Because 90% of all prisoners in the United States are in state facilities, the work that states are doing to reduce their prison populations is crucial. Attempting to end mass incarceration necessitates realizing this is a situation requiring not one national solution, but fifty state solutions. Below are current state solutions that could be effectively modeled by other states for meaningful reform.
“So how would the state be different if our incarceration rate were at the national average? First and most obviously, there would be fewer people in prison. Based on a 2016 estimated state population of 3.93 million, there would have been 15,327 fewer people locked up in our state.“
Tulsa World
April 19, 2019
Read More"Push for commutations is spurred by the passage of State Question 780, which starting July 1, 2017, made nonviolent drug possession offenses and low-level property offenses misdemeanors instead of felonies. Steele led the call for the state question, which was approved in November 2016 by 58 percent of Oklahoma voters."
Tulsa World
August 11, 2018
Read More"SQ 781 requires that the money saved from not warehousing people whose lives were salvageable must be diverted annually to county governments for use on community rehabilitation programs, such as mental health and substance abuse services."
Tulsa World
August 5, 2018
Read More"Last year, the Bureau of Justice Statistics ranked Oklahoma second behind Louisiana. Due to prison reforms enacted in Louisiana, officials anticipated Oklahoma would become the incarceration leader. The new ranking became official earlier this month."
Tulsa World
June 17, 2018
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