Most discussions about criminal justice in Oklahoma center on our prison system, which is responsible for maintaining our highest-in-the-world incarceration rate but is dangerously underfunded. While our high incarceration rate may be the most pressing issue, law enforcement agencies are the piece of the justice system that can have the biggest impact on public safety. The evidence is clear that law enforcement can reduce crime by building strong relationships with their communities, working with them to resolve problems, and focusing prevention efforts in the geographical areas with the highest incidence of serious crime.

The Oklahoma City Police Department, led by Chief Bill Citty, has provided evidence that these strategies can help to reduce both crime and incarceration. In addition to implementing community policing strategies in recent years, the agency began arresting fewer people for minor, nonviolent offenses like failing to pay their court costs and marijuana possession. As a result, overcrowding at the Oklahoma County jail is easing while crime continues to decline. It’s a great example of how justice reform can work at the local level.

New data shows that State Question 780 reduced felony filings by over 14,000 across Oklahoma’s District Courts in its first year in a major realignment of how the state deals with low-level offenses. SQ 780, approved by voters by a wide margin in 2016, reclassified simple drug possession and many minor property crimes as misdemeanors rather than felonies. Assessing the First Year of SQ 780, a new report from Open Justice Oklahoma, uses original data from aggregated District Court criminal filings in the last ten years to evaluate the impact of the justice reform ballot measure in FY 2018. Open Justice Oklahoma, a project of the Oklahoma Policy Institute, seeks to improve understanding of our justice system through analysis of public data. The data reveal several trends:

In The Know is your daily briefing on Oklahoma policy-related news. Inclusion of a story does not necessarily mean endorsement by the Oklahoma Policy Institute. Click here to subscribe to In The Know and see past editions.

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In The News

More Women Reach for the Legislature. What Are Their Chances in November? Before the first vote was even cast in Oklahoma’s elections this year, women had already made history. What is likely a record number of female candidates, 140, filed paperwork in April to run for one of the state’s 125 legislative seats to be decided in November. In a state where men outnumber women in the Legislature six to one, ranking Oklahoma 49th in percentage of legislators who are female (14%), many women’s advocates saw this as an opportunity to narrow the gender gap [Oklahoma Watch]. An opportunity for more electoral diversity [Arnold Hamilton / Journal Record].

Feds Claw Back More Medicaid Money for Medical Schools, But Offer One Break: The federal government has clawed back another $32 million in Medicaid matching funds as part of an ongoing dispute over Oklahoma’s use of the money to help fund medical schools that treat Medicaid patients. The Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services notified state officials Aug. 31 that it disallowed a total of $64.2 million in federal matching funds for the 2017 calendar year. The total includes almost $33 million that was previously disallowed [Oklahoma Watch].

Agency audits will cost state $1.4 million: A group of private-sector officials has commissioned about $1.4 million in audits that will investigate six state agencies. Lawmakers created the Agency Performance and Accountability Commission in 2017. The group-appointed executives will oversee contracted audits meant to assess the top 20 agencies with the highest appropriations. The governor and the top legislators in each chamber appointed members, who worked on the requests for proposals, chose the bidders and assigned the contracts [Journal Record].

[duggar11 / Flickr]

Two years ago, Oklahoma voters passed State Questions 780 and 781, together known as the Smart Justice Reform Act. SQ 780 reclassified simple drug possession and many low-level property crimes as misdemeanors rather than felonies. SQ 781 directs the Office of Management and Enterprise Services (OMES) to calculate the savings to the state as a result of the changes made by SQ 780 and to distribute that amount to counties to provide mental health, substance abuse, and other rehabilitative services.

As required, OMES released the savings calculation for Fiscal Year 2018 on July 31. To the surprise of many, they estimated that the changes made by SQ 780 would save the state $63.5 million in FY 2018 and a total of $137.8 million from FY 2018 to FY 2026. Corrections Director Joe Allbaugh strongly criticized the report, saying that the Department of Corrections had not saved any money over the last year. Why is there such a divergence between the two agencies? Our analysis shows that the assumptions that OMES made are not supported by data, and they lead to an unrealistic picture of what SQ 780 accomplished in its first year.

In The Know is your daily briefing on Oklahoma policy-related news. Inclusion of a story does not necessarily mean endorsement by the Oklahoma Policy Institute. Click here to subscribe to In The Know and see past editions.

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In The News

State Superintendent: Executive Order On School Consolidation ‘Deeply Flawed’: The State Department of Education says they will not give Governor Mary Fallin a list of schools for possible consolidation. Last November, the governor issued an executive order saying all school districts that spent less than 60 percent of their budget in the classroom were to be complied onto a list. Then, the State Board of Education would use that list to make recommendations on what districts should have their administrations consolidated [News 9].

Oklahoma’s plan for Medicaid work requirements is a dangerous experiment that will put the health of thousands of Oklahomans at risk: The healthcare of thousands of Oklahomans is on the line this fall. That’s because Gov. Mary Fallin and the Oklahoma legislature have developed a plan to require low income parents or caregivers to work at least 20 hours a week in order to maintain their SoonerCare coverage. If the federal government approves the plan, it will place young parents, caregivers, and their children at risk of losing SoonerCare. Work requirements will have negative effects on the health of thousands of low-income Oklahoma families [OK Policy / Philip Rocco].

Oklahoma gave Boeing $90 million in incentive money, along with a few other breaks: Since the mid-1990s, Oklahoma taxpayers have paid The Boeing Co. more than $90 million in tax rebates to create thousands of new aerospace jobs. But some of company’s incentive deals with the state have retroactive start dates or were later amended to lower the threshold used to calculate the number of jobs the company could claim payments on, The Frontier has found [The Frontier].

We knew the day would come when Oklahoma surpassed Louisiana as the highest-incarcerating state in the highest-incarcerating country in the world. After Louisiana’s legislature passed a sweeping criminal justice reform package in 2017, Oklahoma Corrections Director Joe Allbaugh said that he “expect[s] Oklahoma’s incarceration rate to eventually be the country’s highest.”

As it turns out, Oklahoma has had the highest incarceration rate in the world since the end of 2016; we just didn’t know it because federal statistics are released on a year-long lag. This bitter milestone should be an occasion to reflect on what this says about our state and our current justice reform debates. We must begin to ask opponents of reform why Oklahoma deserves to maintain the highest incarceration rate in the world, and what that says about their view of our fellow citizens.

Undocumented Oklahomans are woven into the fabric of our communities in countless ways. Many have lived here for decades as they raise U.S.-born children, and they often work difficult, labor-intensive jobs that few legal residents will take. As the race to replace Governor Fallin heats up, it’s disappointing – if unsurprising – that dubious claims about the effects of undocumented immigration have appeared in candidates’ platforms. 

While the value of undocumented immigrants to our state can’t be measured merely by their economic costs and benefits, it’s important to set the record straight: by any fair estimate, undocumented Oklahomans contribute a great deal to our economy and state tax base, and they would contribute even more if granted legal status. Voters should recognize that Oklahoma is much better off when our communities unite to reject appeals that minimize the contributions of our neighbors.

Criminal justice reform advocates should be encouraged – though not overjoyed – at the progress made on justice reform in Oklahoma’s 2018 legislative session. Even in their amended forms, new laws that open up our broken parole process, reduce sentences for many nonviolent crimes, and recalibrate our supervision practices will significantly slow growth in our prison population.

At her press conference to sign those measures, Gov. Fallin also announced that the FY 2019 budget includes funding critical to making justice reform work, including an additional $11 million to the Department of Corrections, $5 million to the Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services, and $1.1 million for the Oklahoma Indigent Defense System, among several other appropriations.

In The Know is your daily briefing on Oklahoma policy-related news. Inclusion of a story does not necessarily mean endorsement by the Oklahoma Policy Institute. Click here to subscribe to In The Know and see past editions.

Today In The News

Teacher Shortage Forces Schools to Rely on Aides, Assistants: Nancy Novosad has spent the last 27 years surrounded by students in Yukon classrooms, but she’s not a teacher. She alternates between helping the teacher and helping the students. Novosad wipes noses, applies bandages, plans arts and crafts activities, opens milk cartons, leads story time, and packs and unpacks backpacks. She also passes out papers, explains assignments, takes students to the restroom and reinforces lessons taught by Elizabeth Wilson, a pre-K teacher at Ranchwood Elementary School [Oklahoma Watch].

Oklahoma State Department of Health pursues ‘reset’ after financial scandal: The Oklahoma State Department of Health is pursuing a “relationship reset” with other state agencies as it moves forward from a financial mismanagement scandal, according to its interim leader. Interim commissioner Tom Bates told the Board of Health at its Tuesday morning meeting that department leadership was reconsidering how it works with other agencies, including the Office of Management and Enterprise Services (OMES) [NewsOK].

New Medicaid work requirement bill criticized as “cruel”: Opponents of a bill implementing work requirements for Medicaid claim the measure will do more harm than good. House Bill 2932, authored by Rep. Glen Mulready, R-Tulsa and Sen. Adam Pugh, R-Edmond was signed into law by Governor Mary Fallin on Monday. The measure aligns Medicaid work and job training requirements with the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), which involves working, participation in a work program or a combination of both 20 hours a week [KFOR].

In The Know is your daily briefing on Oklahoma policy-related news. Inclusion of a story does not necessarily mean endorsement by the Oklahoma Policy Institute. Click here to subscribe to In The Know and see past editions.

Today In The News

Gov. Fallin signs work requirement bill for some Medicaid recipients: Gov. Mary Fallin signed into law Monday controversial legislation that could lead to work or training requirements for some Medicaid recipients. House Bill 2932, by Rep. Glen Mulready, R-Tulsa, instructs the Oklahoma Health Care Authority — administrator of the state’s Medicaid program — to seek a federal waiver allowing the same requirements for food stamp eligibility to be applied to Medicaid recipients [Tulsa World]. Most Medicaid-eligible adults who can work already do, and ​most of the rest have barriers to employment ​that ​a work requirement won’t fix [OK Policy].

Oklahoma legislators reject ethical rules restricting when they can become lobbyists: Oklahoma legislators have declared that what they do once they leave state service is none of a watchdog agency’s business. The Oklahoma Ethics Commission in February voted unanimously to bar legislators and other elected state officials from becoming lobbyists during their first two years out of office [NewsOK].

It shouldn’t be this hard to get something done to fund basic services: For the first time in 28 years legislators were able to pass a tax increase. It has taken that long to overcome the 75 percent threshold of SQ 640 that was the backlash from the ruinous economic downturn in the 1980s. But think for a minute about what it took to get that done. It should not take the threat of thirty to forty thousand teachers leaving their classrooms and literally occupying the Capitol for weeks to get something done. Now, the backlash, led by Tom Coburn, has already begun [OK Policy].