The incarceration rate in Oklahoma is among the highest in the nation with approximately 26,000 people behind bars at any given time.
Spending on corrections has increased 41 percent over the past decade. The overcrowding challenge at the state level has spilled over into county jails, particularly in the larger counties, such as Tulsa, where we have had at times up to 200 inmates waiting to be transferred to a state institution.
This has pushed the inmate population at the jail beyond our capacity by hundreds of inmates. We have to get serious about considering ideas that will reduce the inmate population.
To address this prison overcrowding, the Oklahoma Legislature passed House Bill 2131, the Justice Reinvestment Initiative. If fully funded, the initiative would make the criminal justice system more effective and cost-efficient by developing diversion programs to control the prison population and by hiring more probation and parole officers to allow early releases where appropriate.
The initiative has never been fully funded and, unfortunately, a law without funding is about as useful as a gun without bullets. It might look good and feel good but, ultimately, doesn't do any good.
The goal of the initiative seeks to slow the growth of the state's inmate population over the long term by investing millions of dollars in diversionary programs, post imprisonment supervision and mental health and substance abuse assessment for those about to be sentenced to prison.
If or when the initiative is implemented in full, it has the potential to reduce the state prison beds and cut the costs by millions of dollars over the next decade.
The intent and purpose of the initiative is sound public policy. Compared with the alternative of building private prisons around Oklahoma, the effort is a much better choice.
At first glance, the idea of private prisons sounds appealing. A private, for-profit business comes into a state and promises a governor that, at no cost to the state, the business will finance and build a new prison.
The private for-profit prison will charge the state a set daily fee per inmate. All the state has to do is agree to fill the prison with inmates (which discourages diversionary programs and early releases) and promise to pay the prison the full rate per inmate, per day.
But there is a catch. In fact, there are a number of catches. The private prisons do not want violent offenders, substance-abuse offenders, mentally challenged offenders or disabled offenders. All they want is the cream of the crop.
The offenders who are the most difficult, most expensive and most labor-intensive to supervise are left to the state penal system or county jail system to manage. In other words, those who cost taxpayers the most to incarcerate are the responsibility of the state prisons and local jails.
Those who are supporting the intended outcomes of the initiative are in no way being soft on crime. Some believe that unless someone goes to prison for every crime committed then we must be soft on crime. We have learned that prison is not the only means of punishment and, frequently, not the best method of punishment.
Certainly we want to put people we are afraid of in prison, but can we afford to put every person in prison we are mad at?
We know that the purpose of confinement is to provide security and to teach a lesson so, hopefully, the unacceptable behavior won't be repeated. Based on that reasoning, there is rationale to believe that understanding the causes of criminal conduct is worth pursuing as well.
That's why the Justice Reinvestment Initiative has a place in the criminal justice system.
If the Legislature thought it was worth its time to study, debate and vote for the initiative, then why is it not worth funding? It appears some think that passing the bill made lawmakers look tough on crime but funding the bill makes them look soft on crime. Figure out that reasoning.
The time is now for us to start acting seriously and with leadership in addressing the growing problem of incarceration or get used to the idea of having to build more prisons and spend more money doing so.
Stanley Glanz is Tulsa County sheriff.
Reader Forum
The Nov. 28, 2008, Tulsa World published my Readers Forum piece, "Antietam," in which I reported on a visit my then-8-year-old grandson, Stevie, and I made to Antietam battlefield in rural Maryland.
Obesity is common, serious and costly.
