After Bond Issue Approved, What Comes Next For New Oklahoma County Jail

Oklahoma County voters passed a $260 million dollar jail bond last month.

The money is intended for the building of a new Oklahoma County Detention Center.

County leaders and the jail trust agree: the current jail needs an upgrade.

To date, this year 11 Oklahoma County inmates have died.

Tim Tardibono with the Oklahoma County Justice Advisory Council is an advocate for the new facility.

"We think it will save lives,” Tardibono said. “Some of those lawsuits that have been talked about recently won't happen. The current facility really doesn't have a medical unit or a mental health unit, so the new jail will have a specifically design (sic), according to national healthcare standards.”

The plan, however, is drawing opposition from activists.

Christopher Johnston with The People's Council for Justice Reform believes the issues at the jail won't go away with a new building.

"Every single entity that has investigated (the jail) -- the Department of Justice, so on and so forth -- all say it is the management,” Johnston said.

One difference in the construction of the new jail, compared to the current jail, will be a citizen's advisory council.

"These citizens will help us with oversight, much like we’ve seen with MAPS 4 advisory board, MAPS 3 and all the way back to MAPS 1,” Tardibono said. “Citizens were involved in how to spend that money.”

Tardibono said the advisory council will choose seven people within the next few weeks. A project manager will then need to be hired.

"There will be a design process and architectural process, so it may be a couple of months maybe even a year until that process is complete,” Tardibono said.

As for location, the new jail needs to be within a 10-minute drive of current county courthouse. 

After using the $260 million bond amount, more money will be needed to build the jail. 

"There are various other ways to fund that which includes the federal money that’s out there,” Tardibono said. “There’s other bonding capacity that the jail trust has.”

Johnston said his group will be keeping an eye on it every step of the way.

“They are saying that they are going to continue to try make improvements … and get people out of there. We are going to hold them accountable,” Johnston said.

Tardibono said they hope to have the new jail up and running within the next five years.