For Immediate Release: March 19, 2012
Citizens to vote on removing the Governor from Pardon & Parole
Process
On Monday, the Senate approved Senate Joint Resolution
25, which will allow voters this November to decide whether or
not to take the Governor out of the parole process for nonviolent
offenses. The resolution, authored by Sen. Josh
Brecheen and House Speaker Kris Steele, is supported by the
Governor.
“By removing the Governor completely for nonviolent offenses,
parolees wouldn’t be forced to wait on the Governor to review
their case,” said Brecheen, R-Coalgate. “One day of
incarceration costs the state an average of $40 and it takes the
Governor an average of 100 days to review paroles, costing taxpayers
roughly $4,000 per individual. Removing the Governor from the
process would save our state millions of dollars each year and
allow her to focus on the job she was elected to do like helping
create a balanced budget, attracting jobs to the state and strengthening
our economy.”
SJR 25 would amend the state Constitution to give the Board total
power to review and decide parole requests for nonviolent offenders.
Violent crimes would still be reviewed by the Governor.
In 2007, MGT conducted a performance audit of the Oklahoma Department
of Corrections. One of the recommendations of that audit was to
remove the Governor from the Pardon and Parole process. The study
found that removing the Governor from the parole process for nonviolent
offenders could save the state over $40 million over a decade
or $4 million a year by getting people out of prison sooner. The
MGT audit found that, on average, it takes the Governor around
100 days, or just over three months, to review paroles. Being
that in 2011 it cost on average just over $40 a day to incarcerate
an inmate, that delay costs the state an average of roughly $4,000
per inmate.
The average cost to house an inmate in 2007 was $47. According
to DOC, in fiscal year 2008, the Governor approved 1,170 parole
requests which, based on the average 100 day delay, may have cost
the state up to $5.5 million. The next year, 739 cases were approved
for an estimated cost to the state of $3.5 million. Then in FY’10,
the Governor approved 463 parole requests costing the state as
much as $2 million.
That same year, the Governor denied 119 paroles of nonviolent
offenders, previously recommended for parole by the Board, costing
the state approximately $1.9 million in continued annual incarceration
expenses. As Speaker Steele pointed out, if the Governor had already
been removed from the process at that time those individuals would
have been paroled as the Board recommended. They would have been
returned to society and allowed to provide for their families
and become productive citizens rather than remaining in prison
at a high cost to tax payers.
“Oklahoma’s parole process is costly, burdensome and
ineffective and we believe voters will be happy to fix it,”
said Steele, R-Shawnee. “Getting this constitutional amendment
passed is another step in Oklahoma’s ongoing effort to make
its criminal justice system more effective so we can increase
public safety and produce better outcomes. Freeing up resources
that would otherwise be wasted on an inefficient parole process
will allow the state to direct more resources to initiatives that
actually reduce crime.”
Being a joint resolution that submits a question to the voters,
it only had to be approved by both chambers of the legislature
in order to go on the ballot. It does not have to be considered
or approved by the Governor.
“No other Governor in the country is involved in their state’s
pardon and parole process for nonviolent offenses,” said
Brecheen. “We’re the last state in America to task
our Governor with this responsibility. It’s time we followed
the template of the 49 other states and remove her from the process.”
