Proposals would crack down on domestic violence, expand expungement access and increase prison and jail oversight
Proposals to mandate pretrial data collection, crack down on domestic abuse and expand expungement eligibility are among the criminal justice bills eligible to be considered dur ing the 2024 regular legislative session.
Oklahoma’s criminal justice system has rebounded from delays and logistical challenges presented by the COVI D-19 pandemic. While the threat of coronavirus behind bars has waned, concerns about an uptick in the state’s prison population, poor conditions at some correctional facilities and the treatment of mentally ill detainees persist.
Here are five bills to watch in the 2024 legislative session, which convenes on Feb. 5:
Cracking Down on Domestic Abuse
Bill Number: Senate Bill 1211 Sponsor: Kristen Thompson, R-Edmond As Oklahoma’s domestic violence rate trends up, several bills look to increase punishments for abusers.
Thompson’s proposal would increase the maximum first-time sentence for domestic abuse by strangulation from three to 10 years in state custody. Domestic abuse by strangulation can cause long-term injuries and trauma and has been shown by researchers to be a precursor to homicide, Oklahoma Watch reported in 2019.
Other anti-domestic violence bills filed would add domestic abuse to the Oklahoma Violent Crimes Registration Act and reclassify domestic abuse against a pregnant woman as a felony.
More than 25,000 domestic abuse incidents were reported to Oklahoma law enforcement in 2021, a slight decrease from 2020 but higher than the average total from 2011 to 2021.
Mandating Pretrial Data Collection Bill Number: House Bill 3957 Sponsor: Meloyde Blancett, D- Tulsa This bill would require district attorneys, police departments and jailers to submit monthly data on felony and misdemeanor charging decisions, average jail stays and bail amounts to the Office of Management and Enterprise Services. The information would be publicly accessible on a state-run website.
Advocates for expanded justice data collection argue the information would allow state lawmakers to craft better reform policies. Several states, including Florida and Michigan, have enacted similar legislation in recent years.
“All of our conversations on reform or alternatives to incarceration really are centered on emotion and not fact,” Blancett said. “I, coming from a business background, feel like it ’s important to get agnostic data that’s not bent to drive a conclusion, but rather inform and tell us what the heck is going on out there.”
Expanding Expungement
Eligibility
Bill Number: House Bill 3037 Sponsor: Preston Stinson, R- Edmond This bill would authorize the expungement of most misdemeanor offenses three years after the completion of asentence. Thecurrent waiting period is five years.
Looking to boost workforce participation and ease reentry barriers, lawmakers have embraced expungement reform. In 2022 the Legislature passed House Bill 3316, which authorized the state to automatically expunge certain criminal offenses. State officials expect the system to launch by 2026.
The manual expungement process is complex and typically requires applicants to hire an attorney. Those who can’t afford to pay thousands of dollars in fees may struggle to find secure housing and employment.
“When someone has a conviction on their record or even a deferred sentence, those things are huge barriers to getting the job that really pays enough to live on or getting safe housing that requiresabac kground check,” Rachel Delcour, the criminal justice director for Women in Recovery, told Oklahoma Watch in 2022. “We want to save people money, but more than that I want people to get better jobs and better housing and remove some of those barriers.”
Authorizing Unannounced Prison Visits Bill Number: House Bill 3082 Sponsor: Justin Humphrey, R-Lane This bill authorizes state elected officials to enter any state prison at any time to inspect conditions and inter view staff and inmates. Pennsylvania enforces a similar law. Humphrey, who chairs the House Criminal Justice and Corrections Committee, told Oklahoma Watch in November he would look to boost prison accountability in response to reports of poor conditions at the Great Plains Correctional Facility in Hinton. Last year dozens of Great Plains prisoners were confined to 3-by-2.5foot shower stalls for several hours or days due to backlogs in the facility’s restricted housing unit.
In response to the proposal, corrections department spokesperson Kay Thompson said the agency has an open door policy with elected officials and the measure is unnecessary.
Creating a Felony Classification 3455 Sponsor: Anthony Moore, R-Clinton A push to modernize Oklahoma’s criminal code fell short in the final weeks of last year’s legislative session, but lawmakers appear poised to take another crack at it in 2024.
Moore’s bill groups felonies by severity with common sentencing ranges. The proposal as currently written does not include sentencing ranges, but that could be modified as the legislative process progresses.
Critics of Oklahoma’s current criminal code say it lacks uniformity and causes sentencingrangestovar y widely from county to county. For instance, a second offense of second-degree burglary is punishable by two years to life in prison. The legislative push to reform Oklahoma’s criminal code accelerated after voters in 2020 rejected State Question 805, which proposed barring courts from imposing sentence enhancements for certain crimes. While versions of a classification bill passed out of the House and Senate last year, the proposal stalled in a Senate conference committee and failed to reach the governor’s desk.