With a looming $1.3 billion hole in the state budget, an overcrowded prison system and the urging of the state's conservative governor, Oklahoma's Republican-led Legislature this year successfully pushed some significant changes to its criminal justice system.
The passage of four measures to slow the explosive prison growth was no small feat in an election year in a state where tough-on-crime policies have been a staple of both political parties for decades and with one of the highest incarceration rates in the country.
But Oklahoma voters will likely get a chance in November to make even more far-reaching changes to the state's criminal code, like reducing all drug possession crimes to misdemeanors, a reform that many prosecutors say goes too far.
The movement comes as Oklahoma's prison populations have swelled to record highs - more than 27,000 inmates packed into crumbling and outdated state prisons that are currently at 118 percent of capacity, said Department of Corrections spokeswoman Terri Watkins. Drug offenders currently make up about 26 percent of the state prison population, while another 23 percent of inmates are imprisoned for nonviolent crimes.
Similar movements are underway this year in other Republican-led states to reduce mandatory minimum sentences, including Maryland, Florida and Iowa, said Greg Newburn, director of state policy for Families Against Mandatory Minimums, a national organization pushing for changes to the criminal justice system.
"Budgetary concerns are a part of it," Newburn said. "But there are other reasons ... individual cases that shock the conscience, a sense we have misinvested scarce resources, that we're putting too much money in locking up low-level offenders. There are a lot of motivations."
At least four separate bills were signed into law by Oklahoma Gov. Mary Fallin this year to give prosecutors more discretion to file charges as misdemeanors, reduce mandatory minimum sentences for drug possession, raise the threshold for some felony property crimes to $1,000, and broaden the use of drug courts and community sentencing.
"These measures will preserve public safety while helping control prison costs and reduce incarceration rates," Fallin said when she signed the bills.
Oklahomans for Criminal Justice Reform, a bipartisan group of legislators, criminal justice experts, and business and faith leaders, launched a signature drive earlier this year to put even more extensive reforms on the ballot - classifying all drug possession and most property crimes under $1,000 as misdemeanors, punishable by no more than one year in the county jail.
The secretary of state's office still must validate the signatures, but it appears supporters have more than enough to put the questions on the November ballot.
But those proposals are likely to face opposition from the state's prosecutors, many of whom contend that making all drug possession cases misdemeanors will take away the leverage prosecutors have to force drug offenders to get treatment for their addictions, said Mike Loring, a district attorney from the Panhandle and the president of the Oklahoma District Attorneys Association.
"The primary concern to me is making possession of meth, heroin and cocaine a misdemeanor forever, whether it's your first time or your 20th time," Loring said. "That is unacceptable.
"A significant number of burglaries, home invasions, a significant number of thefts, property crimes, all that's related to people using dope. Are we going to keep putting these people out in the street?"
