Facts and Policy Reforms for Oklahoma
Like most states, Oklahoma’s prison population has exploded in recent decades.
As of 2018, the state had the highest per capita imprisonment rate in the U.S. Oklahoma’s prison population has grown nearly sixfold since 1980, and has remained high in recent years, even as other states have reduced their own prison populations. The state’s jail population has grown dramatically as well, increasing more than fivefold between 1980 and 2015.
In Oklahoma, 32 percent of all prison admissions in 2015 were for drug offenses, making this category of offense a primary driver of the state’s high incarceration rate. While the passage of State Questions 780 and 781 in 2016 took aim at reducing admissions for low-level drug offenses, the state prison population is still on an upward trajectory. Three out of four people entering Oklahoma prisons in 2015 were sentenced for drug, property, or public order offenses. While reforms passed in 2016 that reclassified certain low-level felony offenses as misdemeanors were a step in the right direction, the state’s prison population is still projected to grow by more than 7,000 people by 2026.
Unsurprisingly, Oklahoma’s mass incarceration crisis has had an enormous impact on people of color, especially Black people. In 2014, the per capita imprisonment rate for Black people in Oklahoma was the highest in the country, with 1 in 15 Black men age 18 and older in prison. Ending mass incarceration is a critical — although insufficient — step towards addressing racial disparities in Oklahoma’s criminal justice system as well as its broader society.
Women are also being sent to prison in Oklahoma at alarming rates. Since 1991, Oklahoma had had the highest per capita women’s imprisonment rate in the country. The number of women in the state’s prisons is expected to grow by 60 percent in the next decade.
But it doesn’t have to be this way.
Oklahoma can dramatically reduce its prison population by implementing just a few sensible reforms:
- Amending the criminal code to reduce sentencing ranges, especially for drug offenses, burglary, assault, robbery, and public order offenses.
- Implementing and expanding presumptive parole policies that streamline and speed up the release of people who have a record of good behavior in prison.
- Offering alternatives to incarceration that connect people to substance abuse treatment and mental health care, as well as housing, healthcare, and vocational training.
- Reforming or eliminating sentencing enhancements such as “habitual offender” laws triggered by prior felonies.
- Eliminating mandatory minimum sentences for drug offenses.
If Oklahoma were to follow these and other reforms outlined in this Smart Justice 50-State Blueprint, by 2025 it could have 17,306 fewer people in its prison system, saving over $615 million that could be invested in schools, services, and other resources that would strengthen communities.
For more information, along with detailed breakdowns of Oklahoma’s prison population and the reforms needed to reduce it, click here.