The Oklahoma Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that enough voter signatures were collected to put a question regarding sentence enhancements for nonviolent offenders on the ballot on November 3.
More than 248,000 Oklahomans signed an initiative petition to get State Question 805 on the ballot.
Sentence enhancements allow courts to widen the range of years they can sentence a person to prison if that person has been convicted of another felony in the past.
The state question will ask voters to take that power away from courts when they’re sentencing people who have never been convicted of a violent felony.
A recent analysis from the Oklahoma Council for Public Affairs suggests ending enhancements for nonviolent offenders could cut the state’s prison population more than eight percent in 10 years and save the state up to $186 million.
The Oklahoma Department of Corrections questions some of the study’s findings.
A 2017 report from a task force established by former Governor Mary Fallin found that sentence enhancements were a large contributor to Oklahoma’s disproportionately high prison population.
