According to Dictionary.com, normal is defined as –“conforming to the standard or the common type; usual; not abnormal; regular.”
Usually, (normally?), this word has a reassuring connotation. We want normal lab results, normal pre-COVID times, and normal kids (sorry, mom and dad), but when it’s applied to the living conditions at the Oklahoma County Jail, the term is as reassuring as seeing a tri-color lightbar in your rearview mirror.
The Oklahoma County Jail is no stranger to criticism. According to an article by the Frontier, the jail has been slow to keep up with maintenance, mandates, and manpower. With an inmate annual mortality rate that was over 3x higher than the national average from 2016 to 2019, people have been raising concerns about the jail’s living conditions for years. Unfortunately, conditions seem to have worsened since the pandemic.
In order to decrease the population during the initial COVID-19 outbreak, the jail released approximately 10% of its residents, but the overcrowding problem is still significant. According to this article by News 9, as of last month about 20% of inmates are forced to sleep on the floor due to lack of beds and health hazards such as mold and bedbugs continue to plague the facility.
Side note: If it was so easy to release 10% of the county jail’s residents when the pandemic started, why were they incarcerated in the first place?