Success outside Oklahoma prison is job’s goal

Oklahoma, per capita, puts more women in prison than any other state, according to U.S. Justice Department figures.

It’s Laura Pitman’s job to make sure those women don’t return to prison.

Pitman is the deputy director of female offender operations for the state Corrections Department. The position was created last year, and Pitman started the job Dec. 15. Oklahoma is one of about 15 states with a position that deals specifically with what women need in prison.

Many of the women who end up in Oklahoma’s prisons have a history of physical or sexual abuse, or sometimes both, Pitman said. In the coming year, Pitman plans to review the programs for women in Oklahoma’s prisons and work on programs to help them succeed outside prison walls.

"For some women, prison is the most predictable, safest place they’ve ever lived,” Pitman said. "That speaks to what their lives were like before.”

Q: How many women are in Oklahoma prisons?

A: Right now we have about 2,500. Oklahoma has about 129 per 100,000 women in prison. The national rate is about 69 per 100,000. So we’re almost twice the national average.

Q: Why are most of them in prison?

A: Almost 40 percent are there for some sort of drug offense. That would include possession or distribution. It’s split almost half and half between the two.

Q: Why does Oklahoma send more women to prison than other states?

A: One of the things is that we chose to incarcerate a tremendous amount of low-risk offenders.

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