Locked up: Corrections challenges real and varied

The Oklahoma Editorial

Published: December 2, 2007

THIS has always been a law-and-order state. On the day Oklahoma entered the Union, the busy front page of The Oklahoman featured five crime-related stories, including one from Holdenville where a "strong posse” was in pursuit of a man who had shot and killed a prominent farmer during a quarrel over a cow.

Oklahomans still demand that crimes be punished, and they're getting their wish. Our prison population has grown more than eightfold in the past 30 years and now stands at more than 25,000. That figure is expected to reach nearly 29,000 by 2016, thanks in part to a seemingly never-ending stream of laws that make more crimes punishable by time behind bars.

As the state moves into its second century, changes in mind-set and policy will be needed to deal with this continuing problem. The challenge will be finding enough political backbone in the next generation of leaders to make it happen, because there isn't much of it on display presently.

Any talk of reforming the penal code immediately gets dismissed by legislators worried most about being re-elected. No one wants to be the person who promotes a bill that somehow results in the release of an inmate who later commits a violent crime. Most Oklahomans like the idea of stiff penalties for crimes, which is why 77 bills were introduced during the 2007 session that either created new crimes or increased sentences for laws already on the books.

Two laws that took effect Nov. 1 are examples. Each increased the minimum sentence that must be served, one for people convicted of child molestation and the other for those convicted of identity theft. The child molestation bill is expected to cost the Department of Corrections an additional $18,000 in the first year. In the 19th year, the cost is expected to be about $41.9 million.

We have no problem with putting violent criminals away for a long time. Where change must occur is in how the state deals with the large number of nonviolent criminals who wound up behind bars due to drug addiction or mental illness. Roughly half of the state's prison population is people serving time for drug use or distribution. The number of drug courts in Oklahoma has grown in recent years; expansion of those programs will be important during the next 20 to 30 years and perhaps beyond.

It seems inevitable that new prison space will be needed too, given population projections, the deteriorating conditions of our older lockups and the fact some private prisons in Oklahoma have rejected the state's proposed contracts. Lawmakers who are determined to send more people to prison must be willing to house them adequately — the present practice of double- and triple-celling inmates is dangerous to inmates and guards alike.

At the local level, it would be nice to see fewer than 77 county jails in Oklahoma three decades hence. A better system would be one in which regional jails would serve three or four counties. The state needed lockups in each county 50 or 75 years ago, when travel was much more difficult. That excuse no longer exists.

Oklahoma needs to continue efforts to combat gangs and lift residents out of poverty. Where prospects for economic gain are bleakest, addictions to cheap but highly addictive drugs such as methamphetamine are most prevalent.

These are difficult challenges but they must be faced with courage and resolve. A generation from now, do we really want to be known — as we are now — as a place whose incarceration rate is fourth-highest in the country and which locks up more women, per capita, than any other state?

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