TAFT, Oklahoma — Police pulled over Kisha Snider in the tiny Oklahoma town of Boley in 2015; they said she had activated her turn signal too early, made a wide turn and had a burned out light over her license plate. According to the police report, officers found two marijuana cigarettes in her red Mazda.
Prosecutors offered Snider a deal: Go through the state’s drug-court program or face eight years in prison.
Snider struggled for three years to meet all the requirements of drug court, including paying hundreds of dollars for drug tests from the money she earned at an $8.10-an-hour job as a nurse’s aide. Last year, she said, she decided it was just easier to go to prison.
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The 42-year-old mother of four learned Friday she would be one of more than 500 men and women in Oklahoma whose felony sentences for drug possession and theft were commuted by a sweeping vote of the state Pardon and Parole Board. Earlier this year, state lawmakers made retroactive a decision by voters to reduce the penalties for small-scale drug possession and theft.
The result: what experts say may be the biggest single-day release of prisoners in U.S. history.
The mass release marks a striking change for criminal justice reform in Oklahoma: Per capita, the state has the second-highest incarceration rate in the U.S. And it locks up women at the highest rate of any state.Before the mass release Monday, state prisons held almost 25,750 people.
As she prepared Sunday for her return to freedom, Snider said she was ecstatic: “I knew this was just a bump in the road.”
And she tried to console those who would remain at the prison.
“Just stay positive, don’t give up,” she said. “Don’t lose hope.”
Source: How More Than 50 Women Walked Out of a Prison in Oklahoma
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