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With less money from the state and bounced-check funds drying up, Oklahoma district attorneys are turning to issuing tickets and putting people on probation through their offices – activities typically left to police, counties and the Department of Corrections. Their newest effort that yields revenue is to crack down on uninsured drivers using a system that scans the license plates of hundreds of thousands of Oklahomans on roadways every year. In March, the District Attorneys Council, which c...
CoreCivic, formerly Corrections Corp. of America, owns and operates the Cimarron Correctional Facility near Cushing, where in 2015 four inmates were fatally stabbed during a gang fight. Oklahoma’s largest private-prison company is proposing to acquire the state’s second largest provider of halfway houses, which would give the company a dominant footprint in private incarceration in the state. CoreCivic – formerly known as Corrections Corp. of America – has been in talks with the Oklahoma Department of Corrections and nonprofit Center Point I...
For the mentally ill and emotionally troubled, encounters with law enforcement officers and incarceration in jails pose a risk of death. A spike in fatalities in Oklahoma jails this year and several confrontations between police and the mentally ill since 2014 have raised questions about whether officers and jailers are sufficiently trained to deal with people with mental health problems. Training data shows it is a special concern in rural areas. During 2015, at least seven of the 25 fatal...
By the afternoon of Aug. 18, 2014, Broken Arrow resident Larry Clark had begun to suspect something was wrong with his 60-year-old brother Gary. For about a week, Gary Clark had been acting erratic and delusional. He left clean clothes and cigarettes out in the rain, wasn't taking food, and burned some of his possessions in a trash barrel outside the small cottage he lived in behind Larry's house in rural Wagoner County. Gary had been diagnosed with schizophrenia years earlier and was...
A key witness in the criminal case against State Superintendent Joy Hofmeister has resigned from his job as head of a school administrators’ group. Ryan Owens was general counsel for the Cooperative Council of Oklahoma School Administration before being named executive director in July. The CCOSA executive committee held a special meeting Tuesday, where it accepted Owens’ resignation, according to a message sent out by the group. Owens could not be reached for comment. Pam Deering, CCOSA’s associate executive director and former super...
State Questions 780 and 781 are two intertwined measures that seek to lower Oklahoma’s incarceration rate and divert more offenders to treatment programs. Proponents say the measures are critical to a state where numerous people’s lives are stunted by felony convictions for nonviolent crimes. But the measures are not without detractors, who say the proposals add too much leniency to the justice system and could have negative effects. Below are some of the arguments for and against the state questions and information about what each que...
For many Oklahomans, the tug of war between drug addiction and the wait time for treatment can be a one-sided competition: The power of addiction often wins. Those who lack insurance or cannot pay out of pocket often find themselves on a long waiting list that prioritizes the most severe drug addiction cases. If the person isn’t pregnant or injecting drugs, he or she will not receive state-funded treatment or will be forced to wait, sometimes weeks, until a spot opens up. The problem is exacerbated in rural areas, where there are fewer drug a...
From its vast, open ranges in the northwest to its lush, rolling hills in the southeast corner, rural Oklahoma still evokes an idyllic image. The archetype of quiet, small towns with a strong sense of community – where friendliness is abundant and “big city” stresses are few – often marks the popular imagery used to represent the state and its values. But for many of those who live in Oklahoma’s rural areas, the reality does not match the trouble-free imagery. Outside of Oklahoma City and Tulsa and their suburbs, a disproportionate number of...
