Coffee Talk - Senator Glenn Coffee, President Pro Tempore

We all know there are disagreements about what government should and should not do. I come down on the side of leaner, more efficient government—one that encourages personal responsibility. But in particular, there is a function that I believe government has a moral obligation to fulfill—that is to protect law abiding citizens and their families from the criminals who seek to exploit and harm them.

We use local and state revenue sources to fund local police departments, county sheriff’s offices, and at the state level, law enforcement entities like the Highway Patrol and the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation. In the legislature, we’ve worked to provide these officers and agents the latest in crime solving technology and forensics—the new OSBI lab in Edmond is a prime example. Lastly, we make sure those who have robbed, raped, or murdered innocent men, women and children can locked away so that they are no longer a threat to society. But what if a liberal court ordered our state to let tens of thousands of those criminals free, well before they had paid their debt to society? If you think it can’t happen, think again.

This past week, a federal judicial panel ordered the State of California to reduce overcrowding by as many as 55,000 prisoners. In supporting their finding, they argued it would not “adversely affect public safety.” As someone who has spent the last ten years in the Oklahoma Senate working to make our communities and state safer, I am appalled by their decision. Even California’s liberal attorney general and former governor, Jerry Brown, was shocked by ruling, say it was an intrusion by the federal judiciary that failed to recognize the imperatives of public safety and the challenges of incarcerating criminals.

One analyst concerned by the California court ruling said the early release would not result in any real savings to the state due to the subsequent crimes that would be committed by freeing the inmates early. It is estimated violent crime would be six percent higher in California, with 150 additional murders, 500 more rapes and 4,500 more robberies than there would be if these criminals had been left in prison.

With Oklahoma’s prisons nearly at maximum capacity, there is a very real threat that an organization such as the A.C.L.U. could pursue such actions in our state, as they have in others. That’s why it is imperative we move to more fully utilize private prison space—a solution that will result in true savings for taxpayers, and offer far greater protection for law abiding citizens than if the federal courts step in.