{"id":29430,"date":"2018-03-06T12:17:32","date_gmt":"2018-03-06T18:17:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/?p=29430"},"modified":"2018-03-06T12:17:32","modified_gmt":"2018-03-06T18:17:32","slug":"fallin-and-das-champion-criminal-justice-legislation-but-reform-advocates-are-asking-what-the-bills-do","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/2018\/03\/06\/fallin-and-das-champion-criminal-justice-legislation-but-reform-advocates-are-asking-what-the-bills-do\/","title":{"rendered":"Fallin and DAs Champion Criminal Justice Legislation, But Reform Advocates Are Asking What The Bills Do"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Gov.<\/a><\/p>\n

Quinton Chandler \/ StateImpact Oklahoma<\/p>\n

Gov. Mary Fallin, district attorneys and legislators announced an agreement on criminal justice legislation at a March 5 press conference.<\/p>\n<\/div>

Gov. Mary Fallin on Monday announced a compromise between district attorneys and Republican lawmakers on six bills they say will reduce Oklahoma\u2019s prison population while maintaining public safety.<\/p>

One criminal justice reform advocacy group is criticizing the timing of the announcement because the bills\u2019 language still hasn\u2019t been made public.<\/p>

<\/p>

Lawmakers say the measures \u2014 House Bill 2281<\/a>, HB 2286<\/a>, Senate Bill 649<\/a>, SB 689<\/a> and SB 786<\/a> \u2014 would rework punishments for property crime and other non-violent offenses, streamline the state\u2019s parole system. A sixth bill which hasn\u2019t been assigned a bill number will rework punishments for drug crimes.<\/p>

Five of the six bills were introduced during the 2017 legislative session, but DAs were afraid the measures would hurt public safety. Oklahoma County District Attorney David Prater says lawmakers worked with DAs to make changes.<\/p>

Prater says one big concern was how proposed legislation would classify \u201cnonviolent\u201d offenders and determine their eligibility for early release. He and other DAs wanted to make sure \u201cthere truly is a real evaluation and understanding of what these offenders are there for.\u201d<\/p>

Oklahomans for Criminal Justice Reform, an independent group, said depending on its language, the compromise legislation may only slow prison growth and not reduce the overall population. The group also pointed out lawmakers hadn\u2019t projected how many prison beds the legislation would empty.<\/p>

The group plans to announce criminal justice reforms it supports later this week.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Gov. Mary Fallin on Monday announced a compromise between district attorneys and Republican lawmakers on six bills they say will reduce Oklahoma\u2019s prison population while maintaining public safety.One criminal justice reform advocacy group is criticizing the timing of the announcement because the bills\u2019 language still hasn\u2019t been made public.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":201,"featured_media":29433,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[18],"tags":[749,761,778],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29430"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/201"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29430"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29430\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29440,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29430\/revisions\/29440"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29433"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29430"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29430"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29430"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}