Payne County Jail expands trusty system to women

By Tim Ahrens 

The Payne County Jail, like many other county jails according to Sheriff R.B. Hauf, relies heavily on inmates in trusty programs to keep things running in the jail. 

That could range anywhere from working in the jail's garden, which saved Payne County Sheriff's Office about $5,000 a month in 2015 in reduced food costs to preparing meals under the chef's supervision. Regardless of the task, it plays a large part in keeping the jail operating.

"I think county jails across the United States have to rely on trustees," Hauf said. "They do the cooking, cleaning, dishwashing, laundry … we run two shifts of trusties, a nighttime and a daytime. There’s no way we could staff that with employees. No county could."

Recently, that meant Payne County Jail began to place female inmates in the trusty program, which essentially cuts sentences in half for inmates eligible based on their sentences as long as they worked in the trusty program and didn't do anything to get their program status revoked.

"Well, when you’re sentenced, you could get sentenced to jail time or straight time," Undersheriff Kevin Woodward said. "Straight time you get day for day. If you get jail time you get – unless the court says otherwise – for every four days you spend in there, you get an extra day."

Hauf chimed in this means for every 24 days served in county jail by the applicable inmate, it equates to a month, or 30 days, of time in the jail. Inmates have the opportunity to take more time off their stay in county jail by working as a trusty, a process that is at the sole discretion of the jail's staff and, ultimately, the administration. As Hauf referred to himself, it's through the discretion of the elected official.

"The structure of the jail’s like this; the staff works with the inmates in that they know them. The administration doesn’t, so the staff makes recommendations to their supervisors, who then make recommendations to the administration," Capt. Reese Lane, who oversees jail operations, said. "We then talk about it and interview the inmate. We try to pick the inmates that are not gonna be a threat to us or anyone else as a trusty. So far, it’s worked pretty well.

"A lot of times, you get repeat offenders – we’re not really interested in them, for the most part – and sometimes there’s a guy who’s an alcoholic who’s gonna be a great worker. But if you get someone who’s a first-time offender that you really don’t have any reason to believe is going to re-offend, then that’s also somebody we’re interested in taking a look at.

Woodward said the Payne County Jail began to consider and put women in the program because of a recent case out of federal court concerning a female inmate at an Arkansas county jail, who alleged that she and other inmates were discriminated against because they did not have the same opportunities to work off some of their time as male inmates were.

The inmate won the lawsuit, and now Payne County has women in the trusty program to avoid any potential issue happening. Two of the first female inmates in the program? Tristen Taylor, who was convicted of second-degree manslaughter in the 2014 shooting death of Alex Vierling, and Adacia Chambers, recently sentenced in the deaths of four people in the Oklahoma State homecoming parade crash in 2015. 

Taylor has since been released from Payne County Jail after originally receiving an eight-month sentence in November based on her participation in the jail's trusty system. Woodward said that the nature of the crime does not determine who can become a trusty, but rather how staff and others see the inmates during daily interactions that lead to recommendations passed through the ranks. Regardless, the early release of someone found guilty in the death of another has raised some public unrest.

"In her case, like Reese and Kevin said, she was a good candidate for being a trusty," Hauf said. "She didn’t have a drug or alcohol problem, she hadn’t been in and out of jail all the time or been to prison, she was in college (at the time of the crime). Very rarely do we see people that way. Most people are repeat offenders, or sober up and then they’re fine. There was no reason not to work her if she wanted to work.

"And they don’t have to be sentenced to be a trusty. They could be in pretrial; if we have the space, need a trusty and they’re willing to work, even though they’re not getting any credits but they’re not sentenced."

Female trusties will be working with the new Goodwill store at 801 E. Lakeview Rd. after Lane was able to make arrangements with Nyree Cunningham-Pullen, the vice president of program development for Goodwill Industries of Central Oklahoma. Hauf said this will coincide with the department's goal to get inmates gainfully employed once their time in the jail is up and they're back in public.

"They use a lot of labor from people who are basically needy people," Lane said. "So I just contacted them, asking if they wanted some free labor. It gives us the opportunity to work our female trusties apart from the male trusties. They’ll be out of the line of sight, working in the back separating bins and doing the stuff that has to be done so Goodwill can keep their prices where they’re at."