Prisoners Likely to Stay In Oklahoma

Wednesday, October 31, 2007

It could take more than a year to return nearly 500 inmates being held in a Sayre, Okla., private prison to Colorado, lawmakers acknowledged Tuesday following a trip to the facility.

Rep. Steve King, R-Grand Junction, said as unfortunate as the situation is with 479 Colorado convicts residing at the North Fork Correctional Facility, political and fiscal realities could keep the prisoners there longer than he would like.

“In talking with some of the detainees … I think that needs to be the goal and the objective,” King said.

However, he added, “when you start putting that in some type of time frame,” constraints in Colorado could limit policymakers’ abilities to bring the inmates back.

One of those contraints is the number of available prison beds in this state, King said.

King, Rep. Buffie McFadyen, D-Pueblo West, and Colorado Department of Corrections Director Ari Zavaras visited the Sayre, Okla., prison Tuesday to inspect its conditions, meet with the warden and interview Colorado inmates.

“Believe me, as far as prisons go, I saw Sayre is a well-run prison,” King said. “Our people from Colorado are treated humanely, but that does not take away from the policy (issues).”

He said only prisons in Colorado have the proper oversight and regulations in place to properly hold the state’s convicts.

McFadyen said her tour of the North Fork Correctional Facility did nothing to change her view that the inmates need to be brought back to Colorado.

“It’s clear I don’t have a love for private prisons; in fact, I dislike them very much,” McFadyen said. “But I’d rather have my inmates in a private facility in Colorado than I would want them in a private facility outside the state.”

Nonetheless, McFadyen said until private prisons in Colorado expand enough to accommodate the men in the North Fork Correctional Facility, or the state uses its scarce capital development funds to build new prison cells, the 479 inmates in Oklahoma will have to stay there.

McFadyen said she plans to argue that leaving the inmates outside Colorado will end up costing the taxpayers more in the long run.

She said when inmates have access to their families, particularly through visitations, those convicts are less likely to reoffend and become again a burden on the state.

“I’d rather stem the tide of inmates,” McFadyen said. “Lowering recidivism benefits every taxpayer.”

Families of the North Fork Correctional Facility inmates have said since December 2006, when the inmates were first moved out of state, that the distant prison is too far away to visit in person.

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Grand Junction