A report this year by the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics found that Oklahoma has the deadliest prisons in the nation. With two inmate deaths this week, it seems like the state is on course to continue that trend.
On Wednesday, a 52-year-old inmate at the North Fork Correctional Facility in Sayre was found in his cell, unresponsive with stab wounds. Authorities transported Stephen Maxwell, the injured inmate, to an Elk City hospital, where he was pronounced dead. Officials have ruled his death a homicide. At the time of his death, Maxwell was serving a 200-year sentence for a 1996 conviction for lewd molestation in Rogers County.
The same day, prison officials at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAlester found a death row inmate unresponsive during a routine check of his cell. Prison medical staff attempted lifesaving measures on inmate Jared Williams Jones, 37, but their efforts were unproductive. Jones was declared dead at roughly 10:00 a.m. Wednesday. Jones was sentenced to death after a 2003 shooting spree inside an Oklahoma City home that killed three people and left two others injured. He was convicted of three counts of first degree murder and two counts of shooting with intent to kill. Jones claimed the shooting was in self-defense after he was "trapped inside the house with a crazed mob of methamphetamine users." His case was under appeal after a judge upheld his conviction but ordered re-sentencing, finding that a judge had withheld evidence from the jury. Jones's death is under investigation.
As for the report that called Oklahoma prison the nation's deadliest, the Bureau of Justice Statistics found that from 2001 to 2014, Oklahoma had the nation's second-highest prison homicide rate, with more than double the national average. Oklahoma, with a rate of 13 killings per 100,000 state and federal inmates, was second only to Maine, a state with a rate of 14 killings per 100,000 inmates. Still, experts cautioned that Maine's prison population resulted in a sample size too small to be reliable.
The state also had the second highest accidental death rate, again coming in second only to a state with a small, unreliable sample size.
Oklahoma's overall prison mortality rate, including all prison deaths--natural, accidental, and intentional homicide--was 324 per 100,000 inmates, tying with Mississippi for sixth highest in the nation. While prison officials blame poor health and an aging inmate population for the high mortality rate, it does not go unnoticed that Oklahoma ranks higher in prison murder and accidental death rates than in overall prison mortality rate. This report lends further support to the notion that Oklahoma prisons are overcrowded, understaffed, and underfunded.
