A bill filed in advance of the 2026 legislative session would let state prisoners start earning credits for good behavior faster.
Sen. Dave Rader, R-Tulsa, filed Senate Bill 1213 after meeting with the Oklahoma Department of Corrections about how the state can reform its criminal justice system.
The bill would amend a 30-year-old law that lets people who have been convicted of a crime but are still waiting in jail go to prison at .73 credits a day.
Rader’s bill would allow inmates to move to a higher level of privileges in the prison system faster and earn 1.47 credits daily while still in jail. One good behavior credit earns a prisoner a day off their sentence.
The Department of Corrections has struggled with a backlog of people awaiting transfer from county jails to state prisons in recent years.
As of Oct. 31, there were 1,256 detainees in jails across the state awaiting transfer to state prisons, according to Department of Corrections data.
According to the Oklahoma Department of Corrections policy, maintaining good personal hygiene, a clean living area and a positive attitude toward staff and other inmates, helps the prisoner advance to a new level. State law requires people convicted of some serious crimes to serve 85% of their sentence before being eligible for release, so any good-behavior credits won’t be applied until that date is reached.
Rader said he wanted to give prisoners an incentive to do better while incarcerated by starting them out at a higher level of privileges. However, if the prisoner behaves poorly, their level will be dropped.
“We’re amending a law that would allow these certain levels of incarcerated people to show that they want to do the right thing and help them serve their term and come out and be successful,” he said.
People convicted of crimes now enter the state prison at level 2 and must wait at least eight months to move to level 4, which allows for the most privileges.
At level four, people in prison can earn $20 a month at a prison job and 44 credits a month, double what inmates at level two can earn.
Kay Thompson, a spokesperson for the Department of Corrections, said the new incentives in Rader’s bill could motivate prisoners to engage in programs and maintain good behavior.
“It removes fixed-time-served barriers to earning higher class levels, allowing inmates to advance faster based on behavior and performance while maintaining all public-safety restrictions and earned-credit limits,” she wrote in an emailed response.
Thompson said while the prisoners will earn more credits starting out, it’s unlikely they will receive a significant reduction in their original sentence. She said the bill also won’t save the state any money. The only goal is to promote good behavior.
“That’s the whole reason that we have the levels and credit system is to incentivize behavior, but also move people through the system and get them rehabilitated,” she said.