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| Drugs at Core of Oklahoma Prison Debate |
| By Associated Press |
| Published: 12/09/2002 |
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The pressure is on for changes in how Oklahoma deals with law offenders as the state budget crisis deepens and a costly prison population grows. On one side are policymakers who think the state has erred badly in sending so many drug and alcohol offenders to prison. On the other are prosecutors who call drugs the root of more serious crimes. Gov. Frank Keating, who is winding up eight years in office, recently asked the Pardon and Parole Board to consider up to 1,000 commutations of first-time nonviolent offenders. It's not a case of Keating softening his stand against crime, but recognition that many of the inmates 'should not have been in the corrections system in the first place,' Keating spokesman Dan Mahoney said. Mahoney said many of the 1,000 inmates being considered for commutations are in prison for simple drug possession and should have gone into the community corrections system. Oklahoma ranks fourth in the country behind Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas in the number of people it sends to prison per capita. In the past 10 years, state prison spending in Oklahoma has doubled to almost $400 million, and the inmate population has grown from 14,400 to more than 23,000. During the same period, the state's crime rate fell significantly. 'The reason is, we have been locking up people for things we don't measure,' such as drug and alcohol offenses, said state Sen. Dick Wilkerson, D-Atwood, a former Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation official. He said crime statistics are based on crimes that exist even if no one is arrested, such as murder and theft, as opposed to some drug cases, when a crime becomes evident only upon an arrest. Wilkerson blames the rising prison population on a political system that allows district attorneys, not judges, to determine who goes to prison and for how long. He said progressive ideas such as drug courts and community sentencing were enacted only after lawmakers agreed to make prosecutors the gatekeepers of the programs. Other reasons for the high prison population is that Oklahoma has not revamped its criminal code and treats felonies too similarly for sentencing purposes, the senator said. He said prisons should exist for one reason -- 'warehousing predators' for the protection of society. Wilkerson says more than 80 percent of state inmates do not fall into the 'predator' class but are in prison for drug and alcohol crimes that should be dealt with in drug court and community corrections facilities. Mark Gibson, president of the Oklahoma District Attorneys Association, said statistics don't tell the whole truth. He said some of those listed as first-time offenders had multiple offenses that were not prosecuted or they were wanted in other jurisdictions for more serious crimes. The real debate, Gibson said, is between those who believe laws should be enforced and those 'who absolutely believe that drug offenders should not go to prison.' Wilkerson said a life-without-parole law passed in the 1980s will soon lead to the establishment of prison nursing homes for elderly inmates with serious health problems, he said. Oklahoma taxpayers will have to pay for their care. |
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