News & Notes

Posted by Megan Drummond Apr 27, 2007

Oklahoma recently opened a unit at the Joseph Harp Correctional Facility to house prisoners with disabilities or chronic illness. The unit occupies its own building on the prison grounds and is the Oklahoma prison system's "ADA facility." Prison officials expect the unit to fill up quickly. Most of the beds are in an open bay, the restrooms and shower stalls are accessible and nondisabled inmates will work as orderlies.

There are opponents to the new accessible prison, however. These opponents believe this ADA facility is not a good idea because it takes disabled prisoners out of the general population and claim that they will suffer more because of this once they are released from prison and forced to integrate with others.