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Oklahoma Republicans Follow Through On Commutation Day

Could criminal justice reform actually become a bipartisan issue?

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People mean a lot of different things when they say “criminal justice reform.” Some people are talking about “prison” reform; some people are talking about “police” reform; you could be talking about the courts, or innocence, or really any host of things.

Some of those criminal justice issues break down along traditional left/right lines. But when it comes to overincarceration, it really does feel like we are nearing some kind of bipartisan consensus.

President Barack Obama got the ball rolling: He ended up commuting or granting clemency to over 1,700 prisoners during his terms in office, the most commutations in American history. Most of these commutations were of low-level drug offenders sentenced under outdated mandatory minimums.

Shockingly, Donald Trump continued the push, enacting the First Step Act. I’d rather give Kim Kardashian the credit for this, but hey, Trump signed it. That makes one Republican president and one Democratic one doing something about overincarceration in the last few years.

Ideologically, there’s always been an opportunity for the left and right to agree on this issue. Draconian sentencing for non-violent offenders is an issue that both ACLU-style civil libertarians and Ayn Rand-style civil libertarians care about.

That alliance seems now to be filtering down to the states. Oklahoma, which has the highest percentage of incarceration of any state in the Union, commuted the sentences of hundreds of people this week. From NBC News:

The Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board approved the commutations Friday and forwarded them to Gov. Kevin Stitt, a former mortgage company CEO who was elected in 2018. The board voted unanimously to recommend that the sentences of 527 state inmates be commuted, with 462 of those inmates slated to walk out of prison Monday and 65 others being held on detainer.

“With this vote, we are fulfilling the will of Oklahomans,” Steve Bickley, executive director of the board, said in a statement Friday. “However, from Day One, the goal of this project has been more than just the release of low-level, nonviolent offenders, but the successful re-entry of these individuals back into society.”

Stitt, a Republican, has advocated for criminal justice reform, pledging to move away from policies that have made Oklahoma the state with the highest incarceration rate in the country. At a news conference Friday, Stitt hailed the decision to give hundreds of Oklahomans “a second chance.”

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The move marked the largest mass commutations in U.S. history.

I tend not to praise bipartisanship for bipartisanship’s sake. I see no great virtue in “working across the aisle” when the Republican side has abandoned facts and reason in favor of craven, bigoted, or sexist positions.

But, here, the bipartisanship is an unqualified good. This is the example of the Republican party working as a partner in government as opposed to abdicating its responsibilities. The fight against overincarceration is strengthened if you have Republicans willing to at least acknowledge the problem and operate from the same base of facts as the rest of us.

More like this, please.

Hundreds of Oklahoma inmates being released Monday in largest commutation in U.S. history [NBC News]

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