Matthew Treat died of a fentanyl overdose on his bunk at Oklahoma’s last remaining private prison. When guards found his body, he had been dead for “a while,” and a foul odor had begun to waft out of the cell, a prison staffer later told an investigator.

Treat is one of three prisoner deaths in 2023 at the Lawton Correctional and Rehabilitation Facility where guards were later found to have skipped security checks and falsified records.

For-profit prison operator The Geo Group tried to negotiate a $3-million pay increase to run the Lawton prison earlier this year. The company was battling wage inflations and staffing shortages and a lack of additional funding would “exacerbate our significant challenges,” The Geo Group said in a press release.

While the company was asking for a raise, it struggled to meet security standards in Lawton, records show. The Geo Group violated its contract with the state by failing to lock prisoners in their cells, conduct security checks, and leaving prisoners alone in pods without staff supervision, the Department of Corrections said in a letter it sent the company in April. In May, the company responded and admitted that staff had falsified records in the three deaths, but they had fired the employees. The company said it was working to upgrade a prison camera system.

The Geo Group didn’t respond to The Frontier’s request for comment.

Treat’s death went unnoticed while prison staff allowed unsupervised prisoners to manage the laundry and distribute meal trays to other men who were locked down in their cells, according to an investigative report.

Treat’s mother, Debbie Hand, said she got a phone call from a prison nurse in March 2023 who “coldly” informed her of her son’s death and asked if she wanted his belongings. 

“I just want people to be aware of what kind of facility that is and what kind of people they’re employing that aren’t looking after your loved ones,” Hand said. “They’re just treating them like they’re nothing. And my child was more than a number.”

Oklahoma prison officials said in the April letter that lack of supervision and security checks also contributed to two other 2023 deaths at the Lawton prison.

Loren Dean Tucker, 31, died in May 2023 after officers didn’t conduct security checks. Two prisoners allegedly assaulted Tucker in his cell, leaving him bleeding from stab wounds to his back and blunt-force trauma to his head, around 9 p.m. on May 5. Staff didn’t find Tucker until 2:40 a.m. the next day. The two prisoners accused in the attack are now facing first-degree manslaughter charges. 

Correctional officers allowed prisoners to roam around the pod when they should have been locked down on the night Tucker was killed, according to an investigative report. 

Lawton prison staff found Raymond Bailey’s body underneath milk jugs in a gray trash can in October 2023. He had been gagged, hogtied and stabbed multiple times, according to a medical examiner’s report. Surveillance cameras last showed Bailey entering a cell about 12 hours before prison staff learned of his death, according to an investigative report.

Ten Geo Group employees were fired or resigned after the 2023 deaths, according to the April letter. 

Prison guards who falsify records can face criminal charges in Oklahoma. Adam Panter, the Pottawatomie County District Attorney, said falsifying records would fall under multiple statutes. It’s a felony for correctional officers to falsify records and it can be punishable by a $1,000 fine and a maximum imprisonment for two years.

The Department of Corrections is responsible for investigating potential crimes and forwards all reports to the local district attorney’s office. But, Comanche County District Attorney Kyle Cabelka said the agency hasn’t sent any investigations against the officers who falsified documents to his office.

Kay Thompson, a spokesperson for the Department of Corrections, didn’t respond to interview questions about why the agency hasn’t sent cases against the officers to the district attorney for prosecution. 

When The Geo Group asked Oklahoma for a $3-million pay increase this year, it would have increased the cost of the contract to run the Lawton prison to an annual $51 million. The Department of Corrections said in a press release that Oklahoma had already given The Geo Group $6.8 million in additional funding over the last four years, but prison conditions hadn’t improved. 

Gov. Kevin Stitt vetoed a bill to give The Geo Group a raise. He said on social media the prison was dangerous and the company hadn’t fixed issues for several years. After the veto, The Geo Group sent a discontinuation letter in June telling the state it would end the contract to run the Lawton prison.

“Upon extensive consideration of the current funding levels and resources relative to the present service requirements, we have determined that we are no longer willing to manage the 2,600-bed Lawton Correctional and Rehabilitation Facility without changes to financial and operational terms,” the letter said. 

Oklahoma didn’t have room to transfer the 2,600 men in Lawton to other prisons, a spokesperson for the Department of Corrections said. 

Department of Corrections Executive Director Steven Harpe said at a board meeting in June that the Lawton prison was the most dangerous facility in the state. Additionally, the Lawton prison houses numerous prisoners with mental illnesses. The Geo Group said in a letter to the Department of Corrections in July 2023 that it had seen an increase in prisoners with moderate to severe mental illness, resulting in numerous self-harm incidents. The letter stated that the number of Lawton prisoners suffering from moderate or severe mental health issues had risen from 878 to 919 over the previous year. 

The prison is home to medium and maximum-security prisoners. About 200 of the prisoners in Lawton are in protective custody, which includes incarcerated police officers and prisoners trying to leave gangs, according to the Department of Corrections.

The Department of Corrections could negotiate a one-year deal to cut the number of prisoners in Lawton and also pay the company a reduced rate. The prison now houses 2,375, according to the most recent population count.

The Department of Corrections is scheduled to take over operations of the Lawton prison in 2025. 

“There is new leadership at LCRF that will ensure the proper changes are made and get the current staff ready for the switchover,” Thompson said. “We are confident this will begin making LCRF a less violent prison now.”

Hand said she always worried about Treat’s well-being because the prison had a dangerous reputation among families and she isn’t sure a state takeover will stop the violence. 

Last October, the agency took over Davis Correctional Center from CoreCivic, another private prison contractor. The prison routinely had frequent stabbings and lockdowns because of insufficient staffing before the takeover. Thompson told The Frontier, there had been a significant decrease in violence since the agency took control of the prison. The facility still struggled with understaffing after the takeover.

Hand has three children. She described Treat, her first-born, as a funny and caring man. She said ‌the grief and shock from his sudden death makes her feel like she’s going through the motions of life. Treat was serving a 10-year prison sentence for robbing a woman at gunpoint in Tulsa County in 2021.

Hand said she believed he would be safer behind bars because he got mixed up in drugs and crime after his grandmother passed away in 2010. She said she thought her son would receive rehabilitation while incarcerated. 

“It’s not reform. I spent so many years praying to get him off the street, even lock him up,” she said. “At least he’ll have food and he’ll be taken care of. How wrong I was is unbelievable.”