BY SHAUN HITTLE
Several years ago, legislators in both Oklahoma and North Carolina began taking steps to address rising incarceration rates.
The number of incarcerated offenders in Oklahoma had increased by a few thousand inmates in the past decade, giving the state one of the highest rates of imprisonment in the nation.
The prison population was growing at a similar pace in North Carolina, and officials were expecting an additional 10 percent increase by 2020.
Both states analyzed criminal justice data that highlighted systematic reasons, such as tougher sentencing laws, that explained why more people were being locked up.
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