What Is Fueling Oklahoma’s Incarceration Crisis?
Evaluating all of the factors that go into an individual state’s incarceration rate can seem like a daunting task. Incarceration rates are a nuanced issue, and many statistics must be looked at to get the whole picture.
Oklahoma’s incarceration rate is the second-highest in the nation just barely trailing behind Louisiana. The incarceration crisis is only growing worse by the year. Oklahoma and Louisiana frequently bounce around from first and second place, leading the country in incarcerations per capita.
Oklahoma locks up 695 per 100,000 citizens. This number is above the national average of 655 per 100,000, and it is nearly 7 times the incarceration rate found in most westernized countries.
Activists often point to Oklahoma’s use of private correctional facilities and racial profiling as a possible cause for the high incarceration rate. The use of private prisons has not been found to incentivize arrests or detentions but has been found to slightly increase sentencing lengths which is debatably just as worrying.
Regardless of whether or not private prisons do incentivize arrests or detentions the Oklahoma Department of Corrections only utilizes two private facilities. Those being the maximum-security Lawton Correctional Facility and the medium-security Davis Correctional Facility. These two facilities combined only house 3700 of the roughly 43,500 inmates housed within the state at any given time. Although the use of private prisons is controversial in Oklahoma’s case it doesn’t appear to be a major factor.
If the issue isn’t private prisons, then maybe it is racial profiling. This is also going to be an unlikely cause for the high incarceration rate. Oklahoma has had anti-racial profiling laws on the books since July 1, 2000, 22 OK Stat § 22–34.3 (2014). Even though the state has put in place laws that prohibit racial profiling, it is possible that some officers may use these tactics. The more likely scenario is that police use a different type of profiling.
Class-Based Policing.
While there are laws against racial profiling in Oklahoma there are no such laws or police procedures that prohibit class-based profiling or policing. Class-based policing is the over-policing of low-income communities in the hopes of combating crime that comes from poverty. According to an essay by Paul D. Butler in the Yale Law Journal “Poor people lose in American criminal justice not because they have ineffective lawyers but because they are selectively targeted by police, prosecutors, and lawmakers.” This is a fact that many ignore in society today, but it shouldn’t be ignored.
While the crime map shows a better correlation with the income map rather than the race map you can clearly see that the majority of minority communities do fall within high crime/low-income areas of Oklahoma City.
Poor people are often criminalized just for being poor and in this are targeted by police. Cities and States put up barriers that segregate the poor from the wealthy, but it doesn’t end there. “The criminalization of poverty has metastasized into other areas as well. We see it in the use of police officers as the front line of discipline in schools serving low-income students, leading to criminal records for behavior that could be dealt with in the principal’s office. We see it in the vigorous prosecution of vagrancy laws against the homeless” Edelman, P. (2017). The Price of Justice. Nation, 305(14), 4–6.
In the summer of 2016, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) put out a report about neighborhoods and violent crime. In this report, HUD states “Exposure to violent crime damages the health and development of victims, family members, and entire communities. Low-income people and racial and ethnic minorities are disproportionately affected.”
Poor areas have been shown in studies to contribute heavily to an increase in crime, but what should be assessed is why these areas are poor rather than focusing so heavily on combating the crime. Combating poverty would also combat the crime while helping to reduce wealth disparity.
“Getting the government to contribute to funds that fight poverty is like pulling teeth, let alone getting them to put up streetlights or change broken bulbs in the poor areas of town,” Said Kimberly Horne in an interview. Horne is an advocate for the homeless in Oklahoma City.
Education and Opportunities.
Oklahoma has been on a downward trend when it comes to the quality of education that students receive in public schools. In 2018 Oklahoma ranked 48th on quality of education and in 2019 Oklahoma ranked 49th according to Education Week.
In April of 2018 teachers in Oklahoma went on strike and stormed the State Capital demanding an increase of their classroom budget as well as a pay raise. The strike lasted a total of ten days after the State agreed to a 6,000 dollar a year increase to salaries. No increase in classroom funding was given.
“We often didn’t have the supplies we needed to do our jobs, often I would need to buy supplies out of pocket, things like paper, pens, or just cleaning supplies for the classroom like cleansing wipes and hand sanitizer.” Said Julia Ramirez in an interview. Ramirez is a former teacher at one of Tulsa Oklahoma’s poorer high schools.
On July 15, 2019, the City Hall of London put out a press release acknowledging an extensive study conducted that found not only a correlation between crime in three out of the four poorest burrows of London but also a correlation between the age of offenders and a lack of educational and employment opportunities in these areas.
The Oklahoma educational system is crumbling meanwhile job prospects are not good for under-educated individuals. Oklahoma’s top three industries are aviation and aerospace, biotechnology, and energy all three of which are highly technical trades. If by some miracle an under-educated individual lands an entry-level job in these industries, they can expect little upward mobility without a college degree of some kind.
“When I first started there, it was like a blessing, but after 10 years with no raise or offer of moving to a better paying position you start to resent the company you work for. Keep in mind this whole time I saw supervisors and managers being hired externally. It really kills morale.” Said Richard Waters a 19-year veteran of Oklahoma’s energy industry.
Strict Sentencing Practices.
Oklahoma has some of the harshest penalties for criminals in the country, and it all revolves around what they call enhanced sentences. Enhanced sentences are given to people that are convicted of a felony if they have been previously convicted of a felony within the ten years prior to their new conviction.
These sentencing practices become a serious problem in a state like Oklahoma that has extensive socioeconomic issues. It becomes a vicious cycle where people who commit crimes because of low education, poverty, and few job opportunities, are then convicted and their job prospects after prison only become worse, thus creating a repeat offender where they will be sentenced for an even longer time period than if it was their first offense. According to Criminal Justice Policy Review, harsher sentencing for repeat offenders doesn’t effectively dissuade the perpetration of that crime
This practice is not only unfair to people who have already paid their debt to society, but it clogs up the prison system with non-violent offenders who according to Policy Studies Review, more than likely wouldn’t be offenders if Oklahoma would invest in reducing the state’s socioeconomic issues. Oklahoma currently has people serving life sentences for non-violent offenses because of this practice, those are beds and taxpayer dollars that could be used to help combat the systemic issue putting them there.
“I met several people; nice salt of the earth type guys that were doing life sentences for theft and drug possession. One guy named Harris told me that he had tried to get a job, but no one wanted to hire someone convicted of grand larceny, so he went back to stealing. How else was he going to feed his family? As far as I know, Harris is still sitting in prison and is still not able to feed his family.” Said Steven Thomas in an interview. Thomas is a former inmate that served 15 years spread across several Oklahoma state prisons.
When observing the types of arrests made in Oklahoma, they are predominantly non-violent crimes. (See Bar Graph)
When you observe the types of crimes committed even closer, they are overwhelmingly crimes that consist of theft of some sort. These types of crimes are typically perpetrated by people with a low economic status. (See Pie Graph)
Civil Rights and Activism in Oklahoma.
Oklahoma’s justice system has been in a lot of hot water in recent years for its treatment of minorities and the lack of police and correctional officer accountability. The Oklahoma chapter of Black Lives Matter recently posted a live stream of their protest outside of the Oklahoma County Jail after a black inmate was shot and killed during a hostage situation.
On April 21, 2021, the Oklahoma chapter of BLM took part in the storming of the Oklahoma City Capital Building. The riot started because of an anti-riot bill that hit the floor of the legislature. This bill makes it lawful to drive through protesters that are blocking roadways if your life is threatened, the bill also makes it unlawful for protesters to block roadways.
“This bill is just another attempt by the Oklahoma government to shut us down and keep our voices from being heard,” said Stella Henderson in an interview. Henderson is a regular attendee of BLM marches in the OKC area.
In 2019 three detention officers at the Oklahoma County Jail were fired and subsequently charged in 2020 for torturing inmates by handcuffing them in a standing position in an attorney visitation booth, and blasting children’s songs for hours at a time.
I was able to obtain a recording of a conversation between myself and a former corrections officer. In this conversation, the former corrections officer claims to of abused inmates, and to of witnessed his superior’s doing the same without repercussions. The justification for the abuse is stated that the inmates failed to comply with orders. (viewer discretion is advised)
How To Fix the Problem?
Oklahoma has a long list of things they need to fix before the incarceration rate will dramatically reduce. The top priorities for the state should be poverty and education. These two things are heavily intertwined and until they are seriously addressed by the government of Oklahoma no significant change will occur.
“All we want is for the Capitol to address the major issues, I don’t feel like it is too much to ask. The poor in Oklahoma pay their taxes just like the rich” said Clair Pitts in an interview. Pitts is a human rights activist in Tulsa Oklahoma.
All they want is for the major issues to be addressed. So why will no one address the major issues? It is often easier for governments to ignore the major issues and pretend like there isn’t a problem, but when a state that has a population of less than 4 million has the second-highest incarceration rate in the country, there is objectively a problem.
