Steve Lewis served as Speaker of the Oklahoma House of Representatives from 1989-1991. He currently practices law in Tulsa and represents clients at the Capitol.

Corrections Director Joe Allbaugh appeared before the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Public Safety and Judiciary last week and presented his request for an additional $1.165 billion appropriation for next fiscal year. The request is, of course, totally unrealistic, and Allbaugh knows it. But he’s trying to make the point that we are incarcerating too many people in Oklahoma, and we’re not treating those who are incarcerated right. In addition, we are wasting taxpayer money.

Also, last week Governor Fallin’s Criminal Justice Task Force released its final report. It was a real eye-opener! The report says that the Task Force “analyzed the state’s sentencing, corrections, and community supervision data and reviewed the latest research on reducing recidivism and improving public safety. The Task Force found that:

Seventy-five percent of people admitted to prison were sentenced for nonviolent crimes; over half of individuals sentenced to prison for nonviolent offenses have one or no prior felony convictions, and 80 percent have no history of violent crimes.

Research demonstrates that incarceration is no more effective at reducing recidivism than alternatives to prison and can actually increase the recidivism rates of lower-level individuals. Despite the risk of increasing recidivism for lower-level, non-violent offenses, Oklahoma uses prison over alternatives more often than other states and has focused many of its prison beds on those sentenced for nonviolent crimes with limited criminal history.

Sentences for nonviolent offenders in Oklahoma are longer compared to other states, and release options are underutilized and/or delayed. Despite research demonstrating that longer prison terms do not reduce recidivism more than shorter prison terms, less than 10 percent of the individuals released from prison are paroled, and drug and property offenders are released on average nine months past their parole eligibility date.”

DOC Director Allbaugh told the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee that he believes those individuals serving time for nonviolent crimes should be in drug and alcohol programs. Currently less than one-third of incarcerated individuals have access to those programs or basic education courses. “We do not have those in every facility, shame on us,” he said. “If we keep folks in their local communities in a program to help them with what their issues are, it’s 13 times less expensive than it is to incarcerate.”

The legislature won’t have time to completely reform our criminal justice system this year, but, if we don’t get a good start on it, as the Director said, “shame on us.”