Republican Oklahoma Rep. Scott Biggs justified his recent decision to kill five of the eight bills in a massive criminal justice reform package put together by Republican Gov. Mary Fallin in a Sunday statement.
Biggs, the chairman of the Oklahoma House Judiciary Committee considering the five bills, refused to call his committee into meeting throughout May, resulting in the five bills stagnating in the committee until the end of session, effectively killing them on May 26.
“The governor and other reform advocates were demanding passage of legislation that would have lowered sentences for domestic abuse, hate crimes, child trafficking, and other violent crimes,” Biggs told the Tulsa World in a Sunday article. Biggs went on to say his constituents were “understanding.”
Proponents said the legislation would have helped empty Oklahoma’s prisons and save money by lowering sentences for non-violent crimes, but Biggs argued they classified many violent crimes as “non-violent,” Oklahoma’s Norman Transcript reports.
The bills, now defunct until next session, would have limited the punishments that could be added to a non-violent crime due to prior convictions; expanded treatment and supervision programs outside of prison; lowered sentences for low-value property crimes; and made it easier for ex-cons to get jobs once out of prison.
Andrew Speno, the Oklahoma director for the conservative justice reform group Right On Crime, supported the bills, telling the Transcript that Biggs “threw a monkey-wrench into the whole process,” calling the situation a “crisis.”
The bills could have saved Oklahoma $200 million each year on prison costs, but Biggs argued the money wasn’t worth having more violent criminals on the streets. Biggs did call a meeting on the final day of session, but only to make a statement.
“It took Texas six years to do what we tried to do in one session,” Biggs said in the final meeting. “We simply could not accomplish it, especially given the fact we have zero funding opportunities for these programs.”
Oklahoma is one of many states that tried to address overcriminalization this spring. Louisiana, which has the highest incarceration rate in the world, passed most of a 10-bill package on May 30, lowering sentences and getting more non-violent criminals out of prison. Illinois Gov. Bruce Rauner, a Republican, signed a sentencing reform bill in March that also reduced the state’s prison sentences.
Attorney General Jeff Sessions has been trying to get the country to increase sentencing severity with his “tough-on-crime” agenda. Sessions struck down an Obama-era policy on May 14 that lessened punishments for non-violent crimes by instructing prosecutors to avoid mandatory minimum sentences.
Sessions’ new policy was an about-face, encouraging prosecutors to pursue the most serious punishment for the most serious offense any suspect could be charged with. Sessions argued in a May 14 letter to the justice department that the policy would produce consistency in sentencing.
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