NORMAN — The Cleveland County Sheriff’s Office dreams of going paperless. The only problem? The fine print.
At Monday’s regular meeting of the Cleveland County Justice Authority, Undersheriff Rhett Burnett said it would be nice to clean out the Cleveland County Jail’s two-to-three rooms filled with nothing but jail-specific documents, which could fill at least one three-car garage.
“I would love to get rid of jail records from 20 years ago,” Burnett said, “but I can’t. It’s silly to think that someone who was arrested for public drunkenness in 1985 still has a record in my jail.”
Cleveland County detention facilities have plans to purchase new scanning equipment, and they have plans to start scanning jail booking documents, but this won’t diminish the three-room document storage.
Burnett said the health department’s jail inspector requires jails to keep documentation on inmates forever, and paper copies must be retained for at least 10 years. He said the inspector’s requirement is based on jail standards and state law, so the jail can’t go paperless immediately, but they’re preparing for an eventual transition.
As Burnett awaits legislative action, jail officials are preparing to move all three rooms of files to the new F. DeWayne Beggs Detention Center, where the files will be placed in the jail’s expandable files for efficient storage and ease of access.
