By:
David Gateley
September 4, 2023 // Updated: September 4, 2023
During Oklahoma’s 2023 legislative session, lawmakers made some positive improvements in the state’s criminal legal system, including investments into diversion programs and significant reforms around court fines and fees. While these changes are commendable, they are only the beginning of…
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Oklahoma’s parole process — which allows conditional early release from prison — has played a key role in lowering the number of Oklahomans behind bars. The use of parole has reunited families, protected public safety, and saved the state hundreds…
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There remains much work ahead as Oklahoma still incarcerates more people than almost anywhere in the world. As such, lawmakers missed opportunities to help curb the state’s ongoing incarceration crisis or make much-needed investments in county-level mental health and substance abuse services.
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Even after progress, Oklahoma still ranks third in overall incarceration, with more than 21,000 people in state custody and another 26,000 under some form of supervision.
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Criminal justice reform was a lower profile priority in Oklahoma’s 2021 legislative session compared to previous years. Despite this fact, several significant reforms aimed at increasing economic opportunity for justice-involved families were signed into law.
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Our analysis suggests that rural Oklahomans are asked to pay just as much, and often more, than their urban counterparts. More worrisome still, urban areas like Tulsa and Oklahoma counties have the most difficulty in collecting fines and fees, meaning rural Oklahomans are effectively contributing more of their money to fund the court system as compared to their urban counterparts.
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By:
Steve Lewis
March 15, 2021 // Updated: March 15, 2021
Sen. Julie Daniels, R-Bartlesville, has spent considerable time working to make the collection of court fines and fees both more efficient and less destructive to the lives of people who are legitimately unable to pay. She held an interim study…
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Each year, thousands of Oklahomans face driver’s license suspension for failure to pay court fines and fees. As OK Policy has reported previously, tens of thousands of failure to pay arrest warrants are issued each year to the poorest Oklahomans.
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By:
Damion Shade
December 9, 2020 // Updated: December 10, 2020
While much of this conversation has been focused on municipal budgets and inadequate funding for mental health and social services, it’s also critical that lawmakers consider how the system of court fines and fees contributes to racial disparities in both policing and incarceration.
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By:
Ashley Harvey
November 17, 2020 // Updated: November 17, 2020
Although Oklahoma courts suspended most of their activities back in March, they have continued to collect fines and fees. So far this year, about $33.7 million in court debt has been collected from felony and misdemeanor cases alone, compared to about $40 million collected by this time last year.
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