The next installment of the Practice and Policy Lecture Series, sponsored in part by the Oklahoma Department of Human Services (OKDHS), will focus on the children of incarcerated parents.  “Tell me a Story:  The Reality of Oklahoma’s Children of Incarcerated Parents,” will be Friday, February 17, from Noon to 1 p.m in the Chesapeake Room of the Oklahoma History Center at 800 Nazih Zuhdi Drive in Oklahoma City. The event features Cheri Fuller, Executive Director of Redeeming the Family, who will bring to light some of the challenges facing children whose mothers are incarcerated as well as share an innovative model for keeping families connected. Read the rest of this entry »

Amina Benalioulhaj filming at a women's prison with children in the Girl Scouts Beyond Bars program. Photo by Sarah Warmker.

Women Behind Bars is a new documentary about female incarceration in Oklahoma by University of Oklahoma student Amina Benalioulhaj. The film premiered in a packed showing at the deadCENTER Film Festival earlier this month.

A Tulsa screening will be held on Thursday, June 30, from 4 to 6 pm at the Tulsa Community College West Campus Auditorium, 7505 W 41st Street South. Proceeds will benefit Girl Scouts Beyond Bars, which provides counseling and helps young girls to visit their mothers in correctional facilities.

OK Policy spoke with Amina about her experience making the film.

First, could you say a little about the subject of your documentary and where it was filmed?

WOMEN BEHIND BARS: The Voices of Oklahoma’s Incarcerated Women and Their Children is a documentary film that I directed and produced under the guidance of Presidential Professor of Sociology and Women’s Studies at the University of Oklahoma, Dr. Susan Sharp. The film uses Dr. Sharp’s research along with first-hand interviews and visual aids of female correctional facilities to illustrate the impact of incarcerating women for non-violent drug crimes on their children. It was filmed in Taft, OK, at Eddie Warrior Correctional Center, and McCloud Oklahoma, at Mabel Bassett Correction Center. Some footage was also gathered at the Oklahoma State Capitol, various locations in Oklahoma City, and in Norman. Read the rest of this entry »

Dr. Susan F. Sharp is the L. J. Semrod Presidential Professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of Oklahoma. She has conduced extensive research on the criminal justice system and is the author of numerous reports on female prisoners and their children.

Oklahoma’s high female incarceration rate is harming our state.  If our state had an exceptionally high crime rate, we might be able to justify having the highest per capita incarceration rate of women in the United States.  Indeed, our female incarceration rate of 132 per 100,000 is nearly double the national average of 68 per 100,000.  But, our crime rate is not double the national crime rate.  We rank 17th in violent crimes, and our violent crime rate is very similar to the national average.  So, we are not incarcerating women as a matter of public safety. Read the rest of this entry »

Amy Santee, the author of this guest blog, is Senior Program Officer with George Kaiser Family Foundation in Tulsa.

In my last blog post, I posed the following question: “Is it not better public policy to provide these (incarcerated) women with treatment and the tools to become better parents and productive citizens?”

Well, Women In Recovery (WIR) is the answer to that question. WIR is a pilot diversion program that Family & Children’s Services (F&CS) and the George Kaiser Family Foundation (GKFF) have built together that provides an alternative to incarceration for women in Tulsa county.

Oklahoma’s female incarceration rates have long been the worst in the country, yet little has been done to improve the situation for women in our state. GKFF has identified the problem as an area of top concern. Through “start up” funding provided by GKFF, Family and Children’s Services initiated a pilot program based on best practice and evidence-based models to offer a cost-effective, holistic approach to diverting female offenders from incarceration. WIR has established unprecedented collaboration with the local Office of the District Attorney, Office of Public Defenders, Tulsa County Court Services, Tulsa County Criminal District Judges, and the Oklahoma Department of Corrections. Read the rest of this entry »

From time to time, we use the OK Policy blog to post submissions we receive from Oklahomans who have interesting perspectives on important policy issues for the state. This entry is from Amy Santee, Senior Program Officer with George Kaiser Family Foundation in Tulsa. The opinions stated below are not necessarily the opinions of OK Policy, its staff, or its board. This blog is a venue to help promote the discussion of ideas from various points of view and we invite your comments and contributions. To see our guidelines for blog submissions, click here.

Currently, the State of Oklahoma incarcerates more women per capita than any other state in the nation, a rate of 134 per 100,000, compared to a national average of 69 per 100,000. Tulsa County incarcerates at an even higher rate, 169 women per 100,000.

This practice has a devastating impact on thousands of children around our state.  There are an estimated 4,500 minor children in Oklahoma with their mothers in prison.  These children are at greater risk of school failure, depression, drug and alcohol abuse. Without a successful intervention, they are likely to become the next generation of inmates at the Oklahoma Department of Corrections.  Incarcerating non-violent female offenders does not make economic sense, nor does it protect the public safety.  Is it not better public policy to provide these women with treatment and the tools to become better parents and productive citizens? Read the rest of this entry »

Last week we released the August edition of our Numbers You Need bulletin. In addition to tracking monthly and quarterly trends in employment, inflation, work support programs. state revenues, and foreclosures, each issue also looks at annual data for one key measure of Oklahoma’s prosperity and well-being. This month we looked at the state prison population. At the end of FY ’09, the state reported 25,197 offenders in prison. The good and surprising news in that number is that it represented an increase of only 59 inmates, or 0.2 percent from the end of FY ’08, and an increase of just 119, or 0.5 percent, from two years previously.

As can be seen from the graph, this leveling in the number of prisoners is a departure from the trend of recent years. From 2000-2007, the inmate count grew by an annual average rate of 1.5 percent. The slowdown was unexpected: when MGT of America released its major audit of the Department of Corrections in early 2008, the inmate population was projected to grow to 27,035 by the end of FY ’09, on its way to a total of just under 29,000 prisoners by the end of FY ’16. In both news accounts and follow-up conversations, DOC Director Justin Jones attributes the slowdown to two factors: a reduction in the number of offenders being sent to prison for probation violations due to creative policies being implemented by DAs in Oklahoma County and elsewhere; and new policies that allow prisoners not to lose earned credit towards release for certain misconduct.

In 2007, the most recent year for which national data was available, Oklahoma imprisoned 665 people per 100,000 population, compared to the national average of 506. Oklahoma’s female incarceration rate that year was more than twice the national average and highest in the nation. Our heavy reliance on incarceration has social, economic, and fiscal consequences that will remain an ongoing challenge for policymakers and communities to address in the years ahead. However, that progress is already being made in keeping in leveling off the inmate population deserves to be noted and celebrated.

We hope you’ll check out the full edition of August’s Numbers You Need.