CLAREMORE — While he was campaigning for office two years ago, Gov. Kevin Stitt walked into a coffee shop and met a woman who left a lasting impression with him about the need for criminal justice reform.

Rhonda Bear shared her story of how she had battled addiction and wound up going to prison. She turned her life around and now works to help others. Bear told Stitt prison saved her life, but that's not the case for everyone. Often, lengthy sentences for nonviolent offenses take the life out of women and destroy their children, Bear said, referencing cases in which women received decades-long sentences for failing drug court.

She wasn't sure the future governor was listening that day. But it later became abundantly clear he had been.

"He really took it to heart, and Monday was proof of that," Bear said Thursday, citing the mass release of more than 450 nonviolent offenders from Oklahoma prisons earlier this week after the governor commuted their sentences.