OKPOLICY.ORG
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
- Better Tomorrows: A Landscape Analysis of Oklahoma’s Youth Justice System and Suggested Reforms: A new report from the Oklahoma Policy Institute reviews the historical context for Oklahoma’s youth justice system, examines contemporary processes and actors within the system, and recommends a series of reforms that can help achieve better outcomes for justice-involved children and their families. [OK Policy]
- The COVID-19 pandemic exposed gaps in services to vulnerable communities, particularly immigrants (Oklahoma & COVID-19: Two Years Later): The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has hit immigrants disproportionally hard. While many U.S. citizens had access to a social safety net that could cushion the impact of unemployment and hospitalizations caused by the virus, immigrants often did not have these same resources available to them. Immigrants have had to bear the pandemic without much federal aid due to complicated rules around eligibility for public benefit programs, limited access to health care, economic limitations, and a variety of other factors. [Gabriela Ramirez-Perez / OK Policy]
- Mitigation efforts helped keep our justice-involved youth safer during the pandemic (Oklahoma & COVID-19: Two Years Later): Justice-involved youth have faced a heightened risk during the COVID-19 pandemic. Youthful offenders, already likely burdened with childhood trauma and the stress of separation from family, faced considerable risks living in shared facilities with other youths during a highly infectious global pandemic. This increased risk was disproportionately placed on Latinx, Black and American Indian youth who are much more likely than their white counterparts to be held in custody. [Ashley Harvey and Sabine Brown / OK Policy]
- SB 1337 would provide managed care provisions for state Medicaid (Capitol Update): Senate Bill 1337 by Sen. Greg McCortney, R-Ada, and Rep. Marcus McEntire, R-Duncan, was introduced as a so-called “placeholder” bill that would move through the process meeting legislative deadlines while legislators work behind the scenes to determine if a managed care proposal can be agreed upon and passed this session. The bill took its first major step into public view when a “floor substitute” was filed last Monday afternoon. [Steve Lewis / Capitol Update]
- Policy Matters: Providing better tomorrows for all Oklahoma youth: Justice reform has been a hot topic in Oklahoma, especially during the past decade. It’s a policy area where Oklahomans have demonstrated bipartisan cooperation focused on increasing access to treatment and preventive measures rather than perpetuating ineffective, punishment-first policies. While much focus has been paid to the adult justice system, that same level of attention has not found its way to Oklahoma’s youth justice system. [Ahniwake Rose / The Journal Record]
Upcoming Opportunities
(Fellowship Deadline Extended) Join the team as a Fall 2022-2023 Fellow: We are currently hiring for two paid Fellow positions: a Policy Fellow and Communications & Operations Fellow. These one-year fellowship opportunities are for Fall 2022-Fall 2023. The deadline to apply for a Fellowship has been extended to Wednesday, April 13 at 5:00 PM (CST). [Learn more and apply]
Weekly What’s That
Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs)
Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) are traumatic events experienced before age 18. The include all forms of child abuse, having a household member who is incarcerated, exposure to domestic violence, neglect, and having a parent with an untreated mental illness or substance use disorder.
ACEs can disrupt brain development causing social, emotional, and cognitive problems throughout an individual’s life, which increase the likelihood of risky health behaviors, chronic health conditions, difficulty functioning at school/work, and even early death.
Look up more key terms to understand Oklahoma politics and government here.
Quote of the Week
“Juvenile justice done correctly is a collaboration.”
– Oklahoma Office of Juvenile Affairs Executive Director Rachel Holt, speaking at OK Policy’s panel discussion and report release on Oklahoma’s youth justice system [Tulsa World]
Editorial of the Week
Moving ‘tent cities’ of people who are homeless doesn’t fix the problem
It shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone that the recent removal of the homeless encampments west of downtown Tulsa only temporarily moved the problems.
Those experiencing homelessness are still without shelter and services. Some have returned; some have shifted their camps; and some have whereabouts unknown.
This did not provide a solution. It only moved it out of sight. It is the wrong way to approach helping people who are homeless.
Many people who are living on the streets are not merely down on their luck. They usually face significant problems with unmet needs in brain health or substance abuse, requiring housing with wraparound social services and health care.
The desire to get rid of these makeshift tent cities makes sense. They cause problems for surrounding neighborhoods, including trash build-up, rising crime and hygiene issues. They lower property values and drive away economic prosperity.
We understand the need and moral imperative to find other locations for those who are erecting shanties and tents for shelter. The most effective way to do that is by working with those individuals to find appropriate housing, including locations that accept pets.
The Department of Transportation cleared brush and trees. About a week later, city of Tulsa security guards told those in the encampments to leave, and prisoners in Department of Corrections custody cleaned up debris as they left.
No social workers or mental health professionals were on site when this took place.
Some campers may be reluctant due to being in a mental health crisis or issues with past experiences, pet ownership or other needs.
A consequence of disbanding a site without those outreach teams present is setting back the connections made. It only forms a distrust and doesn’t get anyone off the streets.
“The important thing to acknowledge is: The sweeping of a camp doesn’t eliminate that person’s homelessness. Housing does,” said Becky Gligo, Housing Solutions executive director.
Tulsa has a housing problem and a homeless problem. The city does not have enough different types of affordable housing for people who are homeless or on the verge of being homeless. The situation is getting worse.
More than 2,300 people were experiencing homelessness in Tulsa last month, including nearly 300 people who were new to homelessness. That is an increase from 1,700 in February 2021.
This is a community problem that is not getting better. Tulsans have a history of solving big problems through innovation and collaboration. We can do better than this.
Numbers of the Day
- 2,345 – Number of young people held in detention in Oklahoma between July 2019 and August 2020. [Oklahoma Juvenile Affairs]
- 41st – Where Oklahoma ranks nationally for positive family and community support. [2021 KIDS COUNT Data Book]
- 4x – Black students in Oklahoma are more than four times as likely to have a school-related arrest and six times as likely to be expelled when compared to white students. Inequalities, often due to underfunding, unequal access to education and health care, as well as rural-urban divides, leave youth of color at a disadvantage. [Open Justice Oklahoma]
- 2x – American Indian youth are nearly twice as likely to be arrested when compared to white youth, in Fiscal Year 2020. These disparities are the legacy of racial and ethnic oppression and implicit bias in the criminal justice system. [Oklahoma Office of Juvenile Affairs]
- 57% – The percentage of three- and four-year-olds enrolled in preschool in Oklahoma. Oklahoma was once a national leader in early childhood education. [2021 KIDS COUNT Data Book]
What We’re Reading
- Better Tomorrows: A Landscape Analysis of Oklahoma’s Youth Justice System and Suggested Reforms [OK Policy]
- Families and Reentry: Unpacking How Social Support Matters [Urban Institute and Illinois Criminal Justice Information Authority]
- Oklahoma Youth and Young Adult Suicide Report [Oklahoma State Department of Health]
- The Future of Youth Justice: A Community-Based Alternative to the Youth Prison Model [National Institute of Justice]
- How Incarceration Infects a Community [The Atlantic]
