Harper County, Oklahoma — The Jail, the Sheriff, the Judges

The Detention Center

The county publishes no formal name for this facility.

Operated byNot found
County publishes a jail nameNo — Harper County has no website
Name the STATE usesHARPER COUNTY DETENTION FACILITY — OSDH provider ID DET053
Address (state record)311 SE 1st, Buffalo, OK 73834
Population at last state inspection1 (census, 09/24/2025)
Rated capacityNot found
Last state inspection resultPASSED — annual inspection plus investigation C-2025-066; 'No deficient practice was cited.'
State inspectionOklahoma inspects this jail. Read the state report →

Source: Harper County — official source · checked August 21, 2026

Transparency rating

0/10Closed

✗The jail is named — not published
✗Who is in custody — not published
✗Beds and daily population — not published
✗What it costs taxpayers — not published
✗Deaths in custody — not published
✗PREA audits — not published
✗Independent inspection — not published
✗Who else it holds, and for how much — not published
✗How to post bond — not published
✗Phone, video and commissary rates — not published

This rates disclosure, not conduct — what Harper County publishes about a jail its taxpayers own, checked August 21, 2026. Nothing here says the jail is run well or badly. Every mark moves the moment the county posts the document.

The Building

You paid for it. Here is what the record says it cost.

Year builtNot found
Original costNot found
Paid for byNot found
BedsNot found

Since then

Not found

The Sheriff

Sheriff Thomas McClendon

NoteNOT confirmable from a Harper County-published source — Harper County publishes no website.

Still needed

Detention budget requested vs. approved, by year
Jail staffing levels and vacancy rate
Lawsuits and settlements involving the jail

Source: Harper County Sheriff's Office · checked August 21, 2026

The Judges

Oklahoma elects its district judges in nonpartisan elections. District and associate district judges set bond and decide who waits in this jail.

District Court, Judicial District 1

Hon. Aric Alley — Associate District Judge, Harper County (Harper County Courthouse, P.O. Box 511, Buffalo, OK 73834, (580) 735-2222)
Hon. Jon Parsley — District Judge, 1st Judicial District (chambers: Texas County Courthouse, 319 N. Main Street, Guymon, OK 73942, (580) 338-3412)

Harper County Courthouse, P.O. Box 511, Buffalo, OK 73834 — Court Clerk Susan Breon, P.O. Box 347, Buffalo, OK 73834, (580) 735-2010

Still needed

The county's bond schedule
Share of the jail population held pretrial
Median time from booking to first appearance

Source: the state judiciary · checked August 21, 2026

Notes on the record

DEAD/MISSING COUNTY WEBSITE: Harper County has NO official web presence — no county site, no sheriff site, no commissioner page. All ten disclosure checks are false. Only a Sheriff's Office Facebook page was located.
Sheriff's name (Thomas McClendon) rests on the Oklahoma Sheriffs' Association directory, not a county source.
The jail's only published identity is the state's: 'HARPER COUNTY DETENTION FACILITY' (OSDH DET053). The county writes no name for it.
Passed its most recent state inspection (09/24/2025) with no deficiencies, alongside investigation C-2025-066; the census that day was 1 person.
Notably, the Harper County Courthouse hosts the Associate District Judge for the 1st Judicial District, whose District Judge sits in Guymon, Texas County — roughly 100 miles away.
No public trust or jail authority identified; jail presumed sheriff-operated by statute.

These three offices decide who sits in a cell in Harper County and what it costs the people who live here. Nationally, almost 77% of the people who died in local jails in 2019 had not been convicted of anything, and suicide was the leading single cause of those deaths (Bureau of Justice Statistics, Mortality in Local Jails, 2000–2019).

How much is your sheriff — and your judge — costing you?

Your VOTE is POWERFUL.

The sheriff who runs this jail is elected. So are the commissioners who pay for it.

The sheriff is on your ballot

The county election board runs the polling place in Harper County and prints the ballot the sheriff’s name is on. Links from the Oklahoma State Election Board and vote.gov.

Names verified August 21, 2026 · dollars and outcomes still being gathered