You get a felony, you get a felony—everybody gets a felony!

Oklahoma’s sprawling criminal code could use serious pruning

In the wake of the failure of the criminal justice reform proposals put forth by the Justice Reform Task Force this year, Representative Scott Biggs, the chairman of the House Judiciary-Criminal Justice and Corrections Committee, blamed Governor Mary Fallin and others for refusing to discuss the definition of “violent” and “nonviolent” crimes used by some of the bills. After the session, in the lead-up to an interim study on that definition, Rep. Biggs distributed a survey asking respondents to classify every felony under Oklahoma law as violent, nonviolent, or a new, vaguely-defined category created by Rep. Biggs, “danger to the public.”

Governor Fallin, for her part, declined to return the survey, instead sending a strongly-worded letter criticizing Rep. Biggs’s actions during and since the regular legislative session. But the content and length of the survey are striking in themselves, revealing an increasingly sprawling criminal code that could make a felon out of just about any Oklahoman.

Ryan Gentzler is a policy analyst with Oklahoma Policy Institute. Find the rest of this article and more at okpolicy.org.