Stop building new prisons in Oklahoma

[heironymouspasparagus]

Maintaining people sitting out fines and traffic tickets alongside killers and rapists.
That sounds like a plan, Oklahoma.

/sarcasm

from the song;

....you're doing fine, Oklahoma,....Oklahoma, OK!!

[Townsend]

Oklahoma Prison Officials Seek Increase in Funding

http://kwgs.com/post/oklahoma-prison-officials-seek-increase-funding

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — Oklahoma prison officials want legislators to provide more money for a system that is struggling with overcrowding and turnover among employees.

A legislative budget panel is to hear presentations Thursday in advance of the coming legislative session.

The Department of corrections has struggled to retain prison guards, who often cite the low pay as a reason for leaving their jobs. Prisons in rural counties are particularly hard hit when it comes to turnover.

Many people working as prison guards can double their pay by going to work in the oil fields.

In December, prison officials asked for an additional $6.4 million to accommodate a gain of 800 prisoners over the past year. The money would, in part, go toward paying for private prisons and halfway houses.

[Townsend]

Interesting article.

Mending offenses

Oklahoma incarcerates more women per capita than anywhere in the world. TulsaPeople asks, "why?"

http://www.tulsapeople.com/Tulsa-People/March-2013/Mending-offenses/index.php?cparticle=1&siarticle=0#artanc

[heironymouspasparagus]

Interesting article.

Oklahoma incarcerates more women per capita than anywhere in the world. TulsaPeople asks, "why?"

Because we, as a state, are pathetic in WAY too many areas!

[Townsend]

Legislators look to add more felonies

http://woodwardnews.net/local/x624710659/Legislators-look-to-add-more-felonies

The recent momentum to reduce Oklahoma's exceptionally high incarceration rate has fizzled out, officials said this week. The Justice Reinvestment Initiative, signed by Gov. Mary Fallin last May, aimed to encourage rehabilitation of nonviolent offenders, lessen the emphasis on prison time and supervise prisoners after release, among other provisions. Last week, less than a year after signing the bipartisan law, Gov. Mary Fallin rejected federal funding to implement the program. Additionally, a grant program from the attorney general to local law enforcement hasn't been implemented and legislators are considering about 10 bills that would increase prison time or create new felonies.

[patric]

Legislators look to add more felonies
http://woodwardnews.net/local/x624710659/Legislators-look-to-add-more-felonies

Steele said the reinvestment plan has worked elsewhere, noting Texas tried a similar plan several years ago and was able to close a
prison because of the drop in prisoners.

The Oklahoma Legislature continues to consider more and harsher penalties.
"All of them will pass because no one wants to be viewed as soft on crime," said Sen. Constance Johnson, D-Oklahoma City, who has
voiced concerns with some of the felony proposals.

"We're adding felonies every year," she said, pointing to private prison interests, which have a stake in being full, as a possible
culprit.


We cant have the Governess funding any programs that could result in a prison no longer being needed, can we?
...but I didnt see "adultery" on the list of new things that would be felonies, so maybe there's a limit?

[Townsend]

Attempts to reform Oklahoma's criminal justice system have long history of failure

http://www.tulsaworld.com/news/article.aspx?subjectid=11&articleid=20130318_16_A1_OKLAHO206287

Efforts to reduce the state's growing prison population go back decades and haven't managed to put much of a dent in the state's prison population. A highly touted criminal justice reform measure passed last session may be yet another failed effort. Last week, the leaders of a working group overseeing the implementation of what is called the Justice Reinvestment Initiative abruptly resigned, pointing fingers at the Governor's Office, which they say is not serious about following through with the law she signed.

[patric]

Jailed for blogging about prison conditions:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/05/daniel-mcgowan-jailing_n_3021613.html


McGowan was serving out the final months of his seven-year sentence in a Brooklyn halfway house when he was jailed by federal marshals Thursday morning, allegedly for writing a commentary on The Huffington Post critical of a harshly restricted federal prison unit in which he had spent time.
In general, prisoners can be punished for violating a BOP rule that prohibits giving interviews to the news media without official approval. But that rule says nothing about prisoners writing blog posts.
In a statement Thursday, McGowan's lawyers at the Center for Constitutional Rights said, "If this is indeed a case of retaliation for writing an article about the BOP retaliating against his free speech while he was in prison, it is more than ironic, it is an outrage."

[Vashta Nerada]

It's an oldie, but still a goody:

http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/tue-march-7-2006/uncaged-heat

[heironymouspasparagus]

It's an oldie, but still a goody:

http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/tue-march-7-2006/uncaged-heat

That is brilliant!

[patric]

OKLAHOMA CITY - Private prison interests have given nearly $200,000 in campaign dollars and gifts to 79 of the 149 members of the state Legislature since 2004, a Tulsa World analysis shows.

From a meal valued at $3.87 for one lawmaker to $22,500 toward T.W. Shannon's Speaker's Ball, private prison and halfway house influence has become well entrenched at the state Capitol.

As the state's prison population has climbed, so has spending on private prisons, which was nearly $73 million last fiscal year, up from slightly more than $57 million in fiscal year 2004.
Since 2004, lobbyists, private prison and halfway house employees have given $375,425 to 165 elected officials and candidates for office.

The contributions and gifts come from lobbyists and others affiliated with Avalon Correctional Services, The GEO Group Inc. and Corrections Corporation of America. All three have operations in the state. The lobbyists' representation is not limited to one private prison or halfway house company. They have contracts to represent dozens of far-ranging interests.

House Speaker T.W. Shannon, R-Lawton, is the top recipient of private prison-linked dollars. Shannon has received $34,950. The sum includes $22,500 donated by three private prison companies to fund the 2013 Speaker's Ball.

Gov. Mary Fallin ranks No. 2 in private prison dollars. Private prison interests, which include employees, political action committees and lobbyists employed by the companies, have donated $33,608 to her campaigns.

Senate Appropriations Chairman Clark Jolley, R-Edmond, is the top recipient of private prison and halfway house dollars in the Senate and No. 3 recipient among elected officials overall. Jolley has reported receipts totaling $30,450 toward his campaigns.

Republicans, who control houses of the Legislature and all elected state offices, have received about 83 percent of the contributions from private prisons since 2004.

Steve Owen, a spokesman for Corrections Corporation of America, said lobbyists who work for the company do not make donations on the company's behalf. The company has four private prisons in the state, two of which are under contract with Oklahoma. Another one houses California inmates. The fourth is not operational.

Sen. Constance Johnson, D-Forest Park, has been a longtime, largely unsuccessful advocate for sentencing reform and opponent of longer sentences and additional penalties.

"I am shocked but not surprised," Johnson said of the donations. "My take is that what I have noticed about how the policies are flowing, pro-private prisons, pro-enhanced felonies, the thing I stand up and argue about all the time. Follow the money. This whole notion of special interests having undue influence on the legislative process, this is proof."
http://www.tulsaworld.com/article.aspx/Lawmakers_benefit_from_private_prison_donations/20130519_11_A1_Bodyte389065

[patric]

Too Many Local Prisons Taint Jury Pools

WASHINGTON – The proliferation of prisons has poisoned the region's potential jury pool, according to defense attorneys for the two inmates accused of killing a U.S. Penitentiary guard in 2008.

Citing past acquittals of prison guards accused of wrongdoing, as well as the clout of the state prison guards' union, defense attorneys in new legal filings allege that a "dysfunctional" relationship now interferes with "the jury pool and justice" throughout the Valley. The assertion sets the stage for an anticipated formal request to move trials scheduled to take place next year.

"There is a significant demographic bias in the Eastern District of California that manifests itself in litigation involving correctional officers and the operation of prisons," attorneys for Joseph Cabrera Sablan and James Ninete Leon Guerrero asserted in a filing Thursday.

As evidence, the defense attorneys cited the 2010 acquittal of former Atwater lieutenant Eric A. McEachern on charges of beating an inmate with a flashlight, as well as a 2003 case in which several guards were not found liable for setting up the rape of an inmate at the California State Prison at Corcoran.

A jury pool "with this history" must be carefully evaluated in determining whether a change of trial venue is necessary, the defense attorneys argue.

"The other problem is the existence of a significant bias in the community that arises out of the Eastern District's saturation by local, state and federal correctional institutions and industries serving those institutions, their employees and the families of the employees," the defense attorneys wrote.

The Fresno Division of the Eastern District is home to 20 state and federal correctional facilities and three large county jails, the attorneys noted. The Sacramento Division includes 11 state and federal correctional facilities, as well as the headquarters of what the attorneys call the "large and powerful" California Correctional Peace Officers Association.

[patric]

The latest victim in Governor Fallin's Prisons For Profit:  The state director of prisons.


OKLAHOMA CITY - Department of Corrections Director Justin Jones is resigning effective Oct. 1.
Jones has run afoul of policy-makers who want to put more state inmates in private prisons.
"You know, just because it is legal doesn't make it ethically and morally right for shareholders to make a profit off of incarceration of our fellow citizens," Jones said.
http://www.tulsaworld.com/article.aspx/Oklahoma_Dept_of_Correction_director_submits_resignation/20130618_11_A1_ULNSbm124877?subj=12&Cont=Cov&Cont=Cov

[Gaspar]

[Vashta Nerada]

A national report released Thursday details how private prison operators frequently have "lockup quotas" and "low-crime taxes" built into the language of their contracts.
http://tulsaworld.com/lockupquotas

The report by In the Public Interest, a nonprofit research and policy institute, illustrates how many contracts for private prison operators feature language guaranteeing 80 percent to 100 percent prison occupancy and forcing taxpayers to pay penalties for empty beds.

Of the 62 private prison contracts that the group received and analyzed, nearly two-thirds - or 65 percent - include occupancy guarantees and force taxpayers to pay for empty prison beds if the lockup quota is not met.  These policies result in taxpayers essentially paying more money to house inmates even when crime decreases, becoming a de facto low-crime tax, according to the report.

Lockup quotas in private prison contracts range between 80 and 100 percent. Arizona, Louisiana, Oklahoma and Virginia have the highest occupancy guarantee requirements, with quotas requiring between 95 and 100 percent occupancy.  Three of the Oklahoma prisons included in the data - Cimarron in Cushing, Davis in Holdenville and the Lawton Correctional Facility - have a 98 percent occupancy guarantee provision, according to the report.

Both Cimarron and Davis are operated by the Corrections Corporation of America, Lawton is operated by the GEO Group.
Former Oklahoma Department of Corrections Director Justin Jones was among a group of experts who commented on the findings in a conference call Thursday.
"What corrections should not be is a turnkey for-profit machine," he said. "And that's exactly that we've turned them into when we guarantee occupancy, with no requirement to produce results."

In 2012, CCA, the largest for-profit private prison company in the country, sent a letter to 48 state governors offering to buy their public prisons. The corporation offered to buy and operate those states' prisons in exchange for a 20-year contract, which would include a 90 percent occupancy rate guarantee for the entire term.

The institute recommends that governments ban "lockup quota" language from contracts with private prison providers to protect the taxpayers' interests, she said.
"They have gamed the system and tied the hand of policy makers," she said. "We urge lawmakers nationwide to end this practice."
Oklahoma Gov. Mary Fallin could not be reached for comment, a spokesman said.

The private prison industry relies on rising numbers of inmates to increase profits, and some states - including Oklahoma - have lobbied against justice reform efforts to ensure it won't affect their companies' bottom lines, according to Jones.

The report outlines several statements made by CCA regarding their concerns about justice reforms, including this from its 2010 annual report: "The demand for our facilities and services could be adversely affected by the relaxation of enforcement efforts, leniency in conviction or parole standards and sentencing practices or through the decriminalization of certain activities that are currently proscribed by our criminal laws."

The Center for Responsive Politics reports that CCA spent $17.4 million in lobbying expenditures from 2002 through 2012, while GEO Group spent $2.5 million from 2004 to 2012.  According to the report, CCA spent $1.9 million in political contributions from 2003 to 2012, and Geo Group spent $2.9 million during the same time period.  Both own and operate multiple prisons in Oklahoma.

http://www.tulsaworld.com/article.aspx/Report_Lockup_quotas_in_prison_contracts_become_low/20130920_11_A1_CUTLIN182989