Prisons chief faults savings report
The head of the state prison system said a recent report on cost savings from voter-approved criminal justice reforms was fundamentally flawed.
“As you know, I strongly support criminal justice reform in the state of Oklahoma,” Department of Corrections Director Joe M. Allbaugh wrote in a Friday letter to Gov. Mary Fallin. “At the same time, I believe criminal justice reform must be firmly supported by the facts. The report that was issued is not supported by the facts and drastically overstates the averted costs.”
The Office of Management and Enterprise Services on July 31 released a report regarding the averted costs due to recently enacted criminal justice reforms approved by a vote of the people in 2016.
State Question 780 would reclassify some offenses, such as simple drug possession and property crimes, as misdemeanors rather than felonies.
State Question 781 requires the savings to be invested through an appropriation to counties for rehabilitation programs.
The report said more than $63 million was saved as a result of the change in fiscal year 2018.
In addition, it said the total estimated averted costs over five years was $137.8 million.
“First, OMES incorrectly calculated the number of inmates who would no longer be going to prison as a result of State Question 780 (SQ780),” Allbaugh wrote. “Second, OMES made a wholly inaccurate assumption regarding the service of sentences by inmates in the Department of Corrections (ODOC) custody.”
The errors are fundamental flaws in the agency’s understanding of the criminal justice system and in the calculation of averted costs, Allbaugh wrote.
David Blatt, Oklahoma Policy Institute Executive Director, agreed the numbers were inaccurate.
“From reading their letter, they are saying the calculations are overstated in terms of what the savings would be,” Blatt said. “We would share that assessment. While we don’t have a firm number we have looked at the numbers based on historical trends and we came up with a number substantially lower in expected savings.”
The agency used historical data from the Department of Corrections, the District Attorneys Council and Oklahoma City and Tulsa County jails, said Shelley Zumwalt, a spokeswoman for the Office of Management and Enterprise Services.
“OMES agrees that additional data and feedback from the Department of Corrections and other entities prior to the report would have been ideal, and we don’t disagree with many of the points Director Allbaugh mentions in his letter,” Zumwalt said.
“The corrections criminal justice system is a complex entity and despite the challenges associated with data being housed in diverse group of state entities, OMES issued a report based on the most accurate data we were provided from the agencies that chose to cooperate with us in producing this report.”
State Question 781 required the Office of Management and Enterprise Services to calculate the savings and costs of implementing State Question 780, she said.