Black leaders blame justice system, policies for incarceration rate

[MonteSano]

Underfunded rehabilitation programs and repressive sentencing practices that send people to prison for minor offenses are responsible for Oklahoma's high incarceration rates for adult black men, Oklahoma black leaders said Friday.

The head of the NAACP in Oklahoma and other officials said policies that emphasize punishment instead of preventing the causes of crime and teaching alternatives to criminal conduct have driven up incarceration rates for blacks as well as other Oklahomans.

"Invest in people, not in prisons," said Roosevelt Milton, president of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People in Oklahoma City.

"We're warehousing people. And there is no bridge to rehabilitate these people," Milton said.


http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/O/OK_INCARCERATION_BLACKS_OKOL-?SITE=VARIT&SECTION=US&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2006-10-20-18-38-10

[peanutbrittle]

1. We have to go to Richmond VA to get that news?

I didn't see it in our local RW rag.

But here is another little tidbit:

2 Oklahoma prisons prepare to receive California inmates

snip

Nearly 500 inmates from California are scheduled to begin arriving in Oklahoma next week.

The move will effectively fill every remaining prison bed in the state, said Justin Jones, director of the Oklahoma Department of Corrections.

snip

Neither prison houses Oklahoma inmates, but Jones said the state will no longer have the option of seeking that prison space to deal with its own crowding problems.

"There are no more unobligated prison beds in Oklahoma," Jones said.

http://www.newsok.com/article/2961392

State inmates cost Tulsa jail $1.2 million

http://www.newsok.com/article/2961923