OKPOLICY.ORG
It may be time for the legislature to take another look at pretrial release reform in Oklahoma. Cash bail bonds are typically based primarily on the charges filed and include little, if any, evidence-based assessment of flight risk or danger to the community. The last serious effort at reform was in 2019 when Senate Bill 252 passed the State Senate and failed on the floor of the House by six votes.
A recent Tulsa County study by the Bail Project, a national non-profit organization that helps indigent people make bail, reveals cash bail has no measurable impact on court appearance and, instead, fuels a system that punishes poverty, destabilizes lives, and props up the commercial bail bond industry.
Cash bail is also not safer. Dangerous people are sometimes released because they have the money to pay their way out of jail.
According to the Prison Policy Initiative, 70 percent of the people in jail are there on pretrial detention. The Bail Project study found that nearly a third in Tulsa County remained in jail until their case concluded, spending an average of 105 days behind bars. That’s more than three months of lost income, housing instability and family separation – all before a conviction.
Research funded by the Arnold Foundation reveals people held in pretrial detention are three times more likely to be sentenced to prison and receive longer prison sentences than defendants on pretrial release. After remaining in jail for weeks or months awaiting trial – regardless of their guilt or innocence – the most rational option for a defendant becomes making a deal with the prosecutor that is essentially a get out of jail card. These plea deals often set defendants up for lengthy incarceration, now or in the future.
Pretrial confinement also increases the likelihood of recidivism. The Arnold Foundation research found as little as a weekend in pretrial detention increases the likelihood a low-risk defendant will either commit a crime upon release or miss a court date, and that likelihood increases the longer the defendant is detained.
During the most recent legislative session, Sen. Todd Gollihare, R-Kellyville, who is vice-chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee and Chairman of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Public Safety and Judiciary, introduced SB 967, which would have radically improved the pretrial system.
Before being elected to the State Senate, Sen. Gollihare was the Chief Federal Probation Officer for the Northern District of Oklahoma headquartered in Tulsa, so he knows something about pretrial release and supervision. SB 967 failed to get a hearing last session but remains available for action next session.
Among other things, the bill would require pretrial release hearings by the court within 48 hours of arrest to determine if the defendant is a flight risk or a danger to the community. It would ensure the defendant’s right to counsel, allow them to offer and contest evidence, and require they be informed of the factors bearing on the release decision at the hearing. The bill would also establish a pretrial release program to help ensure defendants appear for all their hearings in court.
Pretrial reform would protect the public and help Oklahoma honor the fundamental principle of “innocent until proven guilty.”
