“For those who come back out [of prison], we have an obligation to make sure those services are there to keep them from recidivating and going back into the system. That’s where we need to put more pressure, so it will drive more funding towards that, not the other way around. Let’s put the pressure there and off the criminal justice system.”

– Steven Buck, deputy commissioner for the Oklahoma Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services, at a recent “Oklahoma Watch-Out” forum on mental health issues in Oklahoma (Source: bit.ly/1ESXT4f)

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Carly Putnam joined OK Policy in 2013. As Policy Director, she supervises policy research and strategy. She previously worked as an OK Policy intern, and she was OK Policy's health care policy analyst through July 2020. She graduated from the University of Tulsa in 2013. As a student, she was a participant in the National Education for Women (N.E.W.) Leadership Institute and interned with Planned Parenthood. Carly is a graduate of the Oklahoma Center for Nonprofits Nonprofit Management Certification; the Oklahoma Developmental Disabilities Council’s Partners in Policymaking; The Mine, a social entrepreneurship fellowship in Tulsa; and Leadership Tulsa Class 62. She currently serves on the boards of Restore Hope Ministries and The Arc of Oklahoma. In her free time, she enjoys reading, cooking, and doing battle with her hundred year-old house.

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