As U.S. President Joe Biden warned in his farewell speech that “an oligarchy is taking shape” in the country, officials from Tulsa and beyond gathered to discuss how Oklahoma’s criminal justice system affects women.
Among attendees to the second evening of a conference were Governor Kevin Stitt’s wife, Sarah Stitt, and former U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch. They met with Tulsa nonprofits, Mayor Monroe Nichols, state-level politicians, billionaire philanthropist George Kaiser and others at Women in Recovery downtown.
In an interview with Public Radio Tulsa, Stitt addressed Oklahoma’s incarceration rate. It remains one of the highest in the nation, though has decreased from first to fourth in part due to efforts of people like Stitt. She pointed to the need to deal with issues related to imprisonment, mentioning education, addiction, and domestic violence.
“The answer is not pushing someone who is a product of a trauma-ridden childhood into prison. That’s the answer we’ve done as a nation for years, but we know statistically that does not work,” said Stitt.
But Oklahoma spends less on public welfare, education, and health than other states when compared to national and regional averages. Last year, Gov. Stitt signed a grocery tax cut into law and some lawmakers continue to agitate for slashing at the corporate and personal levels.
President-elect Donald Trump is also calling for tax cuts, saying on the campaign trail he hopes to lower the corporate tax rate from 21% to 15%, having already slashed it from 35% with his 2017 law.

Sarah Stitt emphasized the importance of private partnerships meant to shore up public services, saying there is a resistance to change on the part of Oklahoma lawmakers.
"Once you kind of get behind closed doors in the state, you realize the system is very obstinate to change and help. But what I have seen success in, and I think if you look at a lot of states that have implemented criminal justice reforms, it's these public-private partnerships that show the most success."
She touted the success of Kaiser-backed Women in Recovery. WIR is an intensive diversionary program focusing on everything from housing to exercise for marginalized women at risk of imprisonment.
“There’s lots of pieces to the puzzle. There’s not a cookie cutter for each woman. The more we can broaden our horizons and take on these partnerships, the more success I think we’re going to have finding the pieces of the puzzle for each one,” said Stitt.
Former U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch, appointed by President Barack Obama and current chair of the national Women’s Justice Commission, echoed Stitt’s sentiments on private partnerships while rueing the country’s “patchy” safety net.
“It would of course be ideal if every municipality, county, and state had the funds to have a safety net to prevent women from interacting with the system in the first place. It would be ideal if every state had the resources to provide healthcare to allow people to have mental health treatment, to deal with sometimes the chronic pain that we know is a key indicator of someone going into opioid addiction. It would be wonderful if the public safety net was there. The sad reality is, is that it is very patchy,” said Lynch. “Given that, we need to use the resources that are available.”
Lynch pointed also to WIR, saying that the organization proved itself by handling private funds well.
“They now have a system where they do receive public funding based upon their success. So now you have a situation where the state can look at a program that has a proven track record, so you know it will be a good steward of public dollars,” said Lynch.
Mimi Tarrasch, chief program officer for WIR, said she was excited and honored to host dignitaries like Stitt and Lynch. The success of her program, she said, which boasts a two to three percent recidivism rate, is based on acknowledging the poverty and violence most at-risk women have experienced.
“We understand the trauma women come with, which is really paramount," said Tarrasch.

Update: A previous version of this story noted that news outlet KJRH was excluded from media interviews with Sarah Stitt due to objections from her staff.