ALTERNATIVES SOUGHT FOR FEMALE INCARCERATION RATE

McLOUD -- The women relaxed on sofas and huddled around television
sets in housing units decorated with colorful Halloween streamers and
stencils of black cats and scary witches. Some marked time by
crocheting or assembling jigsaw puzzles. Others read or listened to
music through the headphones of a portable radio. All counted the days
before they complete their sentence and build a new life beyond chain-
link fences and razor wire.

They're the women of the Mabel Bassett Correctional Center in McLoud,
1,051 state inmates who are guarded and cared for by fewer than 110
correctional officers, nurses and teachers.

On Tuesday, state lawmakers who want to know why Oklahoma incarcerates
more of its women than any other state traveled to the Pottawatomie
County town to see the inmates and their keepers firsthand.

"I really think we need to change the direction that we're going in
Oklahoma," said House Speaker Larry Adair, D- Stilwell. "We're locking
up too many people."

Oklahoma leads the nation in the number of women behind bars, an
incarceration rate that is 143 percent higher than the national
average. The state's incarceration rate comes at a high price, one the
state cannot afford, said Gary Jones, executive director of the
Oklahoma Public Employees Association.

While the state's incarceration rate remains high, it ranks 30th in
the nation in per capita spending on corrections, according to the
association.

The Department of Corrections asked the Legislature this year to
appropriate $395 million to maintain basic operations at the agency.
The request was based on leaving 20 percent of its positions vacant
and deferring equipment and maintenance needs.

Lawmakers appropriated only $373.9 million, leaving a $21 million
budget hole. It costs an average of $42 a day to house, feed and care
for an inmate, Corrections Director Ron Ward said.

The agency's budget crisis has left a staffing shortage at Mabel
Bassett and other state prisons that has put the safety of state
prison workers, inmates and even communities at risk, the public
employee group said.

On Tuesday, 17 correctional guards were on duty at Mabel Bassett, a
facility with a minimum staffing requirement of 18 guards per shift.
Officials said they put prison counselors in uniform to meet the
staffing guidelines.

"When you have a 20 percent vacancy rate, it's going to have a
definite impact on safety," Jones said.

Jones has asked Gov. Brad Henry to call a special session of the
Legislature to appropriate federal emergency funds for state prisons.

Jones also has urged lawmakers to find alternatives to incarceration
for nonviolent offenders.