Two Oklahoma City Democratic Party candidates, one seeking to become governor, the other vying for a Tulsa congressional seat, spoke out Tuesday in support of a prison reform lawsuit.
Gubernatorial candidate Connie Johnson and Gwendolyn Fields Black, a candidate in the 1st Congressional District race, joined representatives from other Oklahoma City-area groups at a news conference in downtown Tulsa to rail against private prisons and what they say is a state prison system that disproportionately incarcerates African-Americans at greater rates than whites.
“We are today announcing our intent to mount a very, very long, aggressive fight against private prisons, against the lobbying and the contributions that are going to our legislators that is shaping our criminal justice policies, and most importantly to make certain that the redesigning of both CCA and GEO does not expand correctional control under the guise of substance abuse treatment or any other type of more benevolent service,” Fields Black said, referencing two private prison companies that do business in Oklahoma.
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The Advocacy Council, led by Fields Black, and three other advocacy groups filed a lawsuit in April in Oklahoma City federal court, naming private prison leaders, former Gov. Frank Keating, Gov. Mary Fallin and other state officials as defendants.
Fields Black, along with several Oklahoma inmates, had filed a similar lawsuit in August. A federal judge dismissed that lawsuit in December.
The current lawsuit, which seeks class-action status, alleges that Fallin and other Oklahoma officials who received campaign donations from the private prisons “obstructed criminal justice reform measures that would have meaningfully reduced Oklahoma’s prison population and cured the racial disparity and disproportionality in sentencing.”
“We know now that it was ‘pay to play,’ and they have played us,” Johnson said.
The GEO Group, one of the private prison companies named in the lawsuit along with Core Civic Inc., has asked a judge to dismiss the case.
“Plaintiffs bring this action as a general complaint about Oklahoma’s public policy, not a serious attempt to impose liability on the GEO defendants,” the company stated in its motion to dismiss.
Rather, GEO Group claims in its motion that it and other private prison companies help the state with its prison overcrowding problem.
“The alleged claims are completely baseless," Pablo Paez, spokesman for the GEO Group, said in a prepared statement. "As a matter of long-standing policy, GEO does not take a position on, nor advocate for or against, criminal justice policies such as whether to criminalize behavior, the length of criminal sentences, or the basis for or length of an individual’s incarceration or detention.
"Instead, GEO’s political and governmental relations activities focus on promoting the use of public-private partnerships in the delivery of contract services which include evidence-based rehabilitation programs aimed at reducing recidivism.”
Keating, Fallin and other state officials named in the lawsuit have also filed motions to dismiss the case, claiming the plaintiffs all lack standing.
“Specifically, it does not appear that the organizations themselves have suffered any injury as a result of the complained conduct,” the motion states.
