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The road to prison can start on the front end or the back end of the criminal justice process. The front end is what we generally think of — a person is charged with a crime, that person is convicted and sentenced to prison. The back-end deals with those sent to prison for failing on parole or probation.

Back-end admissions are less conspicuous but affect our prison population in a significant way. To address the incarceration numbers in Oklahoma, lawmakers need to address both sides of the prison door.

A principle of probation is for certain low-level offenders to be safely monitored in the community and tackle the underlying issues of their illegal behavior while keeping a job and preserving their ties to the community. In many cases, it is used in lieu of prison. However, we are sadly seeing probation serve as a main driver of the system it intends to avoid. A 2017 report drafted by the Council of State Governments shows roughly 24% of Oklahoma prison admissions were due to probation violations. That translates to roughly 3,000 people behind bars.

Of those 3,000, more than half are in prison for a technical violation, such as staying out past curfew or missing a meeting. The annual cost to incarcerate these individuals is approximately $32 million.