LAWTON, Okla. (KSWO) - It’s now 2024 and our correctional facilities are facing more problems now that the state has decided to begin phasing out GEO Group, a private organization that operates prisons for profit.

These facilities are meant for rehabilitation and they’re funded by taxpayer dollars.

When you have people dying after things such as drugs or phones are brought inside these facilities, they’re not only failing that person’s family, but the everyday taxpayer too.

“We have to do something...something major,” said Criminal Defense Attorney Ken Sue Doerful, back in 2016.”The prisons are packed and people get killed almost every week. The drugs, the cell phones, all the contraband that comes into the jails and prisons. There’s no way to stop it because we don’t have any money to police it inside.”

One of the arguments Doerful made back then was prisons were overcrowded with people charged with ‘possession of illegal drugs’ which was a felony.

While it’s now considered a misdemeanor, it’s a case-by-case scenario, where there are instances for it to be raised to a felony charge.

Stephens County District Attorney Jason Hicks said in 2016 that other steps were being considered to lower Oklahoma’s Prison population.

“There can be a higher release rate through the parole board and putting some money into parole, and putting some money into having enough detention officers to make sure they have someone to report to. I think this would be a step in the right direction,” Hicks said.

Fast forward to 2018 when the Oklahoma Department of Corrections Reported seizing more than seven cell phones from inmates in state prisons.

“I mean, theoretically most people probably think prison should be the most secure facility around, and I can say that that’s not the case at all,” said Comanche County District Attorney Kyle Cabelka.

Phones are one of the most dangerous pieces of contraband, according to him.

“Not only does it give them the ability to reach outside of the prison walls, talk to people on the streets, to either get drugs moved, to get people hurt or killed and still operate whatever type of business dealings or operations they’re doing,” Cabelka said.

For the five years between 2018 and 2023, officials with the Department of Corrections said they confiscated over 20,000 cell phones.

This was such an issue that the Cell Phone Jamming Reform Act of 2023 was introduced multiple times by the Oklahoma Senate which would allow “a state or federal correctional facility to operate a jamming system to interfere with cell phone signals within inmate housing facilities.”

This corresponds with a tweet from Senator James Lankford sent at the beginning of the year.

“The more we can do to prevent the rampant use of contraband cell phones in jails which act as a gateway for criminal activity both inside and outside of prisons—the more families, victims & communities will feel safe and secure. States need jamming authority now,” the tweet read.

However, the act never received a vote, dying out.

This creates dangerous situations for corrections officers in these facilities. In one instance, a correctional officer for the then-Davis Correctional Facility, a privately owned prison in Oklahoma, was killed after an inmate attacked him.

“You had some of the worst individuals accessible of violence out like a normal medium-security inmate had access to the guard’s crazy ideas to make weapons all the time and the amount of drugs that flow into these yards is unacceptable,” said Jeremy Lynch, a former correctional officer.

In the next year, Davis Correctional Facility was taken over by the Department of Corrections where it became the now-Allen Gamble Correctional Center.

The facility was dedicated to a Sergeant who was killed inside the Oklahoma State Reformatory in Granite, by an inmate.

Gamble was responding to a distress call by another guard who was stabbed 13 times.

The Oklahoma State Reformatory, where all death row inmates are held, has also had a trend of contraband smuggling.

In one week, there were five cases of people attempting to bring in contraband.

According to law enforcement and court documents, they see cases like this every week and it’s all orchestrated from the inside.

“It’s a big problem for us from this standpoint,” said District 3 District Attorney David Thomas. “Presently, the Greer County Jail holds 36 prisoners. Today, 41% of those are people that are charged with making prison drops, or bringing contraband into the prison.”

Thomas stated the sad reality is gang members who find their way inside prison, don’t usually change for the better when contraband is a prevalent influence.

“We’re probably catching just a small amount of what is actually going in,” stated Greer County Sheriff Steven McMahon.

Being caught with contraband could land people in prison for up to five years, or keep inmates behind bars for up to another 20 years. However, some inmates have nothing to lose.

“Especially when it’s a life without parole type of case, there’s very little punishment that my office can enact, a court can enact on a guy that’s never getting out of prison anyways,” Cabelka added. “And so sometimes, not always, but sometimes in cases like that, we choose not to file just because it’s kind of a waste of resources and time to file on a guy that’s short of the death penalty.”

When asked about solutions, every official 7News has spoken with over the many years of prison-related stories all say the same thing, there isn’t one.

“They’re coming up with new and different ways to get in the contraband, so we have to come in and come up with different ways to stop it,” said Kay Thompson, the Chief of Public Relations for the Oklahoma Department of Corrections. “It’s a continuous process. It’s a learning process. Working together with other law-enforcement agencies, doing more training. Just making everyone more aware.”

While officials say there is not a perfect solution, that hasn’t stopped the Oklahoma Legislature from trying to pass legislation to at least help dampen contraband smuggling.

Whether these measures will go into effect, is based on a myriad of factors. If they do, your 7News team will be watching to see how they affect the contraband issue in Oklahoma prisons.

Until then, contraband poses a severe threat to the safety of inmates and staff alike, according to multiple studies. Stay tuned to KSWO Investigates Behind Bars in Oklahoma as we look at increases in inmate violence and employee conditions.