Women make up 10.2 percent of Oklahoma’s Department of Corrections population, which exceeds the national 4 to 7 percent average, according to the National Council on Crime and Delinquency (NCCD). In July 2007, the NCCD reported on disparities among states in the 
way female offenders are treated.
Using data from prisons, jails, probation and parole for adult and juvenile women, the NCCD found that disparate incarceration, probation and parole rates don’t correspond to state arrest rates but are due to state policies and practices. Additionally, the council concluded that the most punitive states do not have lower female crime rates.
Throughout her years of research, Sharp has learned that incarcerated women in Oklahoma have experienced high levels of abuse throughout their lives:
About two-thirds of them were physically or sexually abused as children. More than 70 percent were victims of intimate partner violence, and now they’re in a system that is covertly abusive.
Sharp’s studies revealed gender differences in men and women in prison.
“Women tend to be more relational — their primary focus tends to be on relationships — while men are more focused on achievements, so the separation of children and family has a greater impact on the women,” Sharp said. “They get less support from outside than the men do, and they have high levels of trauma and PTSD that’s undealt with.”
“Women are more highly stigmatized for criminal behavior, so their partners tend to leave them,” Sharp said. “Their families are usually burned out by caring for the women’s children and don’t have any time or resources left for the women.”
Sharp said half of the state’s incarcerated women are in prison on mostly low-level drug offenses compared to lower rates of incarceration by other states for those same types of offenses:
We have tougher drug laws. We have longer sentences, we’re less likely to have probation and more likely to revoke probation for minor technicalities — we just have meaner laws.
Rules with mandatory sentences like “three strikes you’re out,” which result in life in prison without parole, and “85 percent crimes” may take away the ability for the courts to be flexible based on the circumstances of the crime. Last May, the governor signed House Bill 1574 into law, which will allow more flexibility in the three-strikes law. HB 1574 amended the law to allow juries the option of a 20 years to life in prison sentence, rather than mandating life without parole.
Oklahoma’s 85 percent crimes require inmates to serve at least 85 percent of the crime before being eligible for parole. Enumerated in Title 21 of the state statutes, 22 crimes fall under the 85 percent rule. The crimes enumerated include everything from murder to rape to child pornography and human trafficking. Also included are manslaughter, robbery, first-degree burglary and aggravated assault.
Sharp believes it’s time for state lawmakers to move beyond political gamesmanship and start looking at how to solve the unintended inequities in the current system:
One of the things we need to do is really revise our criminal code. The way it works is each year the legislature adds more and more. Many states are rewriting codes because they got so out of hand from the war on drugs. We need to do the same. We need to have more drug treatment and mental health treatment before people go to prison — especially programs for women with children.
To understand the depth of the problem, Sharp believes policymakers need to understand addiction, that women in trauma or those with emotional or mental health issues often self medicate as a coping mechanism:
We don’t provide them with needed services and then we punish them because we didn’t provide them with needed services. Drug addiction isn’t necessarily a choice.
Sharp said there are some well-run programs in Cleveland County, but only a small percentage of people get into those programs. The average drug sentence in Oklahoma is six years, she said.
“And that’s partly because of how we run our drug courts,” Sharp said, pointing out that often there’s an option between two years in prison or going through drug court. The problem is, if you fail drug court, you get four years. Drug court provides the structure and accountability that many of our prisoners never had growing up.” Sharp believes giving people a worse sentence for failure in drug court sends the wrong message.
In July 2007, the leadership of the Oklahoma State Legislature, through the Legislative Services Bureau, requested that MGT of America conduct a comprehensive performance review of the Oklahoma Department of Corrections.
“That was one of their criticisms of Oklahoma: the longer sentences for failing drug court. Drug court is tough. You really have to toe the line to be successful in drug court,” Sharp said.
Nationally, MGT found that 29 percent of incarcerated women had drug offenses compared to 19 percent of men while 35 percent of female prisoners had a violent offense compared to 53 percent of men with violent offenses.
Failure-to-protect laws allow for the conviction of the non-abusive parent when a child is a victim of abuse. While the law sounds good, when applied to women in abusive relationships, prosecutors applying the failure-to-protect law may not take into account how intimidated and beat down a woman who is also a victim of domestic violence may feel, critics say.
Often these women are afraid or psychologically unable to confront the abuser, even to protect a child, Sharp said. She has come across cases where the mother who failed to protect ended up with a higher sentence than the man who was the primary abuser.
Sharp said people administering these laws don’t understand the dynamics of intimate partner violence where one person uses fear and coercion to control the other one — usually a male using it against a female.
According to MGT, Oklahoma Department of Corrections documents indicate 72 percent of women at Mabel Bassett Correctional Center, the state’s highest security female prison, have some mental health diagnosis and receive mental health services.
