The Oklahoman Editorial Board Published: January 3, 2016 ROBERT Patton’s tenure as director of the Oklahoma Department of Corrections was marked by controversy. Now his departure is doing the same. Patton’s decision to take a job with a private prison company in his home state of Arizona has the attention of an Oklahoma lawmaker who says that at the very least, it violates the spirit of a state conflict-of-interest law. “Enough of those things and people start losing their faith in government,” Rep. Mark McCullough told Oklahoma Watch.