OKPOLICY.ORG
Last week, Senator David Bullard, R-Durant, sponsored an interesting and important interim study on insurance rates for county jails before the Senate Local and County Government Committee, chaired by Sen. Warren Hamilton, R-McCurtain. The study featured testimony from several county commissioners whose jail liability insurance had become unavailable in satisfactory amounts either due to the increased cost of premiums, reduction of coverage by the insurance companies, or exclusions to the counties’ general liability insurance.
While the tendency is to “blame the lawyers,” the commissioners for the most part were frank and honest about the limitations of their jails that result in liability when inmates are injured. They discussed jail deaths, rapes, and assaults that led to lawsuits, some of which were tried or settled.
The first point made clear is that many inmates arrive with serious challenges. They are arrested with mental health, health, substance use, and other issues one might expect. Some are suicidal. The jails are often not staffed to handle them but they, in most instances, cannot refuse to accept them.
Beyond inmate challenges, the jails themselves are inadequate. In some instances, they are understaffed, undertrained, and have inadequate or no policies and procedures. Counties overall are underfunded; thus, the sheriff’s offices and jails are often also underfunded. They become ripe for lawsuits when an inmate is injured or dies, which is not an unusual circumstance.
Most commissioners cited uncapped federal civil rights damages against counties, limited mental health funding, and inadequate staffing as major concerns. Several counties have had multiple federal court settlements, and when insurance coverage or available funds are insufficient to cover the judgment, the money is collected through increased property taxes on the county property owners.
It seems this issue is ripe for a solution. The lawsuits are increasing, and the settlements and awards are getting larger. The federal law is longstanding, and is likely not going to change, nor should it. In this case, the law is working as it should.
It really is the obligation of society, when we lock someone up in jail, to protect them from violence or death. When we don’t do what we ought to do, we get sued. When we get hit often enough, it creates an incentive to fix the problem. That’s what’s happening with county jails. It’s getting too expensive to overlook.
Several solutions were mentioned, including possible regional jails or state funding for inmate mental health treatment. It seems like both ideas have merit. Some counties are simply too unpopulated and too underfunded to properly provide an adequate jail facility. Regional facilities could provide efficiencies of scale and make policies, training, and services available when needed.
There is justification for the state to provide funding for regional detention facilities because many of the inmates are in jail for violation of state laws. In the end, they are there because the state put them there. One wonders why the counties should be wholly responsible for their incarceration.
Another part of the solution might be to lower the number of people incarcerated awaiting trial. One of the problems with addressing pretrial reform has been the likely cost of state dollars, but the savings to jails benefit counties, not the state. If the state were a more responsible partner with the counties, pretrial reform would be more readily seen as a savings of state dollars.
It’s a complex issue that costs money and lives, and it’s not going away. Kudos to Sen. Bullard and the committee for starting to look for solutions.
