Oklahoma Watch (https://oklahomawatch.org/category/criminaljustice/corrections/)
Every month, hundreds of inmates who’ve served their time are released from prisons across Oklahoma. But rebuilding a life is challenging. Robin Wertz, who spent years in prison, talks about her experiences and how, as site director at Exodus House, she helps former inmates re-integrate into society. This video launches our series titled “The Invisibles.”
With overcrowded and deteriorating prisons and shortages of corrections officers, Oklahoma’s prison system might appear to be primed for a federal takeover. But what are the prospects it will happen?
A federal appeals court has struck down limits on what jails and prisons can charge for in-state phone calls. Oklahoma was among the states that challenged the limits.
A year and a half after the deadliest prison fight in Oklahoma history, Payne County prosecutors brought charges Monday against seven people in connection with the incident.
Research shows that older prisoners are less likely to commit new crimes after they’re released. A new proposal would allow the state Pardon and Parole Board to give early release to nonviolent offenders who are age 50 or over and have serious health issues.
Oklahoma’s largest private-prison company is proposing to acquire the state’s second largest provider of halfway houses, which would give the company a dominant footprint in private incarceration in the state.
David Hammock was one of nine men who took their own lives in the Oklahoma State Penitentiary between 2012 and 2015. Convicted of arson at age 18 for burning down the old Sallisaw High School, he failed at chances to gain early release, and then, in the end, lost hope.
Between 2012 and 2015, nine inmates in the Oklahoma State Penitentiary took their own lives, giving Oklahoma’s only state-owned maximum security prison the highest suicide rate among corrections facilities. Is solitary confinement to blame?
Oklahoma has among the highest prisoner mortality rates and homicide rates in the nation, according to data released by the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics.
Debbie Aldridge worked for more than 20 years at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAlester. Now she runs Oklahoma’s largest prison for women, the Mabel Bassett Correctional Center in McLoud.
As many as 96,000 Oklahoma children have a parent in prison, yet the state is cutting back programs that give them better odds in life.
