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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Oklahoma’s county courts, which handle all civil and most criminal cases across the state, have suspended most of their activities until April 15 at the earliest. There has been no official guidance about the collection of criminal fines and fees while court activity is suspended
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Oklahoma courts remain overly reliant on fine and fee revenue to provide funding for basic functions of government. This system creates a dynamic where millions of dollars each year are funneled out of Oklahoma’s poorest communities to fund the agencies that should be focused solely on doing justice.
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By:
Damion Shade
December 13, 2019 // Updated: January 12, 2020
The RESTORE task force could bring greater justice to the state’s prison system by strengthening investments in alternatives to incarceration and treatment, reducing fines and fees, lowering the impact of cash bail on the poorest Oklahomans, and creating a dedicated re-entry system.
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By:
Steve Lewis
September 16, 2019 // Updated: September 16, 2019
At some point it would seem to be of no benefit to the state or to offenders to keep them in debt under threat of arrest and jail.
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HB 1269 is a positive step for justice reform in Oklahoma, but a recent amendment will complicate the bill’s resentencing process and create financial hurdles that will lessen the positive impact of retroactivity.
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By:
Damion Shade
February 20, 2019 // Updated: March 29, 2019
This legislative session, leaders of both parties, the governor, the Oklahoma business community and the public at large have expressed a clear desire to work towards ending Oklahoma’s incarceration crisis. Some of these legislative initiatives build on the progress of Gov. Fallin’s Criminal Justice Task Force, but many proposals represent new attempts to lower Oklahoma’s highest-in-the-world incarceration rate.
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Download this fact sheet as a printable pdf here.
Read about the rest of OK Policy’s 2019 Legislative Policy Priorities here.
Since 2000, the Legislature has added dozens of new fines and fees for criminal defendants to finance our underfunded…
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Download this fact sheet as a printable pdf here.
Read about the rest of OK Policy’s 2019 Legislative Policy Priorities here.
Public defenders play a critical role in our justice system, serving as legal representation to the vast majority of…
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The problem of debtors’ prisons in Oklahoma has slowly come out into the open in recent years. More and more criminal defendants have been unable to pay off the thousands of dollars in fines and fees piled on them by…
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