Hamm said he agrees -- to a point.

"I believe there is some wisdom in putting people around you that have a lot of life experiences and who you can pull from and make good decisions," he said. "But I also believe that being younger, I'm going to have newer ideas. Plus, I have more experience as an employee of the Cleveland County sheriff's office than my opponent."

Additionally, Hamm said the next sheriff should look for "creative ways" of dealing with low-risk offenders.

"Obviously, someone who commits a heinous crime should be in jail," be said. "But I'm all for ankle monitoring and for using work crews and having inmates work on county roads and doing community service."

In a perfect world, he said the county would have a large enough facility to hold every inmate.

"But we don't live in a perfect world and we have to be wise and careful about how we spend our money."

Like Hamm, Lester said he, too, would look for alternative ways to sentence prisoners and ways to use inmate labor to save taxpayers' money.

"The sheriff should have a role in alternative sentencing," Lester said. "In fact, I believe we need to set up some form of assessment at the county jail level. We need to examine individuals who are incarcerated for, say, public drunk or DUI and examine them to see if there is a problem, if they might keep this habit."

Low-risk inmates, he said, should work on road crews and even farm their own food.

"I think we could set up a farm where the inmates grow their own vegetables. Those could be processed and used to reduce the food cost to the taxpayer. And any left over could be sold to the county's schools."

The new sheriff, he said, "should think outside the box."

"We need to consider issues and ask ourselves whether or not a person belongs in jail, or maybe, instead, a treatment center. The sheriff needs to be able to step outside the box."

A 22 year veteran of the Tulsa Police Department, Lester spent 12 years as the director of public safety and the chief of the University of Oklahoma's police force. He said his campaign would continue to build on his success from July.

"In the primary election we received the most votes," he said. "We're building on that and contacting more people. We've identified who it is we want to talk to and we've contacted those individuals and continue to reach out to them. We're not going to stop campaigning until 7 p.m. next Tuesday night."

Hamm, who spent 12 years with the Cleveland County's sheriff's office, said he worked his way up from a deputy at the detention center to the officer in charge of the sheriff's K-9 unit. He left the sheriff's office several years ago and currently works providing security for country singer Toby Keith. Hamm said he would continue to campaign "face to face."