County Commissioners Vote On A New Jail Location Near Will Rogers World Airport

County commissioners have decided on a location for the new Oklahoma County Detention Center. The new jail will be near Will Rogers World Airport.

After months of discussions, County Commissioners unanimously voted on a new jail location.

"It’s located near south Newcastle Road and SW 54th street,” Carrie Blumbert said.

This is near the Will Rogers World Airport and the Federal Transfer Center. It's 192 acres. Myles Davidson said unlike the current jail this offers plenty of space for expansion.

“It's our incarceration rate that we need to focus on. We want to keep that number where it is so we can keep expanding where our population expands,” Myles Davidson said.

County commissioners also see there being space for other services like a behavioral health center that will be paid for with ARPA funding. This money must be committed by the end of next year, “Good space for medical care, good space for behavioral health care, so we are really looking forward to having diversion partners actually on site at the new facility,” Blumbert said.

A big thing commissioners said they considered was that it is not near neighborhoods or schools, but defense lawyer Robin McPhail Bruno said they should've put more thought into distance from the courthouse as well. She said it's a hassle now to get inmates to court on time.

“We're waiting around the courthouse waiting to deal with a case where a client was supposed to deal with a case set at 9 a.m. and they're not said until 1:30 p.m.,” McPhail Bruno said.

“We're all going to have to become better partners we also going to have to start using technology better. We used technology in a great way during Covid,” Davidson said.

The next step is to present the vote to city council and the Oklahoma City airport trust. They can either give the final stamp of approval or say we want other sites to be considered.