Board of Corrections delays vote on directive

LAWTON, Okla. (AP) – The Oklahoma Board of Corrections is delaying a vote on a directive by Governor Mary Fallin that would allow potentially thousands of inmates to be released from prison early.

During its regular meeting in Lawton on Thursday, the board took no action on a memo Fallin issued to the panel to change how inmates are allowed to accrue credits affecting their release dates.

Under current Department of Corrections policy, inmates who are sentenced to crimes that require them to serve at least 85 percent of their sentences cannot begin earning credits until after they serve that much time. As a result, most of those inmates are serving 90 percent of their sentence or longer.

Fallin says state law allows those inmates to begin accruing credits once their sentence begins.