Comments on: Guest Blog (Amy Santee): Turning The Tide On Female Incarceration

By: william B. Maxwell

william B. Maxwell — Thu, 03 Nov 2011 21:37:42 +0000

Throwing more money–whether foundations’ or States’–at fine-tuning the (proven ineffective!) incarceration model cannot fix its flaws. There are simple questions: Are we punishing these persons? What is punishment? Who is to be so punished? When should we punish such persons? To what end/goal? Who will establish such goals? Shall we keep statistics on what works? Shall only the State inflict the punishment? Which private private providers shall we license? Rich ones? Poor ones? When shall we revoke such licenses? …
In short, there is no dialog because there is no set of goals and no commonality of approach. When we can define punishment, we can begin to discuss how to create punishment and how to make it function toward accomplishing our (as yet unstated) goals.

By: Honored guests: Looking back at our guest blog posts | OK Policy Blog

Honored guests: Looking back at our guest blog posts | OK Policy Blog — Fri, 16 Jul 2010 13:26:30 +0000

[...] Santee: Turning The Tide On Female Incarceration (March [...]

By: Marvin Richardson MPH

Marvin Richardson MPH — Tue, 25 May 2010 22:20:04 +0000

As an advocate living in the third largest county in Oklahoma I want to commit, the women incarceration efforts must begin at the front end (the jails) to make any real difference. All women in prison in Oklahoma has been in jails but not all women in jails have been to prison. The DOC is funded by the state while jails are funded by the counties in most cases. The shift of DOC incarceration to county incarceration is obvious. Look how many new expanded jails are being built throughout Oklahoma. Moving women from DOC to the county detention centers is not an alternative to incarceration. While the efforts of the Kaiser Foundation and Amy Santee to create a momentum to change Oklahomans attitudes statewide is a good start it makes sense to focus on a community buy-in where these women were originally arrested. Without the county and community being committed these women can’t really come home. The Womens Summit was a great start and I hope with the passage of HB 2998 these forums will continue throughout the state and include stakeholders from every community in Oklahoma.

By: Fred Gibson

Fred Gibson — Sun, 04 Apr 2010 05:04:14 +0000

As a retired teacher who served a low socio-economic district in California for 32 years, I agree completely with the above recommendation, and urge everyone’s whole hearted support. I’m certainly not a bleeding heart, but current policies are not effective, and they cost too much to be ignored. We can do better. If our state legislature would stop wasting time on nonsense we might be able to solve some of our more serious problems such as this. State leaders say they want to cut costs. This is a good place to start.

By: Jean Warner

Jean Warner — Tue, 30 Mar 2010 17:11:43 +0000

The Oklahoma Women’s Coalition concurs that this is an important issue. The Coalition has endorsed passage of HB 2998. Please tell your elected officials that Oklahoma needs to find smart, safe, creative ways to reduce the rate at which we incarcerate women. Tell them also that the state pilot diversion/reenrty program that HB 2998 establishes is a good way to begin to make positive change in this issue area.