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The need for criminal justice reform is well illustrated by outrageous top-level statistics showing Oklahoma’s imprisonment rate among the highest in the nation (about 700 in prison per 100,000 residents), and a need to bring down spending on corrections (nearly half…
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By:
Steve Lewis
February 10, 2017 // Updated: May 2, 2019
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Steve Lewis served as Speaker of the Oklahoma House of Representatives from 1989-1991. He currently practices law in Tulsa and represents clients at the Capitol.
Corrections Director Joe Allbaugh appeared before the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Public Safety and Judiciary…
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By:
Gene Perry
February 9, 2017 // Updated: May 2, 2019
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At OK Policy, our core mission is to encourage state policy changes that ensure responsible funding of public services and expanded opportunity for all Oklahomans. To that end, we’ve identified a number of policies as top priorities in Oklahoma’s 2017 legislative session.
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See the full list of our 2017 policy priorities
Download this fact sheet as a pdf
Background
Tens of thousands of Oklahomans enter the justice system each year and come out with thousands of dollars in debt to the court.…
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Tens of thousands of Oklahomans enter the justice system each year, and many come out owing thousands of dollars in fines and fees. For poor Oklahomans, this debt can swallow up most of their family’s income and trap them in a…
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Oklahoma’s criminal justice system, like many others across the country, places enormous financial burdens on the people it serves, forcing them to pay for many functions of government that may or may not bear any relation to their case. The thousands of dollars charged to mostly poor defendants can turn into a permanent punishment that creates high barriers to rebuilding a life after involvement in the criminal justice system. Meanwhile, state agencies increasingly depend on the revenue generated by this arrangement as their appropriations from the Legislature have fallen. Legislators unwilling to raise taxes or to reverse tax cuts already enacted have instead created or increased court fees in order to generate new revenue.
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[Download the full report as a pdf.]
Part IV. Recommendations
Oklahoma legislators should take steps to reduce the damage of excessive and unaffordable legal financial obligations, and strong reform ideas have aleady emerged in the Legislature. In 2016, the Justice…
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[Download the full report as a pdf.]
Part III. Fee revenue funds many government functions, but criminal fee revenue has leveled off
The fees that the courts collect on criminal and civil cases range from relatively large sums that fund…
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[Download the full report as a pdf.]
Part II. Court debt punishes the poor, and most goes uncollected
The costs for even a single incident in the criminal justice system are simply out of reach for many Oklahomans. About 80…
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[Download the full report as a pdf.]
Part I. Fees have grown for every type of crime
As a result of their involvement in the criminal justice system, criminal defendants are charged a litany of fines and fees by the…
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