Pubdate: Wed, 14 Aug 2013 Source: Oklahoman, The (OK) Copyright: 2013 The Oklahoma Publishing Co. Contact: http://www.newsok.com/voices/guidelines Website: http://newsok.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/318 STATE COULD TAKE CUE FROM HOLDER'S APPROACH IN his call to change the way mandatory-minimum sentences are used in federal drug cases, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder said this: "We need to ensure that incarceration is used to punish, deter and rehabilitate - not merely to convict, warehouse and forget." Oklahoma lawmakers should take heed. Holder is taking a reasonable approach to try to alleviate overcrowding in the federal system. He wants to give judges more of a say in how long to incarcerate nonviolent offenders who commit drug-related crimes. Now, judges' discretion is limited by mandatory-minimum sentences that grew out of President Ronald Reagan's "war on drugs" in the 1980s. There are about 25,000 drug convictions in federal court annually, and 45 percent of those are for lower-level offenses such as street-level dealers, according to the Sentencing Project, a nonprofit policy group. Holder's announcement Monday was received well by members of Congress on both sides of the aisle who have come to understand that continuing on the same path as the past 30 years is unsustainable. This is something a majority of Oklahoma lawmakers have failed to embrace at the state level. Since fiscal year 1989, Oklahoma's prison population has grown from 11,200 to roughly 26,000 - an increase of 132 percent. Just in the past 10 years, it has grown by nearly 13 percent. But the state's violent crime rate hasn't fallen significantly. A contributor to the state's prison population growth has been enactment of "truth-in-sentencing" laws that require offenders to serve 85 percent of their time before they can become eligible for parole. First approved by Republican Gov. Frank Keating in the late 1990s for a handful of violent crimes, lawmakers have added to the list through the years. Oklahoma has instituted a number of drug courts to try to keep some offenders out of prison, but about half of those incarcerated in state lockups are behind bars for drug-related or nonviolent crimes. According to The Pew Charitable Trusts, sentences for Oklahoma inmates convicted of drug offenses have more than doubled since 1990. Oklahoma prisoners stay locked up for an average of 3.1 years, which is 8.3 percent higher than in 1990, the Pew study showed. Only three states outranked ours in that category. Oklahoma's packed prisons are being monitored by fewer and fewer correctional officers. While the prison population has grown by 13 percent in the past decade, the number of prison guards has fallen by 19 percent, according to a Tulsa World analysis. Guards are badly outnumbered during some shifts, placing them in a dangerous spot. Those conditions combined with low pay make it difficult to attract new hires. One day after a World story highlighted the challenges facing prison guards, state Rep. Gus Blackwell, R-Laverne, led a call for additional corrections funding to be included in a special session. "The continued low number of officers coupled with the high incarceration rates is producing a situation that is conducive to extremely problematic scenarios in the DOC facilities," Blackwell said. He's right. But a quick and showy infusion of money won't solve this problem - one lawmakers have faced for years. What's needed is a wholesale change in the approach to corrections. Other legislatures in law-and-order states have done so - Texas, Arkansas and Georgia among them. Oklahoma eased in that direction last year with passage of a reform bill, but follow-through has been sorely lacking. Holder's move is an acknowledgment that the feds' approach to criminal justice needs to change. We continue waiting for Oklahoma policymakers to realize that ours does, too. - --- MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom