Jack MoneyThe Oklahoman
Oklahoma County's jail operations are undergoing a generational transformation.
Over the next few months, its jailers will stop using pen and paper to log pod site checks, detainee interactions and reports about incidents inside the building and instead use smartphones equipped with appropriate software to do all that, and more.
The use of software to keep tabs on detainees and their behaviors is a standard operating procedure in many jails across the country.
But until recently, staff inside of the Oklahoma County jail had to keep those records by writing them down, line-by-line inside of paper log books, creating headaches for those officers, their supervisors and anyone else who review those records for audits or inspections.
Missing records discovered during an inspection by the Oklahoma State Department of Health last year, for example, were one of the problems the agency found with the Oklahoma County jail's operations then.
"That's a very archaic way of keeping track of our information," said jail CEO Brandi Garner.
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"When we have to pull records or we want to audit to ensure things are in compliance, it has been a matter of going and physically pulling the log books and making copies, page by page by page," she said.
"And then, you don't have a way of filtering and sorting that information. If I were looking for site checks, for example, I would have to go through with a highlighter and mark every single one before I could evaluate whether or not they were done within compliance.
"I guess, if I wanted to do data entry for hours upon hours, I could record the information manually in a spreadsheet, but we are trying to get away from that," she said.
Hardware, not just software, was a problem for Oklahoma County jail administrators
Oklahoma County's current jail administrators have wanted to modernize their data tracking systems since taking over the building in 2020 after nearly three decades of operations under Oklahoma County's sheriff, but its information technology infrastructure was woefully underbuilt to meet that task.
Its network lacked redundancies and offered only limited Wi-Fi capabilities.
Addressing those issues took money, which only became available through federal dollars allocated by Congress through the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021.
Jeff Ama, the jail's information technology director, began requesting dollars to begin to rebuild the building's data network in July 2022.
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Actual work on the $1.4 million project to install new cabling and to improve the network's reliability and to extend wireless services throughout the building began in October 2023.
New wiring and cable needed to be pulled throughout the building, plus Wi-Fi extenders needed installed before staff could even begin to think about using software to keep track of its operations.
The county also used another $400,000 in federal funds to independently obtain internet service and licensing for the software packages its staff will be using, going forward.
Who designed the software the jail is using to track its detainees, and what does it do?
Oklahoma County's jail administrators chose JailTracker, a company established in Kentucky in 1988 that develops software used by correctional facilities across 29 states.
Its simplified data collection and formatting programs work on PCs, tablets and even through an app on smartphones carried by jailers making their rounds.
Its features work together to make JailTracker "the most straightforward, easy to use solution on the market," its website states. "Jail management is all we do."
Inside of Oklahoma County's jail, detention officers already are using the software (with paper-record backups, for now) to log routine site checks of detainees inside pods and to log meal deliveries to each detainee held inside the building.
In a situation where a detainee declines three meals in a row, the software is programmed to alert the jail's administrators and medical staff, giving them a chance to investigate the issue before the detainee's health is jeopardized, Garner said.
"That gives us a way to catch things like that a lot earlier on," Garner said, "and those are just a few of the ways this new software will help."
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Beyond that, jailers soon will be using the software to log when medications are delivered to detainees (and whether or not they took them), various other interactions jailers have with detainees and to file reports about incidents happening inside the building that could affect an employee or detainee's status.
Upgraded Wi-Fi service also has improved Turn Key Health Clinic's ability to log interactions it has with detainees when it provides them with medical services.
Detainees can be identified using barcodes on their wristbands, or through taking a photograph of the inmate's face, which uses facial recognition software to verify their identities. That process also pulls up each detainee's history inside the jail, including current privileges or disciplinary restrictions.
"When we remove somebody from a pod, we can note that, enter where we are taking them: out to court, up to the clinic, or out of a pod for an interview or an attorney's visit," Garner said.
"Anytime we have anything going on with them, we scan and track it."
Additionally, the system has accountability curbs built in. It won't accept a scan saying a site check has been completed until sufficient time has passed since the initial scan to actually perform that function, Garner said.
Soon, all jail incident reports will be filed using the software, as well, eliminating past situations where reports failed to make it to appropriate jail administrators for review.
"That's another important component to this upgrade. Once it is in the system, it can't be lost and it allows us to ensure that reports are being filed as they should to hold our staff more accountable," Garner said.
The jail's staff began training on how to use the software in March, and Garner expects the jail's operations to be paperless later this year.
Using JailTracker, Garner said staff will more easily be able to self-assess its operations and to provide information to outside inspectors when they come calling.
That will save both parties time and hopefully help the jail avoid past inspection-related problems where it was cited for missing or incomplete records, Garner said.
"When we are asked to produce records, it ties up my staff sometimes for two to three days as they scan in log books, reports and other records and then make copies, requiring regulators to carry out boxes and boxes of paper," she said.
"But moving forward, when an inspector requests records, all we will have to do is go into JailTracker, put in the parameters of what we want, generate the data and hand it to them on a thumb drive."
