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What’s up this week at Oklahoma Policy Institute? The Weekly Wonk shares our most recent publications and other resources to help you stay informed about Oklahoma. Numbers of the Day and Policy Notes are from our daily news briefing, In The Know. Click here to subscribe to In The Know.
This Week from OK Policy
New report from OK Policy suggests reforms to improve outcomes for justice-involved youth: A new report — “Reimagining Youth Justice in Oklahoma” — provides an overview of Oklahoma’s youth justice system, detailing the environment that youth in Oklahoma face, synthesizing data and reporting findings on the state of the youth justice system today, and offering recommendations for reform to create impactful and transformative change for youth. Oklahoma also needs to create investment opportunities to embrace new strategies and practices, like restorative justice and community violence intervention, to truly transform the legal system for youth who experience harm from it. [Jill Mencke and Polina Rozhkova / OK Policy]
- WATCH: Reimagining Youth Justice in Oklahoma report release (video) [OK Policy on YouTube]
Policy Matters: Report shows work needed to support justice-involved youth: Oklahoma youth, especially those interacting with the state’s justice system, are not well-served by existing public services. This was among the findings in a new report by my Oklahoma Policy Institute colleagues Jill Mencke and Polina Rozhkova. “Reimagining Youth Justice in Oklahoma” provides a data-driven examination of Oklahoma’s youth justice system and suggestions for reforms. [Shiloh Kantz / The Journal Record]
A look at the lawsuit filed challenging the purchases of classroom Bibles (Capitol Update): One of the interesting things about living in these times is the re-litigation of matters long thought to be settled. Who would have thought that public school teachers could be required by the state to teach from Bibles that were purchased and delivered to schools with state tax dollars? [Steve Lewis / Capitol Update]
OK Policy in the News
Oklahoma lawmakers revisit increasing Sales Tax Relief Credit during interim study: Lawmakers took a closer look at the Sales Tax Relief Credit in Oklahoma and how it could be improved during an interim study on Wednesday. [Fox 25]
Weekly What’s That
The Sales Tax Relief Credit is an income tax credit that provides a rebate of $40 per household member to households with incomes at or below the following levels:
- $50,000 per year for filers who are elderly, have a physical disability, or claim a dependent; or
- $20,000 per year for everyone else.
The credit was first enacted in 1990 as part of the legislative compromise that led to the passage of House Bill 1017 and was intended to offset the sales tax on groceries for low-income households. Eligibility for the credit was expanded in 1998 but the amount has remained frozen at $40. The credit is refundable, meaning that it can be claimed in an amount that exceeds a taxpayer’s income tax liability.
The credit was claimed by 357,684 households in Tax Year 2022 for a total of $28.6 million, according to the Oklahoma Tax Commission’s 2023-24 Tax Expenditure Report. A total of 715,457 individuals received the credit in 2022, or roughly one-sixth of the state’s population. Over time, the number of recipients of the sales tax relief credit has been steadily declining, as incomes rose while eligibility for the credit remained flat. There were nearly 165,000 fewer households that received the credit in 2022 compared to 2010 (520,476).
Look up more key terms to understand Oklahoma politics and government here.
Quote of the Week
“It is not a lot, but it could make a difference by raising the income eligibility for people like me who work for some of the year but later become unemployed. And if the amount was also increased, families at a time when they needed help the most could actually have a helping hand, not a handout, to help them get through really hard times.”
-Talisha Hood, a lifelong Oklahoman who testified at a recent interim study about the impact of Sales Tax Relief Credit. Lawmakers studied a proposal that would increase it to help low- and moderate-income Oklahomans. [Journal Record]
Op-Ed of the Week
Oklahoma justices are not political partisans. They do not run or seek office as members of a political party. They are not chosen due to their connections to an elected official.
Instead, the Judicial Nominating Commission, made up of 15 Oklahomans (only six of whom are attorneys) reviews every applicant for appellate judicial office. They are aided in their review by the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigations. This nonpartisan commission then selects the most qualified and ethical individuals. The governor makes the final decision from three highly qualified candidates.
If a judge or justice is subject to scandal or has proven himself or herself unfit in some other manner, retention ballots are a means of accountability. Politics should not be the basis of judicial retention.
This year, you may have seen or heard political advertisements claiming that Oklahoma Supreme Court justices up for retention are “liberal activists.” This is misleading and dangerous because the Supreme Court is a nonpolitical branch of government. Attempts to politicize the judiciary could have a negative impact on every Oklahoman seeking justice through our state courts.
Our law-based society is built on an independent and nonpolitical judiciary. This is important.
[Read the full op-ed from Oklahoma Bar Association President Miles Pringle on the Tulsa World website]
Numbers of the Day
- 8.5 million – The number of U.S. citizens who are part of mixed-status families with undocumented immigrants. A mass deportation will lead to a decrease of $51,200 in annual household income for these families, or 62.7 percent of their total household income, on average. [American Immigration Council]
- 7x – Black youth in Oklahoma were nearly three times as likely to be referred to youth justice system involvement as white youth and almost seven times as likely to be placed under Oklahoma Office of Juvenile Affairs custody in 2023. These disparities underscore the need to formalize rules around when pre-arrest and court diversion is utilized for youth, and to create more opportunities and options in services that meet young people’s needs. [OK Policy analysis]
- 86.1% – County or municipal police accounted for 86.1% of referrals to the Oklahoma Office of Juvenile Affairs in 2023. [OK Policy analysis of OJA data]
- 40.6% – Schools and school police are the second highest source for referrals to the Oklahoma Office of Juvenile Affairs, behind county or municipal police. Schools and school police represent 40.6% of referrals from sources other than local police, [OK Policy analysis of OJA data]
- <10 – Very few youth (fewer than 10 cases) of the 8,500 referrals to the Oklahoma Office of Juvenile Affairs in 2023 were adjudicated specifically for mental health treatment needs. This low number might indicate a gap in addressing mental health issues within the juvenile justice system. [OK Policy analysis of OJA data]
What We’re Reading
- Mass Deportation: Devastating Costs to America, Its Budget and Economy: In recent months, leading politicians and policymakers have renewed calls for mass deportations of immigrants from the United States. While some plans have envisioned a one-time, massive operation designed to round up, detain, and deport the undocumented population en masse, others have envisioned starting from a baseline of one million deportations per year. Given that in the modern immigration enforcement era the United States has never deported more than half a million immigrants per year—and many of those have been migrants apprehended trying to enter the U.S., not just those already living here—any mass deportation proposal raises obvious questions: how, exactly, would the United States possibly carry out the largest law enforcement operation in world history? And at what cost? [American Immigration Council]
- Protect and Redirect: America’s Growing Movement to Divert Youth Out of the Justice System: After decades of neglect, the youth justice field is awakening to the importance of diversion in lieu of arrest and formal court processing for many or most youth accused of delinquent behavior. Even amid rising concerns over youth crime nationwide, jurisdictions across the country are heeding the evidence by taking concerted action to address more cases of alleged lawbreaking behavior outside the formal justice system. This momentum to make diversion a centerpiece of juvenile justice reform is encouraging given powerful research showing that youth who are diverted from the justice system are far less likely to be arrested for subsequent offenses and far more likely to succeed in education and employment than comparable youth who are arrested and prosecuted in juvenile court. Greater use of diversion is also essential to reduce the persistent racial and ethnic disparities that pervade youth justice systems. [The Sentencing Project]
- Why Youth Incarceration Fails: An Updated Review of the Evidence: Incarcerating youth undermines public safety, damages young people’s physical and mental health, impedes their educational and career success, and often exposes them to abuse. [The Sentencing Project]
- School Resource Officers and the School-to-Prison Pipeline: Evaluating Responses to School Safety Concerns in an Age of School Shootings and Renewed Calls for Racial Justice: The Justice Policy Institute partnered with the Harvard Kennedy School’s Institute of Politics Policy Program to examine the impact of police officers in school. The report presents a review of the research on police and school safety, interviews with stakeholders, and recommends ways to address the harmful impacts of School Resource Officers (SRO) [Justice Policy Institute]
- The War On Kids: How American Juvenile Justice Lost Its Way (Book Summary): In The War on Kids , Cara Drinan reveals how the United States went from being a pioneer to an international pariah in its juvenile sentencing practices. Academics and journalists have long recognized the failings of juvenile justice practices in this country and have called for change. Drinan chronicles the shortcomings of juvenile justice by drawing upon social science and legal decisions. It maps out concrete steps that states can take to correct the course of American juvenile justice. [Criminal Law and Criminal Justice Books / Rutgers University]
