Outstanding editorial from the Journal Record. M. Scott Carter wonders if the lessons from the riot at OSP and federal takeover of DOC will continue to go unlearned, while noting that his local 7-11 pays a better starting wage than DOC. Fourth Reading: A tough lesson not yet learned By M. Scott Carter Monday, the second session of the 54th Oklahoma Legislature will start at the state Capitol. Like they do every year, lawmakers will wrangle over money and policy and then, on the last Friday of the last week of May, they’ll go home. But this year, before the session begins, each of the Legislature’s 149 members would do well to remember the connection between 7-Eleven and the legacy of Judge Luther Bohanon. At first glance, it doesn’t seem as though the two are connected. Consider this, however: From 1961 to 2003, Bohanon served as a judge on the federal courts in the Western, Eastern and Northern districts of Oklahoma. In 1973, after a riot at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary left three prisoners dead, a dozen buildings burned and several other prisons and corrections employees injured, Bohanon and others began to take notice. In 1978, as a the result of a class-action lawsuit, a federal court found conditions at the state’s biggest penitentiary to be unconstitutional. Not one to shy away from controversy, Bohanon placed the state Department of Corrections under federal control. That control lasted until 2001. As for 7-Eleven, the point is simple. Just blocks from my house, the 7-Eleven at the corner of Council Road and 122nd Street has a sign in its window seeking employees. Beginning employees are offered the starting pay of $12.40 per hour. That’s $496 per week, or about $25,700 per year. At the Department of Corrections, however, the starting salary for beginning employees is $11.83 per hour – $473 per week, or about $24,606 per year. In short, a person can choose a career in corrections where the hours are long, the environment difficult and the possibility that employees could be forced to put their lives on the line at any given moment is ever present. Or, that same person can choose to go to work at 7-Eleven, make about $1,000 more per year and not have to worry about a possible prison riot. For most people, the decision would be easy, especially when you stop to consider that the Department of Corrections is at its maximum capacity for prisoners and is understaffed by several thousand employees. As one lawmaker said, we are just one riot away from chaos or, perhaps, one lawsuit away, from federal control. Here in Oklahoma, it seems, history always tends to repeat itself. For years, the Legislature has taken a tough-on-crime stance, adding felony after felony to the criminal code and applauding every time the state sentences another nonviolent offender to 20 years in prison. At the same time, our Legislature has also cut public safety funding and told corrections employees and Highway Patrol troopers they’d have to wait on pay raises, but they could apply for food stamps. It’s time for that philosophy to stop. While lawmakers still scratch their heads and try to decide whether or not Oklahoma should get smart – or tough – on crime, our prisons are full and their staffs are underpaid. Any one of them could leave state service and make more money working at 7-Eleven. Perhaps, during the 2014 session, lawmakers will stop to remember Bohanon’s legacy and its connection to a convenience store. The lesson is there. The issue remains unresolved, and the truth is raw and ugly. Bohanon addressed the problems of our Department of Corrections in 1974. Forty years later, we’re still learning the lesson.
Posted on: Fri, 31 Jan 2014 15:24:53 +0000
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