At a press briefing on Friday, Gov. Kevin Stitt (R-OK) defended his criminal justice policies.
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NewsTranscript
00:00 felony murdering, I believe it is, and then there's other things that maybe run a little contrary to
00:05 some of the criminal justice reform that I think you've supported in the past trying to lower the
00:10 population. I mean there's even a bill that would make it a felony punishable two to five years in
00:15 prison if you knowingly transmit HPV. So I'm just curious if you have concern that the legislature
00:23 is again looking at rolling back some of the efforts that you've supported in the past on
00:28 criminal justice reform. Yeah, you know I'm very proud of our state. We are a law and order state.
00:35 I've given our law enforcement pay raises. I've given our department of corrections pay raises.
00:40 We're going to support law enforcement first and foremost. And then when I think about the second
00:47 chances and how our system's set up, I compare us to other states. When I took office we were
00:52 last place in incarceration rates, okay. So Oklahomans think that's weird too. I do too.
00:57 I don't think our people are any different than any other state. Why were we last place
01:01 in incarceration rates? And so I've gone about to say, hey there's some people that we're locking
01:07 up that we're just mad at. We're not really afraid of. They're not a danger to society.
01:11 So let's figure that out. And we've moved 10 spots. I've saved the taxpayers hundreds of
01:17 millions of dollars by closing four prisons, two private prisons, just since I've been in office
01:22 since 2019. So I'm not going to let us go backwards on some of those criminal justice
01:27 things. There's sentencing reform that I want to get through this year as well, that I think we've
01:32 been negotiating with the district attorneys that hopefully we'll get across the finish line.
01:36 And then there's a real problem with some of this, you know, smash and grab and some of the
01:43 things that are happening to Quick Trip and Walmart. And if you know that you can go steal
01:47 something and it's under a thousand dollars and you're immune from prosecution, that's a problem.
01:53 So I'm very sensitive to fixing that for Quick Trip and keeping those employees safe. Because
01:59 you talk about the employee safety issue. That's a big problem. If they're trying to stop or trying
02:05 to protect their assets and then there's other further violence that happens inside those
02:10 retail establishments. So specifically, I don't know exactly where the bill is, but I'm very
02:17 I want to help our retail establishments make sure that we can prosecute, give our DAs the tools
02:23 to get bad people off the street. But I'm not going to let it go backwards. And that's why
02:27 we need sentencing reform. Sentencing reform, think about this for a second. It's not fair
02:32 for somebody to get 30 years in this county and to get one year in this county or probation.
02:37 And that kind of stuff happens. So let's determine in our committees what we've done
02:42 is we brought all the groups together to say, what is this crime punishable? What sentence should
02:47 this person have? And then let's have it more uniform. So let's bring those the flexibility or
02:53 the scope of the punishment and kind of bring those in a little bit. And Texas went through that.
02:59 And so that's one of the sentencing reform things I'd like to get across the finish line
03:04 as we're making sure that we can punish these bad apples that are going into these convenience
03:09 stores and retail establishments and knowing exactly what they're doing and stealing under
03:14 a certain amount. But the other problem is if we go to $500, some of the tribal laws are at $1,000.
03:22 So again, I always talk about that. We can't have two sets of systems. You can't have a Hispanic,
03:28 a white person, a black person getting a felony for stealing something at $500. And Kevin Stitt
03:36 as being a member of the Cherokees, I don't get punished until it's over a thousand. That's weird.
03:41 Oklahomans think that's weird. I'll continue to remind people we have to have one set of rules
03:47 regardless of your race. It's like I'm in a twilight zone having to explain that.
03:51 Thank you.