The Justice Reinvestment Initiative, successful in so many states, never was about rocket science. It was about how to help states that are stuck with too many offenders in prison and too little money to sustain high rates of incarceration.
Hamstrung by political agendas, Oklahoma's version of JRI has not evolved as intended. One aspect of the 2012 law included intermediate sanctions for nonviolent offenders committing technical violations of probation. They would be sent to designated facilities for six months to give them a better chance of cleaning up their acts and then returned to probation.
One such offender was profiled by Tulsa World reporter Cary Aspinwall Friday. The woman, a drug addict, has spent several months in the Mabel Bassett Correctional Center. The cost is about $7,000 for her time there versus $100,000 to put her in prison for the seven years remaining on her suspended sentence.
People are also reading…
She is receiving intensive treatment to address the root cause of her problems — substance abuse.
More than half of Oklahoma's prison population includes drug offenders. Some have crimes of violence in their records and would not be appropriate candidates for alternative sentencing. But many would be.
Sadly, only 19 men and 12 women have been sentenced to intermediate sanctions for technical violations in DOC custody since the law took effect.
The law hasn't been used more for several reasons: One, judges are not confident that there are enough intermediate beds available. Two, the state hasn't really promoted, much less funded, JRI to appropriate levels.
Taxpayers should be outraged. If someone offered you a tested cure for a disease wouldn't you at least try it? By the same token, Oklahoma knows that its lock-'em-up-and-throw-away-the-key strategy hasn't worked in a long time. It is unsustainable.
The powers that be must get behind JRI. Give judges the tools to help people, and they'll use them.