Stop building new prisons in Oklahoma

[patric]

Lawmaker urges more use of private prisons to relieve pressure on Oklahoma Department of Corrections

"It is going to cost money to fix this," Rep. Gus Blackwell, R-Laverne, said during a break in an interim study on the Department of Corrections.
Sean Wallace, executive director of Oklahoma Corrections Professionals, said he didn't think expanding the use of private prison beds was the answer. The state locks up too many low-level, non-violent offenders, he said.

Correctional Officer Shaleen Day said her facility, Kate Barnard Community Corrections Center in Oklahoma City, is so short-staffed that contraband has been a problem, adding that there is no way to prevent it.


Contraband? How does that happen?

A Tulsa County Jail detention officer was arrested Saturday after an inmate reported receiving packages from the jailer containing marijuana, tobacco and a cellphone.
Soooo, more dependance on private corporations with little oversight and less accountability is the solution?

[Conan71]

Sean Wallace, executive director of Oklahoma Corrections Professionals, said he didn't think expanding the use of private prison beds was the answer. The state locks up too many low-level, non-violent offenders, he said.

DING...DING...DING!!! We have a winner! Finally someone who gets it!

Prisons are amongst legislators favorite bacon.  I'm sure private correction companies give them handsome contributions and possible employment post-legislature as a lobbyist.  As well, one of their close friends back home in the district can sell that fallow parcel of $1000 an acre farm land for quite a bit more. Plus he gets an atta-boy for how many ever locals they end up employing at the new facility, including his brother-in-law who gets a cushy administrative job out of it.

[Townsend]

Department of Correction's 509 Million Dollar Request

http://kwgs.com/post/department-corrections-509-million-dollar-request

The Oklahoma Department of Corrections says it needs 45.7 million additional dollars. Corrections Interim director, Ed Evans, presented the budget figures to the State Senate Public Safety Appropriations Committee.

"Thirty-one point five million would go towards funding FY-2014 contracted bed space already in use and anticipated to remain in use," Evan says. "Fourteen point two million would be  used for salary adjustments that would aid in the retention and recruitment of needed staff, in particular correctional officers."

That would bring this year's total budget request to 509 million dollars. Evens says as of today, there are over 26 thousand inmates incarcerated by the state.

His proposal includes over 14 million dollars to address low pay and a high turnover rate among guards.

"I believe it's about 33% or 35% of those officers leave the agency that are within their first 12 months," Evans says.

Evans also requested 13 million dollars in supplemental funding to this year's budget. Those dollars would be used to reimburse counties for holding state inmates.

[AquaMan]

Cut the budget in half. Transfer the savings to education. Keep the really bad guys in there but open the gates for the low level and white collar guys with the provision that they move to Texas or some other southern state. Kick the private operators out too.

[patric]

Kick the private operators out too.

Oh surely not... they contribute so much to our economy:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/01/06/private-prisons-oklahoma_n_4548883.html

/s

[AquaMan]

Whoever said crime doesn't pay is not an investor in private prisons or a politician in OK. Moral travesty.

[Gaspar]

The winds of change. . .

Today, by a vote of 13 to 5, the Senate Judiciary Committee approved what the Drug Policy Alliance (DPA) calls "the biggest overhaul in federal drug sentencing in decades." The Smarter Sentencing Act, introduced by Sens. Richard Durbin (D-Ill.) and Mike Lee (R-Utah) last July, would cut mandatory minimum sentences in half for some drug offenses, make the reduced crack penalties enacted in 2010 retroactive, and expand the category of defendants eligible for sentencing below the mandatory minimums. "The Smarter Sentencing Act is the most significant piece of criminal justice reform to make it to the Senate floor in several years," says Laura W. Murphy, director of the American Civil Liberties Union's Washington Legislative Office.
http://reason.com/blog/2014/01/30/senate-judiciary-committee-approves-majo

[AquaMan]

Still has to go to the house? Anyway, Fallin and friends will again opt out and pass legislation making enforcement in Oklahoma a crime.

[Townsend]

High Female Lockup Rate Targeted in Bill

http://kwgs.com/post/high-female-lockup-rate-targeted-bill

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — A plan to target Oklahoma's highest-in-the-nation female incarceration rate with a prison diversion pilot program in Tulsa has unanimously passed the Oklahoma Senate.

The Senate voted Wednesday for the bill by Republican Sen. Kim David of Porter that targets women convicted of drug or other nonviolent crimes. David says female offenders first must enter a plea of guilty, which a judge can withhold and waive if the woman completes the 12-to-18-month program.

David says the participants must stay sober and keep a job to remain in the program, which also reunites the women with their children.

David says she was particularly touched by the testimony that some of the women in the program delivered during a Senate committee hearing.

[Townsend]

Senate Kills bill for Aging Prisoner Release

http://kwgs.com/post/senate-kills-bill-aging-prisoner-release

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — A bill to allow some aging prisoners to be released from prison early has been shot down in the Oklahoma Senate.

The Senate voted 29-14 on Wednesday against the Parole of Aging Prisoners Act. The bill would have allowed the state Pardon and Parole Board to parole prisoners who are 65-years-old or older if they have served 10 years in prison or at least one-third of their sentence.

Sex offenders or those convicted of one of about two dozen crimes that require inmates to serve 85 percent of their sentences would not have been eligible for the program. The bill specifically targeted inmates who pose what was called "minimal public safety risks."

Oklahoma has one of the highest rates of incarceration in the nation.

Private prisons decide this was bad for business?

[patric]

The winds of change. . .

Today, by a vote of 13 to 5, the Senate Judiciary Committee approved what the Drug Policy Alliance (DPA) calls "the biggest overhaul in federal drug sentencing in decades." The Smarter Sentencing Act, introduced by Sens. Richard Durbin (D-Ill.) and Mike Lee (R-Utah) last July, would cut mandatory minimum sentences in half for some drug offenses, make the reduced crack penalties enacted in 2010 retroactive, and expand the category of defendants eligible for sentencing below the mandatory minimums. "The Smarter Sentencing Act is the most significant piece of criminal justice reform to make it to the Senate floor in several years," says Laura W. Murphy, director of the American Civil Liberties Union's Washington Legislative Office.
http://reason.com/blog/2014/01/30/senate-judiciary-committee-approves-majo

So is the War On Drugs about to become unprofitable?
Is that why OBNDD is starting to get into the War On Human Trafficking business?
Got to stay relevant... and funded.

[Townsend]

Oklahoma House, Senate Panels Approve Prison Funding

http://kwgs.com/term/local-regional

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — House and Senate legislative committees have approved $13 million in supplemental funding to help Oklahoma's prison system pay for operational costs for the rest of the fiscal year that ends June 30.

Budget panels in both the House and Senate on Monday approved a bill that authorizes the $13 million and gives the Department of Corrections more authority to tap an internal agency revolving account.

The bill still must be approved by the full House and Senate and signed by the governor.

Norman Republican Rep. Scott Martin who sponsored the bill in the House says the money will be used to pay for private prison beds, a backup of inmates in county jails, and inmate medical services.

DOC Director Robert Patton says he appreciates the additional funding.

[Vashta Nerada]

Deputies trained inmates for fights, bet on them, official says
http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-sf-staged-inmate-fights-20150326-story.html


Just like Tulsa deputies at Avalon downtown, but without the global publicity.
--  Small world --

[Townsend]

Justice Department Will Phase Out Its Use Of Private Prisons

http://publicradiotulsa.org/post/justice-department-will-phase-out-its-use-private-prisons

U.S. Justice Department officials plan to phase out their use of private prisons to house federal inmates, reasoning that the contract facilities offer few benefits for public safety or taxpayers.

In making the decision, Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates cited new findings by the Justice Department's inspector general, who concluded earlier this month that a pool of 14 privately contracted prisons reported more incidents of inmate contraband, higher rates of assaults and more uses of force than facilities run by the Federal Bureau of Prisons.

"They simply do not provide the same level of correctional services, programs and resources; they do not save substantially on costs; and ... they do not maintain the same level of safety and security," Yates wrote in a memo Thursday.

At their peak, contract prisons housed approximately 30,000 federal inmates. By May 2017, that number will have dropped by more than half, to 14,000, Yates wrote. The Bureau of Prisons tends to use contract facilities to confine inmates who require only low security and who tend to be in the country illegally. The U.S. government spent $639 million on those facilities in fiscal year 2014, according to the Inspector General report, in payments to three companies: Corrections Corporation of America, GEO Group, and Management and Training Corp.

The Justice Department announcement will not touch the vast majority of prisoners in the country who are incarcerated by state and local authorities. But federal officials hope their decision will be a model across the correctional field.

Last month, the DOJ declined to renew a contract for 1,200 prison beds in a private facility. And it is making changes to a new contract bid to reduce the size of demand there, too.

In a blog post to department employees, the deputy attorney general pointed out that the federal prison population has been dropping overall, to fewer than 195,000 inmates, because of a shift in how low-level, nonviolent drug criminals are treated. Yates did not shut the door on demand for private contract facilities in the future, however, and a new presidential administration could handle the issue differently.

Marc Mauer, executive director of The Sentencing Project, nonetheless said the Justice Department announcement represented a "major milestone in the movement away from mass incarceration."

"It has been a stain on our democracy to permit profit-making entities to be handed the responsibility of making determinations of individual liberty," Mauer said in a prepared statement. "Today's action moves us closer to a moment when government can once again assume this important responsibility."

I wonder if this will change anything in Oklahoma...it always seemed so strange to have "for profit" prisons.  How do you lobby for that?  Keep pot illegal and keep guns easy to access for felons?

[davideinstein]

There's no way our prison system should be privatized. More government failure. Glad the Obama administration is calling a spade for what it is.