Stop building new prisons in Oklahoma

[Hoss]

You haven't read all of my comments have you - I am much more moderate than what you seem to 'see'.  Go back and look at my replies (attacks) on the left with their gun control BS.

Now into projection, I see...

True - Gene Stipe (Dem) was a master of getting a vastly disproportionate share of state money for his area.   And he, of course, got his fair share of "consulting fees" from lobbyists and organizations.  As did Charlie Ford (Rep) at about the same time.  They knew how to work with each other for the good of themselves...and sometimes even the good of the state!


And now we have the next Mary Failin' clone to carry on her bad tradition!!   "Go Team Stupid.!!"   Or "Go Team Vote For The Guy Whose Business Practices Get Him Banned For Life In Georgia!"

All fair points.  However, I very nearly started working for Gateway in 2015.  At the time their office was just down the street from mine.  I also knew several people who worked there from an old employer.  And when I say knew them, I worked very closely with them with for several years at this employer.  I got the impression they didn't like Stitt.  Not necessarily for his business dealings, but his overt religion that he infused into the company.  Example:  they held prayer before the beginning of every business day (I heard, I have no way of confirming this to be true)j.  And while that may not be illegal, if I'd have started working for that company and found this out on day one, I'd have been gone.  If you want that kind of proselytizing in your place of employment, then go work for Hobby Lobby or Chick Fil A.  I also heard some of these individuals I knew didn't care for some of his business practices.  That could be any business owner.  But this guy is talking about running Oklahoma like a business.  Wait, who said that about 8 years ago?....  Ah yes, Mary Failin.  Stitt is just going to be Fallin v2.0 I'm afraid.

[patric]

All fair points.  However, I very nearly started working for Gateway in 2015.  At the time their office was just down the street from mine.  I also knew several people who worked there from an old employer.  And when I say knew them, I worked very closely with them with for several years at this employer.  I got the impression they didn't like Stitt.  Not necessarily for his business dealings, but his overt religion that he infused into the company.  Example:  they held prayer before the beginning of every business day (I heard, I have no way of confirming this to be true)j.  And while that may not be illegal, if I'd have started working for that company and found this out on day one, I'd have been gone.  If you want that kind of proselytizing in your place of employment, then go work for Hobby Lobby or Chick Fil A. 

http://www.newson6.com/story/38458020/truth-test-kevin-stitts-business-record

[heironymouspasparagus]

Funny you say that because Gateway Mortgage is not banned from Georgia or any other states. That was the biggest negative I heard about Stitt... which is an attack on his billion-dollar company that he founded himself. Please find me a billion dollar company that has had zero mishaps or run-ins with regulations, especially with 1,300+ employees in 41 states in a highly-regulated industry.

You missed the payoff event earlier this year to get that cleared in time for the election cycle.  At the first of this year, the ban was still in place.

His company - HE is responsible.  And it has had "mishaps" repeatedly across many states.  This is a pattern of behavior that IS driven from the top.


Ahhh...since others did it, that makes it all right...!!   I have said before that if someone has accumulated $1 Billion in personal wealth, they have engaged in at the very least, shady activities, and in MOST cases, illegal activities. 

[patric]

Prosecutors needs to follow the wishes of voters and help reduce prison rates

Oklahoma voters spoke clearly two years ago when they passed criminal justice reforms meant to reduce the prison population.

It's upsetting to see prison admissions have actually increased by 11 percent in the first year after the passage of State Question 780, which downgraded several classes of nonviolent felonies to misdemeanors.

Tulsa County is among the top five jurisdictions contributing to this increase with a 9 percent jump in the number of people being sent to prison, according to leading advocates Oklahomans for Criminal Justice Reform and FWD.us.

Prosecutors are being accused of getting around the new law by charging defendants with felony crimes they would have not faced before the change.

Tulsa County District Steve Kunzweiler has pledged to analyze individual felony cases to determine if that took place or if alternative options were ignored. That's obviously called for, although, as an interested party, Kunzweiler may not be the best one to do it.

The Tulsa County incarceration surge needs to be analyzed independently and transparently. There wasn't a crime wave in Tulsa County. Some other explanation must be at work, and it may well prove to be intentionally counter to the expressed desires of the voters of Oklahoma.

However, if the law and the voters' intent were honored, then more reforms are needed to get at the result Oklahomans want: fewer prisoners and lower prison costs.

Oklahoma's No. 1 national ranking in prison incarceration is an expensive embarrassment that has not made the state any safer.

Costs for this big prison business are warping Oklahoma's budget priorities. Money that could be used for education, job training and health care is going into the black hole of mass incarceration.

That's not the way Oklahoma voters want to do business anymore.
https://www.tulsaworld.com/opinion/editorials/tulsa-world-editorial-prosecutors-needs-to-follow-the-wishes-of/article_3de726ea-2d51-540c-b3de-7071f875037c.html


Steve Kunzweiler wins second term as Tulsa County District Attorney
https://www.tulsaworld.com/news/elections/steve-kunzweiler-wins-second-term-as-tulsa-county-district-attorney/article_5b2b8524-e23a-11e8-a22f-93d0897478b1.html

[Conan71]

SQ 780 seems to be working as intended.  Amazingly the Oklahoma Legislature managed to not screw this up.  Though there is some concern about prosecutors about monkeying with charges to still attain a felony rap.

Early results are in on State Question 780: Felony charges dropped 28.4 percent statewide in one year, sharply reversing at least a 10-year upward trend that pushed Oklahoma's prison rate to highest in the nation.

Correspondingly, the number of misdemeanor cases filed rose 13.6 percent. The number of felony and misdemeanor filings each returned to levels not seen since 2008.


SQ 780 reclassified simple drug possession as a misdemeanor instead of a felony, also raising the threshold for many felony property crimes to $1,000 from $500.

"It's very encouraging to see that SQ 780 is working as intended," Ryan Gentzler, director of Open Justice Oklahoma, said in a statement. "Thousands of Oklahomans are avoiding felony records for low-level drug and property offenses, while crime rates continue to fall.

"Oklahoma's experience shows that we can have both less crime and less punishment if we pursue smart criminal justice reform."

FWD.us and the George Kaiser Family Foundation are the primary funders of Open Justice Oklahoma, according to its website.

Cases involving reclassified charges greatly shifted from felony to misdemeanor filings, an intended consequence of SQ 780, according to the report's data.

Statewide, felonies for drug possession in a single year fell from 18,942 to 4,841 — a 74.4 percent drop. Drug possession misdemeanors climbed from 4,867 to 12,963 — up 166.3 percent. Property crimes mirrored this trend but to a lesser degree.

In Tulsa County, felony drug possession dropped 68 percent to 808 cases from 2,488. Misdemeanors jumped 186 percent to 1,322 cases from 462.

"This suggests that drug possession was the most serious charge for the vast majority of these cases prior to SQ 780," the report states.

The Open Justice Oklahoma report released Tuesday is the latest in attempts to measure SQ 780's outcomes.

Oklahomans for Criminal Justice Reform recently put out its assessment of SQ 780 after a year, though its conclusion was less rosy. The report found that despite reforms, the state's prison population is still projected to climb.


OCJR said data shows SQ 780 on its own isn't enough to turn the tide. OCJR, which organized the movement in favor of SQ 780, is placing emphasis in the upcoming legislative session on making its laws apply retroactively in some fashion.

"Now, more than a year after it went into effect, the change has been limited, suggesting that further reforms are needed to achieve its full impact," the OCJR report stated.

One particular area has been under scrutiny in trying to ascertain SQ 780's affects: felony possession of drugs with intent to distribute.

Proponents of SQ 780 have voiced concern that district attorneys may try to circumvent the will of the people by utilizing the charge of felony possession with intent to distribute.

Open Justice Oklahoma found that those cases increased statewide by 13.7 percent, or 433 cases. In Tulsa County, that increase was 10.4 percent, or 64 more cases.


Gentzler said prosecutors hold considerable discretion because statutes don't require a minimum quantity of a drug to trigger an intent to distribute charge instead of possession.

He noted that some counties, including Dewey, Haskell, Logan and Payne, had filings multiply several times over. That is an indicator that those prosecutors might be filing harsher drug charges in SQ 780's wake.

"There's tons to unpack there," Gentzler said. "I wouldn't want to draw any strong conclusions from one year of data. But I think it's fair to say prosecutors (in general), and at least in Tulsa, haven't adjusted in a punitive way to State Question 780."

Corbin Brewster, chief Tulsa County public defender, said the drop in felonies charged is encouraging. He noted that Tulsa's homicide rate is down and other violent crimes haven't increased since SQ 780 arrived.

"So to me, that shows that 780 is working and working well and working without any cost to public safety," Brewster said.

Stephanie Horten, director of the local Criminal Justice Collaborative, said Open Justice Oklahoma's findings are a reason to celebrate. But, she cautioned, during the same period Tulsa County sent more women to prison than the previous year.

Horten said there was a 75 percent increase in fiscal year 2018 in the number of women put into custody of the state Department of Corrections.

"Filing fewer felony charges is a good first step, but we must also change how the criminal justice system responds to those who are charged with a felony," Horten said. "We must increase access to substance-abuse and mental-health treatment and decrease the number of people we choose to incarcerate."

https://www.tulsaworld.com

[patric]

SQ 780 seems to be working as intended.  Amazingly the Oklahoma Legislature managed to not screw this up.  Though there is some concern about prosecutors about monkeying with charges to still attain a felony rap.

https://www.tulsaworld.com

https://www.tulsaworld.com/opinion/editorials/tulsa-world-editorial-some-myths-and-some-reality-about-state/article_0a1f888e-014c-582e-b5db-11da4e4df53a.html

[patric]

There should be no place in America for profiting off putting more people behind bars or in detention. That's why I will shut down the use of federal private detention facilities by ending all contracts that the Bureau of Prisons, ICE, and the U.S. Marshals Service have with private detention providers. And I will extend these bans to states and localities by conditioning their receipt of federal public safety funding on their use of public facilities.

https://slate.com/business/2019/06/elizabeth-warren-private-prisons-stocks.html

[patric]

A Republican Crusader Takes on Oklahoma's Prison Machine

In the state that locks up more of its citizens than any other, a former politician is using the ballot box—and some surprising alliances—to nudge his own party toward change.

In Oklahoma, a drug offender will spend 78 percent more time behind bars than the national average. A violent offender will spend 21 percent more time.

There is no shortage of work. Oklahoma has led the nation in the number of citizens it incarcerates, often in a neck-and-neck race with Louisiana. A June 2018 report by the Prison Policy Initiative declared Oklahoma "the world's prison capital"—putting the tally at 1,079 people incarcerated per 100,000 when counting prisons, jails, ICE detention and juvenile lockup. The governor's recent spate of commutations—including the record-setting 527 in a single day in November—and parole board reforms have helped nudge down that number, but the prison system remains so overloaded that the state's Department of Corrections has requested $884 million to increase capacity by 5,200 beds.

"I refuse to believe Oklahomans are the worst people in the world," Kris Steele says. Rather, it's a state suffering from addiction, trauma and poverty, and a political culture that prizes tough-minded approaches to social problems. He argues the penal system merely makes that situation worse. When I visited him in Oklahoma before the Covid outbreak, Steele told me that he loves his home state, "but we're awfully quick to look at incarceration as a solution. It tears families apart, it creates instability. It makes the situation much worse."


For poor Oklahomans, and there are plenty, doing time often starts before there's ever a trial.

The Prison Policy Initiative estimated about 13,000 people in the state sat in the state's local jails in 2018. Many couldn't afford to pay bail so they could be released pending their trials. In Tulsa, the median stay for an inmate who hasn't been convicted of a nonviolent felony is 33 days. In Rogers County, next door, the median stay is 183 days, according to data compiled by the Oklahoma Policy Institute. Nevertheless, bail bondsmen do brisk business across the state. The strip around the Tulsa County courthouse looks like a Las Vegas for the luckless, flashing with signs and bright billboards that scream promises of affordable bail bonds, typically 10 percent of the bail amount.

https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2020/04/23/republican-prison-reform-debate-criminal-justice-conservatives-137887

The governor's office did not respond to an interview request from POLITICO. But in a public statement, Stitt said he opposed SQ 805 and supports sentence enhancements for crimes like DUIs, human trafficking and domestic violence. And Stitt's is not the loudest voice of opposition to 805. As usual, it's the prosecutors, specifically their lobbying arm, the District Attorneys Council.
The council funds its lobbying work partially through the millions of dollars it receives from fees charged to the criminal defendants.

[heironymouspasparagus]

For poor Oklahomans, and there are plenty, doing time often starts before there's ever a trial.

Not just "plenty" - it is MOST Oklahomans that are poor.