State juvenile affairs director wants to cut Santa Claus

State juvenile affairs director
wants to cut gift commission

The director of Oklahoma's Office of Juvenile Affairs wants to do away with a commission created more than 70 years ago to bring Christmas gifts to juveniles in state custody.

Then-State Budget Officer R.R. Owens came up with the idea for the Santa Claus Commission after visiting an orphanage in 1935 and learning the children there had no Christmas presents.

He started the three-member commission to raise private donations that would go toward Christmas gifts for wards of the state.

That mission might have been noble, said OJA Director Gene Christian, but now is outdated, and he plans to ask state legislators to do away with the commission during their upcoming session. He said 40 percent of such youths now are criminals who are over the age of 18.

"Everyone we are talking about are people who committed criminal acts," Christian said.

He said his agency is holding only one 10-year-old that he knows of, and that child is being held for murder.

Of those in his agency's custody, he said, about 8 percent are 10 or 11, and a minority of those live in full-time state custody. He said he would not be opposed to providing Christmas gifts to such young children.

In 1986, a similar proposal to do away with the commission failed in the state House by a 61-33 vote.

"The time and effort we spend on the Santa Claus Commission would be better spent on scholarships," Christian said. "If a kid wanted to finish high school or go to college, we could help them out with that instead."

The commission doesn't cost the OJA anything, except the time spent by its members to buy gifts, because it relies on donations. The commission spent about $5,500 in 2007 to buy 600 duffel bags that were given to juveniles in state custody.

In 2006, the juveniles received a stationery set.

The Daily Ardmoreite