Overcrowding not a new problem for the Tulsa County jail system

Ironically, a county jail built to ease a serious overcrowding problem has now become overcrowded itself.

In 1992, Sheriff Stanley Glanz became one of the first sheriffs in the country to erect tents to house prisoners.

It was March, and the jail -- then on the 8th and 9th floors of the Tulsa County Courthouse -- was 96 prisoners over capacity, with a total jail population of 770 according to media accounts at the time.

Sheriff Glanz borrowed 5 tents, 100 cots, and some portable toilets from the Oklahoma National Guard and set up a "tent city" two years before Sheriff Joe Arpaio became famous for his in Arizona.

By early June, the Oklahoma Department of Health had informed the sheriff that they had to alleviate some "deficiencies" after heavy rain turned the area into a mud pit.

A lack of smoke detectors and heaters added to the problems, and TCSO decided it was easier to shut down the tent city than to fix it.

Just more than twenty years later, the David L. Moss Correctional Center is now overflowing as well, with about 2,000 prisoners in a facility designed to hold no more than 1,714, and which is actually full at about 1,650 due to the necessity to keep a certain number of areas separated by gender.