Five reasons poverty persists in Oklahoma

Poverty has been a part of Oklahoma’s landscape since before statehood.  Early settlers faced enormous odds – drought, food insecurity, and nonexistent infrastructure – and possessed few material resources.  During the Great Depression, the state lost nearly half a million… Read more [More...]

Upcoming Event: "Tell me a Story: The Reality of Oklahoma’s Children of Incarcerated Parents," February 17th

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… Read more [More...]

An interview with Amina Benalioulhaj, director of "Women Behind Bars" documentary

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… Read more [More...]

Guest Blog (Susan Sharp): Rethinking female incarceration

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… Read more [More...]

Guest Blog (Amy Santee): Women in Recovery program making a difference

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… Read more [More...]

Guest Blog (Amy Santee): Turning The Tide On Female Incarceration

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… Read more [More...]

Standing Corrected: State prison population growth slows

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… Read more [More...]