OKPOLICY.ORG
On March 6, 2020, Oklahoma reported its first confirmed case of COVID-19 and declared a statewide emergency 10 days later. As the pandemic now enters its third year, Oklahomans continue grappling with the impact of lives lost and the immense disruptions it has created. OK Policy will be reflecting on the COVID-19 pandemic’s impacts and challenges. Our hope is that this will highlight opportunities for collaborative decision-making, future improvements, and prosperity for all Oklahomans.
Co-authors: David Gateley, Criminal Justice Policy Analyst and Andrew Bell, Justice Data Analyst
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Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, an estimated 580,000 incarcerated people in the United States have tested positive for the virus, and more than 2,800 have died from it. Jails and prisons are particularly dangerous places in a viral pandemic, concentrating large groups of people indoors in poorly ventilated spaces. From the start of the pandemic, state and local governments in Oklahoma recognized the threat posed by COVID-19 and took some steps designed to mitigate the risks by reducing the amount of people in prisons and jails. While these actions were crucial, many of these measures were insufficient or uncoordinated without a long-lasting impact on Oklahoma’s incarceration crisis. The state should continue reducing the number of people incarcerated in Oklahoma across the board by extending the early pandemic efforts, like expanding commutations and making permanent efforts that reduce arrests for certain non-violent offenses. These efforts are not only good for Oklahomans and public safety, but they serve the needs of public health as well.
Oklahoma took brief efforts to reduce the prison and jail population at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic.
As was the case nationwide, jail and prison populations dropped in Oklahoma at the beginning of the pandemic as officials used decarceration to mitigate the risk. In April 2020, Gov. Stitt announced that he would commute the sentences of more than 100 people held in Oklahoma’s prisons, all of whom were low-risk and close to completing their sentence. Similarly, large jails like the Oklahoma County Detention Center (OCDC) released hundreds of people from custody, focusing on non-violent, pre-trial cases. Arresting fewer people also played a crucial role in preventing an outbreak in jails and protecting the health of local communities. At the start of the pandemic, weekly arrest rates began declining quickly throughout the state. This happened both as a result of people staying home and driving less and intentional policy decisions, such as temporarily only serving arrest warrants in cases with charges classified as violent. Despite their effectiveness, most of these efforts were short-lived, and local jail populations have consequently largely returned to their pre-pandemic levels.
Decarceration did not lead to higher rates of crime or increased recidivism.
Oklahoma briefly reduced the incarcerated population with no noticeable detrimental effects on public safety (crime was down 2.5 percent in 2020), and state policymakers should continue those efforts going forward. Contrary to popular belief, high levels of incarceration and more arrests do not mean safer communities. Policy makers have historically been apprehensive to make sweeping reductions in jail and prison populations, fearing potential consequences for public safety and crime. However, when the threat of COVID-19 emerged, officials quickly embraced decarceration, recognizing that it would enhance public safety. Their decision was likely made easier by the research tracing the relationship between decarceration and crime, which has found little evidence that locking more people up makes our society safer. One large-scale study of decarceration found that a 20 percent decrease in state prison population resulted in no measurable change in the rate of violent crime and little evidence that it increased crime at all. Findings from multiple studies in different jurisdictions find little or no evidence that incarceration is effective at reducing crime. Some states have seen such success with decarceration that their prisons sit half empty with no accompanying spike in crime ever materializing. Additionally, this research has helped create a rising acknowledgment that incarceration may actually increase crime and fuel recidivism. During the peak of prison and jail reductions, overall crime rates were largely lower than the previous year despite the targeted release of people into the community.
Oklahoma could have done more to prevent the spread of COVID-19 and save lives.
Though officials took some steps to safely lower incarceration levels, Oklahoma could have done much more, particularly in commutations and medical parole. For example, 74 percent of non-violent commutation requests were granted in 2019, compared to just 35 percent in 2020. The state also did not make effective use of medical parole. In May 2020, the Oklahoma Department of Corrections identified more than 120 people in prison who had medical conditions putting them at risk for serious illness or death from the virus. Of those, only 12 were approved for release. Other states implemented more sweeping measures to reduce the amount of people in prison through early release while still maintaining robust public safety, likely saving lives in the process.
While efforts to reduce arrests were beneficial when they happened, the reduction was not substantial or durable enough to last through the pandemic, illustrated clearly in data from Oklahoma County. Just after COVID-19 was declared a national public health emergency, the number of new weekly bookings into the jail dropped nearly 50 percent. It is important to note that in the first six months of the pandemic, almost one-third of people brought to jail were held for less than 24 hours, many for minor offenses or with no charges filed at all. This cycle of arresting, detaining, and releasing people does not make our community safer, and it likely played a key part in speeding up viral transmission in the jails and the surrounding community, risking lives in the process. Many of these short-term jail bookings were for traffic violations or charges often used to criminalize homelessness and mental illness, such as trespassing, minor municipal code violations, or drug-related charges. Since these decisions were made largely at the local level and not due to statewide policy, weekly arrest numbers rose back to normal within months. Many other jails statewide and nationwide saw similar rebounding arrest rates and jail populations.
In addition, the lack of coordination and planning between different entities within the criminal justice system meant that even otherwise beneficial steps often had negative consequences elsewhere. Within the first month of COVID-19 arriving in Oklahoma, the DOC halted the transfer of new people going to prison from jails across the state, intending to give DOC facilities time to prepare and keep new arrivals to a minimum. This pause likely slowed the spread into prisons, but the suddenness and the lack of coordination with counties meant overcrowding local jails, shifting the burden from prisons to jails. The chart below illustrates how the transfer pause, while effective at reducing incarceration in prisons, led to a two-year high in population size at Oklahoma County jail.
It is imperative we reduce the number of incarcerated Oklahomans
Oklahoma’s third-worst in the world incarceration rate harms communities and families while also costing the state hundreds of millions of dollars. And as the COVID-19 pandemic has shown, a high population of people living in our prisons and jails represents a public health risk, both inside the facilities and in the surrounding communities. This will likely not be the last time our state is forced to react to a sudden widespread threat to public health and safety. The state should develop a plan to quickly reduce the number of people detained in prisons and jails in times of high community spread. It is also imperative that we continue to safely reduce the number of people incarcerated in Oklahoma across the board. This includes extending the efforts taken at the beginning of the pandemic, like expanding commutations and making permanent policies that reduce arrests for certain non-violent offenses. As Oklahoma’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic made clear, our state can incarcerate fewer people without an increased risk of crime, which in turn also helps make our communities safer and more healthy.
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On March 6, 2020, Oklahoma reported its first confirmed case of COVID-19 and declared a statewide emergency 10 days later. As the pandemic now enters its third year, Oklahomans continue grappling with the impact of lives lost and the immense disruptions it has created. OK Policy will be reflecting on the COVID-19 pandemic’s impacts and challenges. Our hope is that this will highlight opportunities for collaborative decision-making, future improvements, and prosperity for all Oklahomans.
Co-authors: David Gateley, Criminal Justice Policy Analyst and Andrew Bell, Justice Data Analyst
