by Keaton Ross, Oklahoma Watch
March 28, 2025

Lock them up and throw away the key. 

That’s the idea behind Title 21, Section 13.1 of the Oklahoma Statutes. Criminal defendants convicted of one of the 22 offenses outlined in the statute, including murder, first-degree rape and human trafficking, must serve at 85% of their sentence behind bars before becoming parole eligible. 

Oklahoma lawmakers are considering several additions to the 85% list, with backers arguing a tougher approach is needed to crack down on violent crime and domestic abuse. The Domestic Violence Fatality Review Board reported a record-breaking 122 domestic violence homicides in 2023. 

Bills increasing prison time for certain domestic violence crimes, including domestic abuse by strangulation and abuse of a pregnant woman, have advanced with bipartisan support during the first half of the legislative session. 

Meanwhile, several Democrats have opposed Senate Bill 631, which adds discharging a firearm into a building to the 85% list. Sen. Michael Brooks, D-Oklahoma City, argued on the Senate floor that it could lead to lengthy sentences for property damage. 

The bill, authored by Senate Pro Tem Lonnie Paxton, advanced along party lines and is eligible to be considered in the House. Paxton has maintained that law enforcement and district attorneys will retain discretion to decide if a shooting was accidental.

“If someone is going to shoot into my house, I’m scared of them and don’t want them on the street,” Paxton said on the Senate floor. 

Additions to the 85% crime list would significantly increase prison stays, according to estimates from the Department of Corrections. For instance, domestic abuse by strangulation has an average sentence length of 10.99 years, but prisoners serve an average of just 1.68 years in state custody. That would increase to at least 9.34 years as an 85% crime. 

Another bill to increase prison sentences, Senate Bill 599 by Warren Hamilton, R-McCurtain, remains alive. The measure, which advanced to the House on a party-line Republican vote, would establish a mandatory life without parole sentence for anyone convicted of sexually abusing a child under 14. 

The bill also allows prosecutors to pursue the death penalty, though current U.S. Supreme Court precedent outlaws capital punishment for non-homicide offenses. Florida and Tennessee have passed similar legislation in an attempt to get the high court to reconsider the issue. 

“We don’t want to infringe on the accused’s rights, but children have rights too,” Hamilton said. “The message we’re trying to send is that we’re not going to put up with people who commit heinous crimes against children.” 

Where Reform Bills Stand

While proposals to pause the death penalty and scrutinize civil asset forfeiture stalled, several other criminal justice reform measures have momentum at the Legislature’s unofficial halfway point. 

House Bill 1460 by Tammy West, R-Oklahoma City, passed without objection off the House floor on Thursday. The bill eliminates several fines and fees, including a $40 per month supervision fee assessed to defendants on district attorney’s probation and a $300 per month fee charged to inmates enrolled in the Department of Corrections’ GPS monitoring program. The bill would cost the state about $10 million per year in revenue if enacted. 

The lower chamber also approved House Bill 1968 by Rep. Danny Williams, R-Seminole, which would establish a full-time Pardon and Parole Board with salaries of $85,000 per year. Criminal justice reform advocates have long pushed for the change, arguing that Oklahoma’s parole board don’t have enough to adequately review cases during a 10-hour work week. Several neighboring states, including Kansas, Missouri, Arkansas and Texas, employ a full-time parole board.

“I want the Pardon and Parole Board to give people a chance to go out and prove they’ve truly redeemed their life,” Williams said during an Oct. 29 interim study on sentencing reform. 

Lawmakers will shift focus back to committee work in the coming weeks. The deadline for bills to pass out of committee in the opposing chamber is April 10.

Other bills to watch: 

• House Bill 2235 by Cyndi Munson, D-Oklahoma City: Updates compensation for wrongful convictions to $50,000 per year. Current law caps payments at $175,000 regardless of time served. 
• Senate Bill 595 by Darrell Weaver, R-Moore: Creates a list of minimum standards that county and city jails must abide by. 
• Senate Bill 251 by Todd Gollihare, R-Kellyville: Increases funding to rural counties to establish mental health and diversion programs. 

House Bill 2422 by Scott Fetgatter, R-Okmulgee: Requires sex offenders whose victim was 13 or younger to be chemically castrated to become parole-eligible.

This article first appeared on Oklahoma Watch and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

The post Lawmakers Eye Tougher Sentencing Laws appeared first on oklahomawatch.org

Oklahoma Watch, at oklahomawatch.org, is a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that covers public-policy issues facing the state.

Rep. Tom Cole Says DOGE Is ‘Pretty Responsive’ to His Concerns

by Em Luetkemeyer, Oklahoma Watch
March 25, 2025

Oklahoma Rep. Tom Cole told constituents with concerns about government-slashing efforts at the Department of Government Efficiency that he’d been able to get it to change course when it set its sights on projects related to his district.

He said he’d been able to get results by flagging issues to DOGE like any other agency, adding that while it’s made some mistakes in its efforts to cut spending, it had reversed course in at least one instance when his office brought an issue to its attention.

“We’ve found, at least, if you work it just like you would any other government agency, they can be pretty responsive,” Cole said in his telephone town hall on Thursday.

He pointed to his staff working with DOGE to get a Social Security office in Lawton, Oklahoma, off of a list of terminated contracts — one of many that DOGE reversed course on. He also largely defended DOGE’s work.

“We think this is a bad decision,” Cole said his office told DOGE about potentially closing the Social Security office. “And [DOGE] relooked at it and they agreed so. But this is where members have to be pretty aggressive and engaged.”

The Atlantic reported Wednesday that Cole met with Elon Musk over cigars and bourbon and advised the Trump ally, who heads DOGE, to consult lawmakers before making cuts. Cole said Musk had committed to fixing any errors.

“So far,” Cole told the magazine, “I’ve found them to be good to their word.”

Cole, the chair of the House Appropriations Committee, is one of several lawmakers elected to represent areas that President Donald Trump won who have faced questions from constituents this week about DOGE and the Trump administration’s efforts to expand executive power.

During his hour-long town hall, the majority of questions Cole faced from constituents were DOGE-related. Callers who said they were from Oklahoma brought up potential cuts to programs like Social Security and Indian Health Service. They also laid out concerns about federal office closures and layoffs.

Though the event wasn’t in person, the largely calm conversations Cole had were a tone shift from recent town halls held by Republicans — some of which caught enough attention that they resulted in the chair of the National Republican Congressional Committee advising representatives to stop hosting town halls in person. Now, while Congress is in recess, representatives on both sides of the aisle are catching heat from constituents.

Cole didn’t receive the same arguing, shouting and heckling as some of his colleagues. But, most callers were still worried about DOGE.

“I’m very concerned about Congress’s constitutional duties, that those are being taken over by DOGE,” one caller told Cole. “I would like to know what steps you’re willing to take to make sure that the constitutional duties of Congress remain with Congress, and not with the executive branch.”

Cole had a response ready.

“I try to do it by pretty aggressively defending congressional power,” Cole said. “I think there’s a lot of things out there that you hear that may or may not be true.”

He used the example of Tinker Air Force Base, located in Oklahoma, where rumored layoffs did not happen.

“We live in an extremely contentious time,” Cole said. “It’s a high degree of polarization and partisanship, but we also work together to get things done better than you may think. And so at the end of the day, I always just urge all of you to have confidence in the country’s institutions.”

This article first appeared on Oklahoma Watch and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

The post Rep. Tom Cole Says DOGE Is ‘Pretty Responsive’ to His Concerns appeared first on oklahomawatch.org

Oklahoma Watch, at oklahomawatch.org, is a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that covers public-policy issues facing the state.

by Keaton Ross, Oklahoma Watch
March 24, 2025

Picture a prison yard in a Hollywood blockbuster. 

There’s a fenced-in field where young men lift weights and play basketball on a hot summer day. Correctional officers look on from a guard tower ready to sniff out any disturbance.

In Oklahoma, a more accurate image might be a group of gray-haired men standing in a pill line or a dialysis patient struggling to get out of bed and use the restroom. 

Nearly one in six Oklahoma prisoners was 55 or older as of Dec. 31, according to Department of Corrections data. While the state has made progress in reducing its overall prison population, this demographic of aging inmates has doubled since 2009 and almost quadrupled since 2000. 

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The elderly population, which is more prone to chronic health conditions than the general public, is stretching the state’s corrections budget and prompting officials to rethink core healthcare functions like medication delivery and medical appointment scheduling. Criminal justice reform advocates say there are methods to safely reduce the aging population, including requiring parole boards to consider a person’s age and health as a mitigating factor and making the post-release placement process more efficient. 

The Department of Corrections allocated $111 million for health services in its Fiscal Year 2025 budget, a 91% increase from the $58 million spent in 2015. Total state appropriations to the agency have increased about 15% over the past decade. 

The Legislature has also boosted funding to the University Hospitals Authority, which provides care to prisoners needing surgery or specialized care. The agency allocated $177.3 million, more than half of its total budget, to indigent and inmate care in FY 2025. 

In a January budget presentation, Department of Corrections Executive Director Stephen Harpe cited the aging population as one of the agency’s greatest challenges. He said officials will likely have to purchase a long-term care facility or convert existing space into a hardened medical unit to accommodate prisoners with chronic illnesses.  

The agency’s goals for 2025 include expanding telehealth capability to reduce medical transports and contracting with an off-site pharmacy to pre-package medication and deliver it directly to prisoners. The agency spends nearly $2 million per month on prescription drugs for approximately 19,000 prisoners. 

“Care has gone up,” Harpe said, citing nurse recruitment efforts. “We’re able to see more people and have more appointments, and we measure all of those things. At the end of the day, it’s still difficult.”

Legislative reforms aren’t working

The Legislature has considered several proposals over the past decade to reduce the aging prison population. House Bill 2286, passed in 2018, authorized prisoners 60 or older convicted of nonviolent offenses to request parole after serving 10 years or one-third of their sentence. Three years later lawmakers enacted Senate Bill 320, which expanded the criteria for medical parole.

The reforms have not translated to higher parole grant rates. Oklahoma Watch reported earlier this month that only six prisoners have been granted medical parole since Senate Bill 320 took effect in November 2021. About one in five prisoners convicted of a violent offense advanced past stage one of a two-part parole hearing in 2024. 

Nicole Porter, the senior director of advocacy at The Sentencing Project, said there are several reasons why expanding eligibility isn’t a catch-all solution. Appointed parole board members often face external pressure to not grant or recommend release to perceived public safety threats. The application process can be cumbersome without the help of an attorney or nonprofit group. 

Some states have tried to spur action by streamlining the residential placement process or requiring parole board members to assume that elderly or medically frail prisoners are not dangerous unless proven otherwise. Numerous studies have found that recidivism tends to decline as people age. 

“There’s some uncertainty right now, but given certain trends around declining state budgets and this increased aging population, maybe those circumstances will come together and create the conditions for lawmakers to think seriously about what should happen,” Porter said.

Parole candidate ‘not the kid I was at 18’

At age 19, Michael Gibson was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life with the possibility of parole in 1969. He appeared on the Pardon and Parole Board’s docket 51 years later in November 2020 after completing an 18-month peer recovery support program. 

More than 50 people, including two former Pardon and Parole Board members and two former wardens at the Joseph Harp Correctional Center, submitted letters of support for the 70-year-old’s release. His sole misconduct in the 21st century was for putting a piece of cardboard in a cell door in 2012.

“Today I am almost 70 years old, and not the kid I was at 18,” Gibson wrote to the board. “I feel sure that I have matured to the point that I am an excellent candidate for parole or commutation, as do many others who know me best.” 

The board declined to advance Gibson to a more comprehensive stage two hearing. He died at a hospital in Oklahoma City on Wednesday after battling a terminal illness. 

“If you can’t get that man through stage one, you’re going to have these old people in prison forever,” said Sue Hinton, a retired journalism professor and criminal justice reform advocate who regularly attends Pardon and Parole Board hearings. 

Hinton said parole board members are much more likely to recommend release if they speak directly with a prisoner or their designee, but that doesn’t always happen. The stage one hearing for prisoners convicted of a violent offense consists only of an initial application review. Those who are denied must wait three to five years to reapply.

“I think we have some fine people on the parole board, but we’re asking a lot of them for very little pay,” she said. 

One bill moving through the Legislature, House Bill 1968 by Danny Williams, R-Seminole, would establish a full-time Pardon and Parole Board with three alternate members. Board members are currently classified as part-time state employees and expected to work an average of 10 hours per week. The proposal, which has a March 27 deadline to advance off the House floor, would cost about $673,000 per year to implement. 

During an Oct. 29 interim study on sentencing reform, Williams said lawmakers can and should do more to spur the release of elderly and medically vulnerable prisoners. 

“It doesn’t make any sense to keep really sick people that aren’t dangerous,” Williams said.

This article first appeared on Oklahoma Watch and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

The post Aging Prison Population Strains Corrections Budget appeared first on oklahomawatch.org

Oklahoma Watch, at oklahomawatch.org, is a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that covers public-policy issues facing the state.