Almost nine months ago, voters throughout Lincoln and Pottawatomie counties joined other Oklahomans across the state in soundly rejecting State Question 805. They shelved attempts to reform state sentencing laws.
More than 70 percent of Lincoln County voters opposed SQ 805.
In Pottawatomie County, more than 62 percent voted against SQ 805
This proposal lacked the broad-based support it needed from law enforcement across the state and voters apparently didn’t trust what they were hearing.
At the same time, it appeared citizens sent a strong message to law enforcement, the judicial system and state lawmakers.
Citizens support being tough on convicted criminals and favor keeping them behind bars for a long time. Make them serve the prison terms they have been sentenced to and set higher bonds where it holds them in jail while waiting for their day in court.
There have been several instances in Lincoln County over the past several months a suspect has been charged with multiple felonies in different cases.
As an example, in early April a man was charged with two felonies in a case and he failed to make his initial appearance. Within nine days of when prosecutors had filed the two felonies, they filed three more against him as the result of a high speed pursuit over county roads.
Then about six weeks later, another single felony count was filed against him and a $15,000 bond was set. That’s a total of six felonies and law enforcement is still looking to arrest him today.
Earlier this year, a driver was charged with nine counts, several felonies and misdemeanors. A month later, prosecutors filed four more charges against him.
In yet another instance, a Lincoln County man faces seven counts, several of them felonies. And three of the misdemeanors are for threatening to perform an act of violence with threatening to kill.
One of the selling points for SQ 805 was that people convicted of crimes that weren’t violent would be given a break with sentencing, yet crimes like threatening to perform an act of violence sound pretty serious.
These are just a few of the instances we point out to show crimes people are committing appear to be more serious and more numerous.
These are examples of these types of crimes that are being committed in a single county. Some of these additional felony offenses are occurring while some of these people are out on bond awaiting court appearances on the first crimes that landed them on the wrong side of the law.
Jails in some counties and prisons are bulging now. But there must be solutions found to deal with these criminals or these situations only will worsen.