Tension Between Oklahoma City & Jail Trust Over Inmate Costs

There's been some disagreement between Oklahoma City Police and the Oklahoma County jail over who is responsible for paying to house inmates. Oklahoma City Police Chief Wade Gourley shares his point of view.

The Oklahoma County Detention Center is where most people that are arrested in Oklahoma City end up. The city and the jail trust split the cost of housing inmates.

“When Oklahoma City shut down their jail back in the 90s, we entered into a contract with the Oklahoma County jail to house our city prisoners,” Gourley said. “And that's where the charges come from. Since we don't operate a city jail facility, like a lot of other cities do, we contract with them. So when we arrest someone on a city charge, city charge only, then the jail houses them for us and they charge us a fee for doing that so that we don't have to operate our own jail.”

There is tension between the city and the jail trust because of this.

“I don't know if it's conflict as much as confusion, I think is a better word. I think some of the folks that are involved in this process believe that every person that we arrest as the Oklahoma City Police Department, we should be charged for that,” Gourley said. “The only thing that we contract for is, again, those city prisoners. So if we arrest somebody on a city charge of driving under the influence or assault and battery, something like that, and there's no other state charges, or nothing that goes with that, that's a city charge.”