Oklahoma judges respond to highest female incarceration rate

April 14, 2011

Oklahoma: According to a state Corrections Department spokesman, Oklahoma currently has the highest incarceration of females per capita rate of any state. The spokesman said that Oklahoma had 2,584 women in prison or halfway houses as of April 1, of this year. These statistics has caused some controversy and has even stirred some into asking for reforms. Some of the state's judges, however, defended the rate, including state Supreme Court Chief Justice Steven Taylor, who said, "I was a trial judge for 21 years. I sent a lot of women to prison, and there’s not one who didn’t deserve it," he then added, "And, most of them worked real hard to get to the point of me sending them to prison so … none of this has me too upset." Retired judge Charles Owens, of the Oklahoma County District Court, echoed that feeling saying, "I don’t recall any woman that I sent to prison that it wasn’t justified. I never thought about it in those terms, whether this is too many women. It never occurred to me." Some, however, admitted that there may be a problem, though the solution would not be simple, such as, Retired District Judge Paul Vassar, who left the 23rd State District Court in January, said, "I am concerned that we do send too many people to the penitentiary. But I always thought that it would take a complete restructuring of the Department of Corrections to avoid that."