State Parole Board To Review Hundreds More Cases In January To Catch Up
The Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board could be forced to review more than 500 parole cases in January.
This backlog strains part-time board members.
After two members of the Pardon and Parole Board resigned, the agency’s workload for December was shifted back a month.
The delay means the officials will have even less time to review cases in January.
The five-member board looks over hundreds of cases each month and is responsible for voting on clemency hearings for prisoners on Oklahoma’s death row.
Madison Boone is an attorney from Project Commutation. It’s an Oklahoma-based nonprofit that provides legal representation to people appearing in front of the board.
“It’s just really unfortunate because … this is one more month these people will have to spend in prison, regardless of what's going to happen,” Boone said.
There’s no way to anticipate how the newly appointed members will vote.
State Agencies Submit $830M Budget Increase Requests as Legislative Session Looms
Oklahoma’s state agencies are collectively asking lawmakers for an $830 million budget increase heading into the next fiscal year.
State agency budget requests are due to the legislature by Oct. 1 every year.
That’s five months ahead of the legislative session in February – which usually runs until May, assuming lawmakers can agree on the state’s overall budget for the next fiscal year.
Agency appropriations make up a large part of the overall state budget. But the requests agencies file are nothing more than wishlists with attached dollar amounts.
The money appropriated to them doesn’t always reflect what they ask for.
This year, agencies are asking for $13.3 billion. That’s about $833 million more than last year.
Lawmakers will spend long hours debating how state money should be moved around. The last budget they put together was about $12.5 billion.
Lawmakers do consider the agencies’ requests, but a slew of other factors, too, like the costs of implementing new and old legislation.
Oklahoma’s 60th legislative session starts next February.
Oklahoma City Police Report 57% Drop in Mental Health-Related Calls
The Oklahoma City Police Department reported a decline in officers responding to mental health-related calls.
New data suggests people in crisis are instead connecting with specialized support.
The Oklahoma City Police Department has partnered with several mental health service providers to reduce the number of officers dispatched to mental health-related calls.
The department said there was a 57% decrease in the past 13 months during its partnership with 988 mental health lifeline, service providers, and city programs.
The Oklahoma Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services saw a 79% increase in 988 Lifeline monthly callers during the same time.
Oklahoma City Police Chief Ron Bacy said the partnerships allow people to receive the support they need without emergency law enforcement intervention.
Tribal Representatives Advocate For Federal Healing Commission
Tribal communities are advocating for a new federal commission to look into Indian boarding schools.
The proposal would build on the Department of Interior’s investigation.
There are more than 500 identified Indian boarding schools to date, and officials have counted almost 1,000 children who died while attending the schools.
But, not all those institutional records are available for review.
“The BIE and the BIA, they can't make private institutions pony up records for us to understand how much money was spent indoctrinating these kids so they would forget their communities and forget their languages, forget their religions,” said Ben Barnes, Chief of the Shawnee Tribe.
Barnes said passing federal legislation to create the commission would ensure private institutional records will be accounted for; meaning Indigenous boarding school students across Turtle Island can receive justice.
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