Oklahoma Odyssey

Beginning in the early 2000's, the Oklahoma State Legislature began to cut funding for court operations but allowed the imposition of fees to cover the lost revenue. Fines and fees has therefore been a concern for criminal justice reform advocates and for court actors who faced shrinking state budgets. Due to this, a study was done in Oklahoma County by Harvard, Berkeley, and Columbia from 2017-20...

Today is National Women's Equality Day. Women's Equality Day commemorates the passage of the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, granting women the right to vote. The amendment was first introduced in 1878. Though Women's Equality Day didn't come around until 1971, when the U.S. Congress designated August 26 as Women's Equality Day. Throughout the years women have diligently fought for equal...

As legislative session and special sessions have now come to an end, it is time to shift to interim studies. Oklahoma House Speaker Charles McCall approved 82 interim studies ahead of the 2023 Legislative Session. Additionally, the Senate has approved over 40 interim studies. Between the House and Senate, we personally have 10 interim studies that we will be working on and over 20 we are watching...

For our monthly book club this month, we dive into Unfair: The New Science of Criminal Injustice. We've all heard stories of people who served decades in prison for crimes they didn't commit. We like to think such miscarriages of justice are rare. Legal scholar Adam Benforado, says many routine procedures in the criminal justice system are bound to lead to mistakes and unfair outcomes because they...

This week we had Keaton Ross, a reporter who covers democracy, prison conditions, and criminal justice issues for Oklahoma Watch, on to chat with us about private prisons in Oklahoma. Many of us know some of the horrific truths and statistics about violence and the conditions inside private prisons, including ones in Oklahoma, but we don't always factor the devastating economic blow when these fac...

The week, for our monthly bookclub, we are detailing the book Nine: Inside the Secret World of the Supreme Court by Jeffret Toobin. Based in part on exclusive interviews with the justices and former law clerks, Toobin profiles the justices of the United States Supreme Court, the functioning of that institution, and how it has changed over the years. In light of recent events, we think it is powerf...

As the legislative session draws to a close - it is important to take stock of the gains we made as a state. This session featured several monumental successes for criminal justice reform, and we are proud of the work achieved by criminal legal advocates of all stripes. Though we would be remiss if we neglected to highlight some of the harmful criminal legal bills that almost made it into law. Cri...

Welcome back to our book series, On the Same Page. This week we're discussing Rich get Richer, Poor get Prison by Jeffrey Reiman and Paul Leighton. For 40 years, this classic text has taken the issue of economic inequality seriously and asked: Why are our prisons filled with the poor? Why aren't the tools of the criminal justice system being used to protect Americans from predatory business practi...

This Drug Court Month we had the honor of having Judge Stoner of Oklahoma County Drug Court on with us to detail the how his court operates and all the fiscal and societal benefits of drug court. National Drug Court Month is a celebration of the lives restored by drug court, and it sends the powerful message that these programs must be expanded to reach more people in need. More than 30 years ago,...

As May closes out we want to honor Mental Health Awareness Month. Since 1949, May has been observed as Mental Health Awareness Month. In this episode we detail the history of mental health treatment and advocacy, but furthermore, we dive intot the nexus between mental health and prisons and jails. Though the actual statistics of individuals who are affected by mental illness in prisons and jails i...

3 moms. 4 kids. 18 years in prison. Since the beginning of the War on Drugs, the number of women in U.S. prisons has grown over 800%. The majority are mothers. In a Midwestern state caught between harsh drug sentencing and rising incarceration for women, three unforgettable mothers—Tomika, Lydia, and Amanda— return home from prison and rebuild their lives after being separated from the...

This week we're wrapping up our conversation with Ginnie Graham of the Tulsa World on ethical journalism. Ginnie Graham was born and raised in Oklahoma. She is now an editorial writer for the Tulsa World Opinion section. We got into the weeds of what reporting looks like in Oklahoma and where Oklahomans should be a little more wary when reading about crime.

This week we were so grateful to have Ginnie Graham of the Tulsa World on with us as we detailed ethical journalism. Ginnie Graham was born and raised in Oklahoma. She is now an editorial writer for the Tulsa World Opinion section. We looked at this in the lens of crime reporting and criminal legal reform reporting. Though this topic is big, we hope you join us as we dive into misinformation, how...

This week we had the opportunity to interview Christie Luther of the R.I.S.E. Program, INC here in Oklahoma. The R.IS.E. Program is a 501c3 non-profit organization which teaches Oklahoma's incarcerated women the vocational skills of Cosmetology. (With no cost to the women, their families, state tax dollars, or Federal grants or loans). The need for second chance employment is extreme. Mass incarce...

Welcome back to our book series, On the Same Page. This week we're discussing the award winning, American Prison: A Reporter's Undercover Journey into the Business of Punishment by Shane Bauer. In this non-fiction novel, Bauer, an investigative reporter for Mother Jones magazine, decides to dig into America's prison-for-profit system. As a sneak peak, we were not ready for the bluntness, racial in...

A comprehensive new database designed to evalute everything from what Oklahomans are being charged with to who is taking plea deal and what kinds. In the moment, no one in Oklahoma has a comprehensive look at Oklahoma's criminal legal system or the prison and jail populations. Listen along with us today as we are joined by Ryan Kiesel to learn about HB 3848 and how data can cure some of Oklahoma's...

Join us today as we dive into fines and fees reform in Oklahoma with David Gateley of the Oklahoma Policy Institute. We're diving into three bills surrounding fines and fees reform with an added sneak peak into our expungement episode and the massive effect all of these bills would have on hundreds of thousands of Oklahomans. Currently, the state's court system receives relatively little in paymen...

Just Mercy emphasizes the importance of active resistance to unfair institutions. Bryan Stevenson describes the racism, corruption, mass incarceration, the role of police, and cruelty that pervade American court systems and lead to the systematic abuse of marginalized communities. In our first episode of our book club, On the Same Page, we discuss how this book manifests in the criminal legal syst...