Felecia Jackson had mixed emotions when she received news that her husband, Eric Jackson, would be transferred from the James Crabtree Correctional Center in Helena to a sprawling private prison in Lawton.
The Lawton Correctional Facility is two hours closer by car to her home in Ardmore, allowing for cheaper and quicker trips to visit. But it was difficult to look past the prison’s violent reputation, with gruesome murders and allegations of subpar medical care frequently making headlines. The Oklahoma Department of Corrections called Lawton the state’s most violent prison as contract negotiations with The GEO Group, a Florida-based company that owns and operates the facility, grew contentious last summer.
Fears of violence have materialized since Eric Jackson arrived in early 2024. The Department of Corrections has investigated multiple homicides at the prison since a one-year contract extension was approved last June, including a case where a prisoner stabbed and partially decapitated his cellmate on March 5. Another prisoner allegedly used a piece of handmade string to murder his cellmate on Dec. 7.
Felecia Jackson said the GEO Group’s private business model, aimed at turning a profit on a per-prisoner per diem it receives from the state, has also been apparent and frustrating. Commissary items are more expensive, fees to use state-approved tablets are inflated and there are fewer programs to keep prisoners occupied, she said.
The GEO Group did not respond to a request for comment about a June 2024 statement vowing to increase program availability and out-of-cell time at the Lawton prison.
“I cannot stand Lawton,” Felecia Jackson said. “I despise that place being a private prison. They think they can just make their own rules and don’t have to follow policy.”
Felecia Jackson and other family members of prisoners at the Lawton facility said they are optimistic about the Department of Corrections’s pending purchase of the 2,600-bed prison, Oklahoma’s largest and only privately operated correctional facility that houses more than 10% of the state prison population.
“I have been a state employee, and I think they have higher standards and more to lose,” said Cherry Love, a Baltimore, Maryland resident whose son has complained of a monthslong wait to see a mental health professional while incarcerated at Lawton.
The House and Senate approved a pair of bills on Thursday to purchase the prison outright for $312 million. Gov. Kevin Stitt, who vetoed a per-diem increase for the Lawton prison last summer and has lauded efforts to close private prisons, said Wednesday he does not plan to veto any appropriations bills. The proposed purchase includes all assets within the facility, including vehicles, medical and kitchen equipment.
The move is poised to rid Oklahoma of private prisons for the first time since 1991, when the Great Plains Correctional Facility in Hinton opened. As recently as 2020, 23% of Oklahoma’s prison population was housed in private prisons, which have long faced criticism for cutting corners on food, staffing and medical care to turn a profit.
House Appropriations and Budget Chair Trey Caldwell, a Republican from Faxon whose district includes the private prison, said frustrations have been brewing on both sides for years. The Department of Corrections has bemoaned the high rate of violence, while The GEO Group claims violent prisoners had their security classification lowered to be eligible for placement at Lawton. He said the tensions have left the company unwilling to negotiate beyond a short-term, transitional contract extension.
Though the state has reduced its prison population by more than 15% over the past five years, Caldwell said most of the reduction has been at minimum security prisons, making vacating Lawton a logistically challenging proposition. The Department of Corrections said other vacant, privately owned prisons in the state, including the North Fork Correctional Facility in Sayre and Diamondback Correctional Facility in Watonga, have significant maintenance or staff recruitment issues.
“I know there are political concerns that private companies shouldn’t be in the prison business, but this piece of legislation is not a political statement,” Caldwell told members of the House Joint Committee on Appropriations and Budget on Monday. “It’s about how we fix a problem to keep our correctional officers safe and make sure we are being humane in our treatment of the people we have incarcerated.”
The Department of Corrections plans to offer state employment to all Lawton employees at or above their current wage, pending a background check, Chief of Public Relations Kay Thompson said. The agency anticipates the prison will begin operating as a state-run facility on Sept. 1.
Thompson said state prison officials plan to evaluate Lawton’s population and separate groups that are the most conflict-prone. She said the strategy has worked well at the Allen Gamble Correctional Facility in Holdenville, which transitioned from a private to a state-run facility in October 2023, and several other prisons, contributing to a 14% reduction in serious inmate assaults from fiscal year 2023 to 2024.
“While violence can still occur due to the nature of the incarcerated population, we make data-driven decisions that have consistently reduced incidents at Allen Gamble and systemwide,” Thompson said in a written statement.
State prison officials will review program offerings at Lawton and make additions as resources allow, Thompson said, but that process could take months.
At James Crabtree, Felecia Jackson said her husband benefited from numerous programs, including an anger management course and a wild horse training opportunity. At Lawton, she said most of the programs are run on state-issued tablets and men are lucky to get one hour of outdoor recreation time per week.
“They need more outlets so that the violence will stop,” she said. “If they have things to do to keep their mind busy, it would keep a lot of them off drugs, give them hope and give them something to work for. DOC has a lot of things like that they can implement at this facility to help.”
While the prison purchase deal is now headed to Stitt’s desk, it wasn’t an easy sell for several lawmakers. Senate Pro Tem Lonnie Paxton, R-Tuttle, said several members of the upper chamber were caught off guard with the request, which was not included in the Department of Corrections’ fiscal 2026 budget request, but that the state lacked alternatives.
“A lot of us were very uncomfortable feeling like we got information at the end and now we have to make a quick decision,” Paxton said. “That is concerning. But I am convinced of the need to make sure those 2,300 prisoners are properly incarcerated. That is not a group you want to furlough.”
Sen. Darcy Jech, R-Kingfisher, was among a bipartisan group of six senators to vote against the prison purchase bill. In a budget committee meeting, he said the Legislature and Department of Corrections should have been weighing solutions much sooner than the end of the legislative session.
“We shouldn’t be given a few weeks to consider this,” he said. “There are other options, other prisons.”
The GEO Group would also have had options had the state elected to move its prisoners out of Lawton. The company’s stock price has nearly doubled since President Donald Trump won the 2024 presidential election, with the company inking several deals to reopen former private prisons as immigration detention centers.
Keaton Ross covers democracy and criminal justice for Oklahoma Watch. Contact him at (405) 831-9753 or Kross@Oklahomawatch.org. Follow him on Twitter at @_KeatonRoss.
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