TULSA, Okla. — The Tulsa County Detention Center (also known as the Family Center for Juvenile Justice, or FCJJ) is under a 60 day probation by the Oklahoma Juvenile Authority, a state agency, after a lawsuit filed claims pervasive abuse. It also follows the arrest of two former detention officers accused of sexual abuse and years of documented problems.
The Tulsa-based non-profit Oklahoma Appleseed Center for Law and Justice has stated for months that a temporary shutdown is the best solution to overhaul a systemic problem.
“The problem with running a detention center is it never stops, so you can’t reset anything, it’s always going, kind of like the mail,” said Colleen McCarty, Executive Director for Oklahoma Appleseed. She believes a shutdown would give the facility managers time to retrain staff and give the FCJJ a reboot.
The upcoming meeting agenda for the Tulsa County Board of County Commissioners includes discussing contracts for five other detention centers to make room for FCJJ residents, “should it be necessary.” However, 2 News is told by a Tulsa County spokesperson, those plans are not connected to a preparation for a shutdown of the facility, but in case of understaffing. There are resident-to-staff ratio requirements at detention centers. The spokesperson said the contracts are in place as a precaution, but that they have not been needed because the Tulsa County Sheriff’s Office has been assisting with staffing in recent weeks.
Joe Dorman, Executive Director for the Oklahoma Institute for Child Advocacy, calls the FCJJ situation in his recent column, “catastrophic,” but disagrees with a shutdown. He says the building is not the problem and believes it is much nicer than surrounding facilities. He said the kids would be further away from home as well as their legal resources. He does agree that staff needs change.
“A shutdown would be very dangerous for the stability and access for these individuals,” he said. “I do not disagree that we need an overhaul on personnel and tighten the ship immediately, but to relocate these kids would be a drastic mistake.”
Since the allegations surfaced, a personnel “overhaul” has not happened. Some defendants listed in the lawsuit are no longer employed at the FCJJ, but at last check, eight of them still are employed. That means many of the kids alleging abuse are still supervised by the alleged perpetrators.
Dorman says House Bill 2313, vetoed by Governor Kevin Stitt in 2021, would have allowed more state inspection authority and “would have helped prevent this catastrophe.” Dorman is in talks with legislators to bring the bill back for another try in the upcoming legislative session.
Also, this week, Appleseed sent a letter to all legislators, including Senate Pro Tem Greg Treat and House Speaker Charles McCall, requesting the creation of a Special Investigation Committee on Youth in Detention.
“We feel like there needs to be an investigation into the whole system,” said McCarty. “Specifically, regarding the Tulsa County Family Center for Juvenile Justice, but we have started getting tips from other facilities, too, now because we have worked on this pretty intensively.”
2 News reached out to Senator Treat’s office that said they are reviewing Appleseed’s letter and is in talks with Appleseed on potential next steps.
2 News also learned that the one civil lawsuit is looking to exceed the county’s legal budget by quite a bit. A one-month invoice came in at $42,000, according to a letter sent to the Tulsa County Budget Board from the Tulsa County Senior Budget Analyst.
The budget for FY 2025 was originally $100,000. At a recent budget meeting, the budget was tripled to $300,000.
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