Oklahoma County Jail CEO reflects on security, training, and staffing enhancements

Oklahoma County Jail CEO Brandi Garner will officially step down from her role on Friday.

Tuesday, February 4th 2025, 6:25 pm

By: Deanne Stein


Oklahoma County Jail CEO Brandi Garner will officially step down from her role on Friday. Garner took over as CEO in 2023, inheriting longstanding issues at the jail including high staff turnover and unsafe conditions. Garner submitted her resignation in January to focus on her family and her health and begin a new opportunity.

“Knowing that I have another opportunity that's less stress it was hard to not go ahead and take a chance,” she said, not ready to disclose her next move.

Before coming to the OCDC, Garner worked for the Cleveland County Sheriff’s Office. Garner admits she never had the desire to work in corrections and instead wanted to work in patrol. However, she was assigned to work inside the jail before being moved to the streets.

“My first day, it changed everything,” she remembers. “It's a very active job, there's a lot going on, you get to help people, solve their problems.”

One of her first priorities was addressing the jail’s retention issues, ramping up the cadet training program to eight weeks instead of two.

“Eight weeks is the longest academy that I’m aware of in the state and that’s huge,” Garner said. “We're doing everything we can to prepare people to work in this environment.”

Garner also tackled the issue of understaffing by utilizing contract employees who did not have direct contact with inmates.

“They don't have contact with our residents, but they do go around, and they do all of our site checks, they monitor them if they're out on rec from a secure location,” she said. “That's helped out a lot.”

Under her leadership, enhanced efforts were made to the investigative unit, adding staff including a crime analyst.

“We have greatly reduced the amount of contraband coming into this facility, we’re finding less of it,” Garner said.

In August 2024, the unit was involved in the investigation of two detention officers. Kaylyn Crawford and Xzavier Nicholson were arrested for smuggling contraband into the county jail. Garner credits the unit and policy changes for the reduction of contraband being brought in.

“Doing the mail scanning and the way that we vet mail that is still coming here which is legal mail, the searches that we're doing. We have partnerships through DOC, and they bring in their K9 units and do periodic searches,” Garner said. “We have greatly reduced the amount of contraband coming into this facility, we’re finding less of it.”

Another goal Garner accomplished is the creation of a wellness unit where employees can go to decompress. The unit also has a full-time counselor on staff.

“That’s one of the things that I’m really proud of, taking care of my staff and making sure that they are taken care of because if they're not being taken care of I can't expect that they're going to take care of others,” Garner said. “We have people that genuinely care about what's going on here that are trying so hard. We just have great people; I’m going to miss our people the most.”

Garner’s last day is Friday.

Deanne Stein

Deanne Stein is a reporter for News 9 in Oklahoma City. She grew up in Yukon, Oklahoma, and received her journalism degree from the University of Oklahoma. 

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