Speaker says work will continue on justice reform

Criminal justice reform bills that failed to make it through the legislative process last session will be worked on during the interim with a goal of completing work next year, House Speaker Charles McCall announced Friday.

“Without a doubt, criminal justice reform is a priority for the Legislature because it greatly affects public safety and our state budget,” said Speaker McCall, R-Atoka. “I certainly support the goals of criminal justice reform, but several members wanted to ensure there were no unintended consequences resulting from a handful of the bills that were introduced this year.”

The governor and many criminal justice reform advocates expressed frustration with the House last session after it held up a series of reform measures.

The bills were designed to ease prison overcrowding and save the state money by decreasing sentences for nonviolent offenders while increasing funding for alternative mental health and substance abuse treatment programs. Oklahomans voted support for such reforms in November.

State Rep. Scott Biggs, who held up many of the bills in the House Judiciary Committee on Criminal Justice and Corrections that he chairs, expressed concerns that Oklahoma’s classification of nonviolent offenses was overly broad and that proposed changes would lead to lower sentences for crimes like domestic abuse, hate crimes, child trafficking and other “violent” crimes.

“By completing this work next session, we are going to do in two years what it took Texas six years to complete,” McCall said. “Other states have had some missteps and growing pains caused by unforeseen problems and by moving too quickly. We can learn from their mistakes and ensure that our reforms are done in a way that balances public safety, victims’ rights, human dignity and costefficiency.”

McCall said committee meetings will most likely be held in September and will be open to the public and streamed live online. Details will be announced later.

Lawmakers passed a few criminal justice reform measures last session, but most of the ones expected to lead to significant reductions in the state’s prison population are still pending.

Oklahoma currently has the highest incarceration rate in the nation for women and the secondhighest incarceration rate overall.

Reformers say that other states, like Texas, have enacted reforms similar to those being considered by Oklahoma and have managed to save millions of dollars by decreasing incarceration rates, while simultaneously lowering crime rates.

Without reform, Oklahoma is on pace to add 7,218 inmates over the next 10 years, requiring three new prisons that would cost the state an additional $1.9 billion in capital expenditures and operating costs, a task force appointed by the governor has said.