Oklahoma approves largest single-day commutation in U.S. history
Source: Washington Post
In a flurry of signatures Friday afternoon, Oklahoma moved one step closer to shucking its dubious distinction as the state with the highest incarceration rate in the United States. On Monday afternoon, 527 people serving low-level drug and nonviolent offenses will go free in what Oklahoma lawmakers are calling the largest single-day commutation in both state and U.S. history.
The commutation is a success for criminal justice reform efforts in a state that has a long history of harsh sentencing practices and high incarceration rates. It’s also evidence of the Republican-dominated legislature’s willingness to move closer in line with the majority of voters who favor a less punitive approach. The historic commutations come amid nationwide efforts to reduce punishment of low-level crimes and move the U.S. prison system in a more rehabilitative — or at least less punitive — direction.
Criminal justice reform advocates like Ryan Kiesel, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Oklahoma, agreed that the commutation news signaled a change but cautioned that the road ahead will be a long one. “From the 30,000-foot view, the criminal justice landscape is light-years ahead of where it was three or four years ago,” Kiesel told The Washington Post. “It would have been impossible before State Question 780 passed in Oklahoma; that signaled to lawmakers there was an appetite for reform.”
In 2016, Oklahoma voters approved State Question 780 and 781, a pair of ballot measures that reclassified certain simple drug possession and nonviolent property crimes under $1,000 as misdemeanors instead of felonies and mandated that the cost savings would go to drug treatment and rehabilitation services. In January, a bipartisan coalition of lawmakers voted to make the 2016 laws apply retroactively. The commutations are just a fraction of the state’s 26,334-person state prison population, but they mean a second chance for the hundreds of incarcerated people who will be freed as a result.
Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2019/11/03/oklahoma-approves-largest-single-day-commutation-us-history/
(even in the GOP's zeal for "lock 'em up" and a push for "private prisons" for "job creation", GOP governors are finally beginning to realize that it COSTS the state MONEY to do this, and moreso for such frivolous stuff)
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