, chairman of the criminal justice program at East
Carolina University in Greenville, N.C. "To me, the problem comes out
of the courts. It's the 'if you build them, they'll come' syndrome.

"It doesn't matter if this is Oklahoma or New England. When we build a
new jail, a judge realizes he's got bed space and puts the guy there
rather than maybe giving him probation."

Tough-on-crime initiatives have increased the inmate population in the
nation's prisons and jails, said Stephen Ingley, executive director of
the American Jail Association in Hagerstown, Md.

"When the war on drugs and truth-in-sentencing bills started, the
numbers jumped enormously," Ingley said.

Truth-in-sentencing requires violent offenders to serve 80 percent of
their prison terms.

Debi Bohannan, an activist with the Jail Action Issues League in
Norman, said tough-on-crime laws lack a standard of
accountability.

"Robert Downey Jr. gets probation, but some poor kid in Oklahoma gets
stuck languishing in a hellhole jail before receiving a sentence --
all so you can pound your chest and say you're tough on crime,"
Bohannan said.

Twenty-five counties in Oklahoma have either built new jails or are in
the process of building or planning for them, and officials say that
is a hopeful sign.

Don Garrison, director of the state Health Department's jail
inspection division, said that it may be difficult to find the money
to staff these new jails, but he is optimistic that conditions for
inmates will improve.

"I think we've created an atmosphere of change for Oklahoma's jails,"
he said.