PROGRAM SAVING LIVES, MONEY

OKLAHOMA CITY -- A "big bad motorcycle rider," rape victim, drug user
and three-time loser, Lisa Freeman was 37 before she began to face up
to a ruinous problem.

By then she also was a mother, with an incomplete education and
neither money nor hope.

"I never had any kind of treatment until my third time in prison,"
said Freeman, 44. "Now I'm four years clean and sober. I have a house
and a car, I'm raising my son, being a good mother, doing all the
things normal people do."

In her old life, Freeman told a Senate committee, "I didn't know what
normal was. I began using drugs at a very young age. It was my life.
It took months of work on me, cleaning out the old person."

Freeman came to a meeting of the Senate appropriations subcommittee
on Public Safety and Judiciary as something of a poster person for
Community Sentencing, a program designed to cut into Oklahoma's
ever-mounting costs for corrections. Freeman and others testified to
its value in helping non-violent offenders, but only with plenty of
hard work and commitment.

"It does work," said Freeman. "Six women were in the program with me,
all third-time offenders, one fourth-time. Now all work, back in
society, doing well."

Penny Painter, who heads the Tulsa County pilot program for women
offenders that was responsible for Freeman's rehabilitation, said,
"these people have been brought out of prison into this program. We
will not be spending $16,000 a year on them."

Freeman, now a member of the advisory board for the pilot project,
said she really believes if she had received treatment for her
addiction in her first brush with the corrections system she wouldn't
have made two return trips.

Justin Jones, director of the Community Corrections system that
marked its first full year in 2001, said 3,248 men and women had been
referred to the system as of March 31, 2002. Active cases at that
time totaled 2,972.

"I've sentenced over 160 and I can count the failures on one hand,"
said Judge Richard VanDyck of Grady and Caddo Counties.

He said the district attorney's office works closely with the
program. He credited much of its success to the one probation officer
who works long hours to prevent failure. Without that close contact,
VanDyck said, "they're not going to be dried out enough to get off
addiction."

Jones said not all prosecutors are participants and he respects the
opinion of those who don't, but an increasing number have signed on.
Funded through fiscal year 2002 are 38 systems, representing 59
counties. Another six or seven counties are coming aboard.

"So, hopefully Wyatt Earp is dying out?" asked Sen. Jim Maddox, D-Lawton.

Not entirely, Jones said, "That's the way they get elected."

Allen Coles, an Oklahoma City businessman who is a member of the
Oklahoma County Planning Council for Community Sentencing, said the
program had served 1,512 convicted offenders as of April 20, 2001.

"We only lost 28," he said.

He presented figures indicating the program had saved taxpayers $24.8 million.

A breakdown of offenders showed 52 percent for drugs, 15 percent for
driving under the influence, 22 percent for forgery and larceny and
11 percent for miscellaneous. Thirty-seven percent had three prior
offenses, 15 percent had two priors, 21 percent one prior and 27
percent no prior convictions.

Oklahoma County Public Defender Bob Ravitz said 696 offenders with
two or more priors "would have had to go to prison, no choice" if the
district attorney's office had not seen them as good risks for
diversion and treatment.

"At $43 a day, just those with more than two priors, would have cost
the taxpayers of this state $10. 5 million to lock them up for a
year," Ravitz said.

More Money Needed

A senator, who worked for years on community sentencing legislation,
took note of the variety of practices used and saw a need for
guidelines. Sen. Herb Rozell, D-Tahlequah, also said there may need
to be a cap on the number of offenders a parole officer may serve and
"we may need to start spending more money on these programs."

Sen. Grover Campbell, R-Owasso, also had a note of caution,

"At some point we're going to have a failure, so there needs to be
some kind of plan to protect whatever judge or district attorney is
going to be put on the hot seat," Campbell said.

"And politicians are famous for solving problems based on one case,"
Maddox commented.

Rail Vote Expected

Oklahomans could be asked to vote on the concept of high-speed rail
service, without a funding mechanism.

Sen. Dave Herbert, D-Midwest City, said his resolution calling for a
penny boost in the gasoline tax to fund rail service, could come back
from conference without the funding.

If the concept is approved, he said, he would follow up the next year
with a way to pay for it.