Project for Opportunity and Safety

Time to reform broken criminal justice system — in Oklahoma and as a nation

The impact of mass incarceration is far-reaching and continues to devastate families and communities across our nation. Since 1980, the federal prison population has grown from roughly 24,000 to 214,000 inmates. The U.S. now holds the largest prison population in the world. As the incarcerated population is growing rapidly, prison costs are skyrocketing and hard-working Americans are left to finance it.

Behind these statistics are real people. While these individuals should be held accountable for their actions, many are low-level offenders whose sentences do more harm than good through exposure to anti-social environments and failure to address root causes of behavior.

Long sentences that overpopulate our prisons often fostering even more crime. Mandatory prison sentences for low-level offenders increase the likelihood for future criminal involvement and increased recidivism. Additionally, long sentences create challenges for individuals to successfully re-enter society due to the inability to find jobs or access the proper mental and physical help to be productive members of society. Consequently, our current criminal justice system is tearing families apart and perpetuating a vicious cycle of incarceration, poverty and injustice.
It’s time to reform our broken criminal justice system both at the state and national level. In Oklahoma, there has been increasing support for criminal justice reform. As a leader of Oklahomans for Criminal Justice Reform, I stress the need to mobilize our communities to achieve significant changes to our state’s criminal justice laws.

Oklahomans for Criminal Justice Reform recently collected more than 230,000 signatures to place State Questions 780 and 781 before voters on November’s ballot. These measures seek to reduce prison overcrowding and increase community mental health services by reforming the sentence structure for low-level offenders. State Question 780 seeks to reclassify low-level offenses like simple possession of drugs and property crimes under $1,000 to misdemeanors punishable by treatment in the community. State Question 781 aims to reallocate taxpayer resources to increase treatment services and mental health care for individuals who need help.

These initiatives will lead to a reduction in the prison population triggering savings that will be redirected to counties to invest in evidence-based treatment and services to improve public safety. Equally as important, it will create a major spark in a national conversation for criminal justice reform.

While criminal justice reform is vital at the state level, it is also critical in our federal prison systems. That’s why I encourage Sen. James Lankford to support the Sentencing Reform and Corrections Act and ask Sen. Mitch McConnell to allow the bill to be debated this summer. It is bi-partisan sentencing reform that focuses on reducing enhanced mandatory minimum sentences for low-level, nonviolent offenders and increase judges’ ability to take into account the individual circumstances around each case to determine appropriate punishment. It will help law enforcement at state and federal levels, including here in Oklahoma, to effectively keep our communities safe and allow offenders to successfully re-enter society.

It is time that Oklahoma, and our entire country, re-evaluate costly and ineffective policies and incorporate smart-on-crime reforms.