Haskell and Sequoyah counties meet at the Arkansas River, where the winding county line splits the river roughly in two.
On one side of the water, an arrest for driving under the influence in Sequoyah County carries an initial bail of $3,000, assuming the arrestee has no other charges or prior convictions. Across the tributary, the same arrest and same circumstances come with a set bail of $1,500.
Some 290 miles away, tucked into the northwest corner of the state, the same charge carries a scheduled bail of just $250 in Woods County. In counties such as Payne and Johnston, there’s no bail schedule at all, so arrestees must stand before a judge to have a pretrial bail set for the same offense.
Oklahoma has a statewide bail schedule for common wildlife, boating, and traffic violations, but for everything else, it’s up to counties to decide whether they create a standard schedule. Many have opted in.
When used well, bail schedules help jails book more efficiently and limit how many people are held in jail pretrial, allowing people to bail out without having to wait days to see a judge. But there’s little consistency across the state.
The price of freedom, at least while a case works its way through the court system, depends largely on where someone gets arrested, not just what they got arrested for. For arrestees, the ability to bail out quickly can be a matter of livelihood, life, and death.
Those who qualify for pretrial release are given three options when initially booked: they can post cash bail and be released, post a surety bond with a bondsman and be released, or not post anything and sit in jail until their case runs its course. Bondsmen charge clients a non-refundable fee, usually 10% of the bail total, to post bail on the client’s behalf when the client can’t afford the bail amount in full. Bail, or bond, is meant to ensure the accused returns to court. If they don’t, they forfeit the money spent.
Advocates say bail schedules were born out of mass incarceration. As the booking numbers grew, so too did the use of schedules to quickly book, set bail for, and release the arrested to make room for the next batch of arrestees.
Sixty-nine percent of people sitting in local jails are being held pretrial, according to a 2026 Prison Policy Initiative report. In Oklahoma, that rate is more than 75%. Many can’t afford to post bail or the fees associated with bonding out.
The public shoulders the expense, which in Oklahoma County was set in 2024 by Judge Natalie Mai at an average of $66.49 per day for each detainee.
For the arrested, the ability to bail out on a schedule can make a world of difference.
In 2014, Douglas Laster was arrested on two counts of felony child abuse. His pretrial bail was set at $40,000. With the help of his longtime bondsman, Tracey Halley-Terrell, who serves as president of the Oklahoma Bondsman Association Board, Laster paid Halley-Terrell $2,000 to secure his release.
If Laster had been arrested in Canadian County, to the west, or in Cleveland County, to the south, he’d have been denied bail altogether. Neither county’s bail schedule permits pretrial release for child abuse charges.
Laster, who has been arrested in seven counties across Oklahoma, is currently on bond for a DUI in Canadian County and two DUIs in Oklahoma County. In Canadian County, the bail is $7,000; in Oklahoma County, $5,000 each.
Halley-Terrell has another client with a DUI in Custer County. His bail is $50,000, making his bondsman fee $5,000, the same as Laster’s entire cash bail. If the Custer County client had been arrested in Canadian or Oklahoma County, she said, he wouldn’t need to be on a payment plan for the bond.
Every hour spent in jail, especially Oklahoma County’s jail, is an hour too long, Laster said.
The Oklahoma County jail has reported the death of 61 people in custody since 2020. Three of those deaths have happened in 2026. Sheila Prince died at the jail in April, the same day she was arrested and booked.
Laster calls the 13-story, red-tiled jail the haunted house.
“You don't know if you're going to make it out of there or not,” he said.
Not having to wait 72 hours, or longer if arrested on a weekend, to have bail set by a judge and bail out can make the difference in losing or keeping a job or having a car impounded.
“Most jobs aren’t going to say, ‘Oh, well, OK. Well, we'll just hold your position because we understand you have to see a judge to be able to bond out,’” Laster said.
Laster said being able to bond out before he’s even walked upstairs to a holding cell has saved his life.
The difference in bail schedules is especially pronounced between urban and rural counties. Take Oklahoma County and Tulsa County, home to the two largest populations and jails in the state. For non-violent misdemeanor charges such as simple possession of marijuana, driving with an open container and public intoxication, scheduled bail rates are very low.
In Tulsa County, simple marijuana possession is assigned a $250 bail; open container is $100; public intoxication is $100, too. In Oklahoma County, on all three of those charges, arrestees can be released on their own recognizance — just a signed promise to return to court, no money involved.
In Cleveland County and Canadian County, the third and fourth most populated counties after Oklahoma and Tulsa, people arrested for public intoxication are released on their own recognizance, too.
Oklahoma County’s schedule forbids bail stacking and rules that for cases with multiple alleged offenses, the total initial bail must be based solely on the highest or the most serious charge, not a summation of all the bails and charges involved. That makes bailing out in the largest county easier, too.
Meanwhile, in Roger Mills County, the fourth smallest by population, public intoxication carries an automatic $249 bail. In another small county, Tillman County, bail for public intoxication is $500. In both counties, a simple possession of marijuana charge is attached to a $1,500 bail, the highest of the 25 county bail schedules Oklahoma Watch reviewed.
Neither Roger Mills nor Tillman has any own-recognizance release on its schedule, nor do the counties’ schedules prevent bail stacking.
Cimarron County, the least populous county in the state with just 2,218 people, doesn’t have a bail schedule at all.
Tillman County, meanwhile, has some of the highest bail rates in the state, though the county is the sixth poorest in Oklahoma. According to the 2024 U.S. Census, the average per capita income in the county was $27,475 and more than 22% of county residents live in poverty. The poverty rate in Tillman is more than seven percentage points higher than that of the state as a whole.
The jail can hold only 69 people. Michael Logan, the jail administrator, said it’s usually just half full, meaning overcrowding isn’t much of an issue. Four people being held pretrial have been in the jail since 2025, Logan said, due to an inability to post the high bails scheduled for them or arrange for an expensive surety bond.
Michael Olson, Oklahomans for Criminal Justice Reform policy counsel, said judicial politics and individual views on public safety in rural areas may influence the higher schedules.
Bail schedules aren’t responsive to income or nuance, Olson said.
“Rural jails have such a length of stay problem because they're setting the bond at the same rates and higher than the metro areas,” he said. “But the average income in these communities is exceedingly low.”
Tillman County only has one judge, according to the 2026 Judicial Directory, meaning one person, Brad Benson, is almost entirely in charge of the county schedule.
Judges have nearly full authority over bail schedules, if the judge chooses to set one in the first place. At least 10 counties don’t use a schedule, and rely on a judge to set the pretrial bail for every case, opening the door to potential judicial bias.
The state’s Pretrial Release Act says judges must set bail schedules in accordance with guidelines, but it isn’t clear what, exactly, those guidelines are. Every bail schedule must be reviewed by the courts and district attorney by March 1 of each year, but the schedules themselves are rarely challenged or updated.
Haskell County and Okfuskee County continue to use schedules first filed in 2017, seemingly without edits since. Other counties that have been subject to more criminal justice reform have updated them every year, lowering bail amounts and introducing more own-recognizance agreements.
The American Civil Liberties Union of Oklahoma has pushed for what Megan Lambert, the legal director, deemed common sense measures, including issuing criminal citations for low-level non-violent crimes instead of issuing arrests and reforming cash bail altogether.
In 2023, Illinois became the first state to eradicate cash bail, and bail schedules along with it. In the first two years of the bail-less state, 40,000 people accused of a crime were put on pretrial release without money exchanging hands.
Illinois stands as a model of reform that may patch up one tear in a larger systemic issue.
“Folks who are homeless or are on state benefits will be detained pretrial for no other reason than they cannot afford to buy their liberty,” Lambert said. “And that is simply something that the constitution does not allow.”
No matter the schedule or price, Lambert said, there will never be a blanket bail schedule that can accurately reflect the economic capabilities of every single arrestee. Somebody will always end up sitting in a jail pretrial because they couldn’t afford the bail, whatever amount it was, set for them.
“It offends basic constitutional principles to determine liberty based on wealth,” she said.
Oklahoma Watch, at oklahomawatch.org, is a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that covers public-policy issues facing the state.
