Oklahoma Should Launch Major Initiative To Reduce Incarceration Rate

Oklahoma needs to drastically reduce its prison population by finding alternatives to jail time for convicted, non-violent offenders.

Right now, the prevailing law enforcement and state corrections philosophy, supported by neoconservative ideology, is to incarcerate as many people as possible. The basic idea is that severe punishments, including long prison sentences, will deter crime. Yet the incarceration rates keep growing. Oklahoma, for example, has the highest percentage of incarcerated women in the nation, according to the Bureau of Justice. Ultimately, this distinction should be the state’s shame, not a point of honor in a numbers game often played by political leaders and by some people who work in our judicial systems and law enforcement agencies.

The high female incarceration rate creates a cycle of despair that leads to even more incarcerations. The children of imprisoned women obviously often suffer great psychological chaos that can hinder their ability to learn at school or function appropriately in society. This, in turn, can lead to even more criminal behavior and imprisonments, and thus the cycle continues.

A recent study, for example, shows that almost 80 percent of the state’s imprisoned women have children, according to a media report. The study, conducted by the Oklahoma Commission on Youth and Children, urges the creation of more programs to help incarcerated women and their children.

These programs are desperately needed, true, and should be given the highest priority, but the state also needs to focus on reducing its high incarceration rates. Oklahoma incarcerates more than double the average number of women incarcerated in the nation, according to the Bureau of Justice, which claims 129 state women out of 100 are now in prison. The state’s overall incarceration is often ranked third or fourth in the nation, which has the highest documented incarceration rate in the world.

Stiffer penalties for many crimes and a get-tough mentality in recent years have created a double burden for taxpayers. Taxpayers must pay directly for the heavy costs of the rising incarceration rates, and then they must pay residual costs—more imprisonments, poor school performance, addiction and job problems—accrued by shattering families when mothers are sent to prison.

Many of the women and men imprisoned in Oklahoman are serving sentences for non-violent drug or financial offenses. These people need counseling and rehabilitation through drug court systems and other comparable programs for other crimes. The best strategy for change, though, is to try to shift philosophical and psychological attitudes throughout the state. We need to invest in better education and social programs, not prisons. As the human suffering and financial costs grow, it becomes apparent the neoconservative incarceration ideology driving our judicial system right now has obviously failed Oklahoma and the nation.

No one wants violent criminals—women or men—roaming the streets, but do we really want to be known as the state which incarcerates the most mothers in the nation? Oklahoma needs to launch a major initiative to reduce its incarceration rate.