LAWTON – Comanche County’s community sentencing program will end this summer because it doesn’t receive enough funding to provide appropriate supervision for its participants, said District Judge Emmit Tayloe.
Tayloe discussed the program, which offers prison-bound defendants an alternative to incarceration, with the Comanche County Board of Commissioners during the board’s March 17 meeting. The commission did not take action following the discussion.
The program, which began in 2016, was designed to help nonviolent offenders who are struggling with drug addiction but did not receive treatment in prison, Tayloe said.
“After one or two tries of incarceration, we decided we ought to try something else, because it wasn’t working,” he said.
The program serves defendants who are facing a new set of criminal charges. Those defendants are placed in the program instead of being sent to prison or put in the county jail to await trial.
Program participants are required to find work, keep their job, stay off drugs and submit to random urinalysis tests. Participants who fail their UAs or don’t participate in the program are sanctioned.
Participants have to report their progress to the judge once a month. The ones who are doing well receive an incentive.
“After two years in the program – if they complete the program – then they give a graduation speech,” Tayloe said. “And throughout the two-year process, we watch them evolve and watch them change.”
He said offenders who fail their drug tests or do not complete the program will face sanctions, such as additional community service hours or a weekend in jail.
State funding Tayloe said the Oklahoma Department of Corrections funds the program at the rate of $2.09 per day per defendant, but that isn’t enough to provide adequate supervision. He noted that the program serves nonviolent offenders who have been in and out of prison.
“I’m not comfortable with them being out on the streets without supervision, and I mean appropriate supervision,” Tayloe said. “Somebody they have to report to.”
He said he has asked the DOC and state lawmakers to provide more funding for the program, but they declined.
Consequently, Tayloe and the other District 5 judges decided they weren’t comfortable with continuing the program.
“As a result of that, we quit putting people into the program,” Tayloe said. “We have now dwindled down to seven defendants.”
He said he thought the program’s last graduation ceremony will be in June. A DOC spokesman did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment. ‘Up and running again’ Tayloe said the Department of Corrections is still willing to fund the program at its current level of $2.09 per defendant per day. However, he said, the program needs about $4 to $5 per day to cover its cost.
“When I retire, which is coming up fairly soon, it’s my burning desire to get this program started again,” he said. “When I leave, I want to leave the community sentencing program intact and up and running again.”