Lawmaker's concern over Oklahoma prison staffing isn't just hyperbole

GOP members have generally led the tough-on-crime chorus at the Capitol, by doing such things as proposing and supporting laws that have expanded the list of crimes carrying mandatory minimum sentences. The party as a whole has been loath to consider sentencing reform or much of anything that might ease prison crowding.

We now have a prison system in which the inmate population remains perpetually within a whisker of capacity. Meantime the number of men and women watching those inmates continues to shrink. That's a bad formula, as Hickman, R-Fairview, made clear during an interim study hearing last week.

“Someone is going to die if we don't make some changes and make them sooner rather than later,” he said.

Low pay is at the root of the problem. Good-paying jobs in the oil and gas industry have lured many away from our prisons, but Hickman said that's only one factor. Correctional officers start out making $11.83 per hour, not much considering the work environment; the lawmaker said 30 percent of correctional workers qualify for food stamps.