Criminal justice task force says it can save the state nearly $2 billion

Gov. Mary Fallin’s Justice Reform Task Force expects to announce later this week recommendations it says will save the state almost $2 billion over the next 10 years.

Details are sketchy, but initiatives nationally and in Oklahoma suggest that the recommendations are likely to include sentencing modification and changes to the pardon and parole process.

“It’s been interesting to be exposed to some of the data,” Jennifer Chance, Fallin’s general counsel and a task force member, said Wednesday. “It’s been shocking — I mean jaw-dropping shocking.”

A former Oklahoma County prosecutor, Chance said the task force learned that the state’s incarceration rate is 78 percent higher than the nation’s as a whole and that the number of people incarcerated in Oklahoma has increased every year for 38 straight years.

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