Photograph by Jimmywayne by way of Flickr
At a time when justice reform has more and more come underneath fireplace across the nation, with hardliners citing rising crime charges, a brand new report highlights Oklahoma’s success in lowering its jail populations.
Over the previous 5 years, a sequence of reform payments, handed with bipartisan help from state legislators, led to a 21 % decline in jail inhabitants—from 28,342 in 2017 to 22,341 in 2022— in a state which as soon as had the best incarceration price within the nation.
In contract, between 1978 and 2016, Oklahoma’s jail inhabitants soared 615 %, from barely over 4,000 folks to virtually 30,000.
Because the reforms, “Oklahoma’s prison justice system has reduced in size, inexpensive, extra truthful, and extra simply,” claimed the report by FWD.us, a nonprofit justice assume tank.
Amongst different achievements, The variety of folks charged with a felony offense has fallen by one-third, and the variety of folks imprisoned for drug offenses dropped by 62 % over the identical 5 yr interval.
Reform measures accredited by the legislature included lowering sentences for low-level drug and property crimes, streamlining the parole course of for nonviolent offenses, and increasing alternatives for document expungement.
Taken collectively,, the measures have had a optimistic influence on people and households most liable to involvement with the justice system, concluded the report, entitled, “Turning the Web page: Oklahoma’s Legal Justice Reform Story.”
“Greater than 15,000 folks every year will now have a neater time discovering and retaining a job, sustaining secure housing, and supporting their households,” the report stated.
However the report additionally made clear that there was an extended solution to go.
The state nonetheless had the nation’s third-highest general imprisonment price and the second-highest ladies’s imprisonment price, and famous the justice system was “deeply distorted alongside racial strains.”
“Black individuals are almost 5 instances extra more likely to be in jail than white folks and racial disparities are worse in the present day than earlier than this current interval of reform,” the report stated.
Oklahoma jail sentences for property crimes similar to larceny and fraud have been on common almost twice so long as in different states, and greater than twice as lengthy for drug sale or trafficking convictions—35 months in Oklahoma in comparison with a mean of 17 months.
“This cussed reliance on growing jail sentences reasonably than investing in frequent sense coverage adjustments comes at a monumental price to taxpayers,” the report stated.
“Oklahoma spends greater than $552 million on the jail system every year with none actual public security advantages.”
The report concluded: “Oklahoma’s prison justice reform story continues to be written ( however) the enhancements which have been made to the prison justice system within the final 5 years present that progress is feasible.”
FWD.us was established as a nonprofit bipartisan advocacy group for immigration and justice reform in 2013 with help from Silicon Valley entrepreneurs, and led by principal Fb founder Mark Zuckerberg.
The complete report could be downloaded right here.
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