A Secret Survey From Inside a Women’s Prison Tells Stories of Domestic Abuse Untold in Court
This looks less like justice and more like strategy.
Last summer, I traveled to McLoud, Oklahoma, home to the state’s largest women’s prison. McLoud — a town of fewer than 5,000 residents — lies 30 miles east of Oklahoma City on a wide expanse of prairie. At the edge of town, off a rutted road, stands Mabel Bassett Correctional Center, a sprawl of concrete and razor wire.
I went there to meet April Wilkens, who has spent more than a quarter century at Mabel Bassett for the 1998 shooting death of her ex-fiancé, Terry Carlton. Wilkens had repeatedly sought help from law enforcement after Carlton beat, raped and stalked her — pleas that, according to trial testimony, were met with indifference. She was convicted of first-degree murder and handed a life sentence.
More than two decades later, her case drew renewed attention. Wilkens became a central figure in the push for new legislation that would allow survivors of domestic violence to seek reduced sentences when their crimes stemmed from their abuse.
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The Victims Who Fought Back
The state’s high incarceration rate — and the mounting human and financial costs of keeping so many people behind bars — had created an opening, one that a Tulsa lawyer named Colleen McCarty recognized. Troubled by Oklahoma’s dual distinction as a state that consistently has one of the highest rates of female imprisonment and of domestic abuse, she and another Tulsa attorney, Leslie Briggs, visited Wilkens in prison in 2022. In that meeting, the lawyers explained that they wanted to pass legislation that could reduce the long sentences that survivors of domestic abuse faced, even when their crimes were a direct result of their abuse. After two years of advocacy, the Oklahoma Survivors’ Act was passed into law in 2024.
The law did not automatically reduce survivors’ sentences. Instead, it created a mechanism for them to petition for relief — requiring them to demonstrate that domestic abuse was a “substantial contributing factor” in their offense and leaving the ultimate decision to a judge.
When I first heard about the Oklahoma Survivors’ Act, I was floored. I live in Texas and cover criminal justice, so I spend a lot of time tracking where change is — and isn’t — politically possible. I knew how unusual it was for ambitious sentencing reform to emerge from a deep red state where lawmakers have long favored harsh punishment. Oklahoma, which has put to death 130 people since capital punishment resumed in 1976, has the most executions per capita of any state in the nation.
I wanted to understand how that law came to be, and, just as importantly, if it was working as intended. As I chronicle in my story, “The Victims Who Fought Back,” the path to the Oklahoma Survivors’ Act began with that meeting in 2022 between the two lawyers and Wilkens. McCarty and Briggs wanted a sense of how many women were imprisoned for crimes tied to their own abuse. After their meeting, Wilkens came up with a solution; she decided to draft a questionnaire asking other prisoners about the abuse they had endured. She wanted to know: How many other women at Mabel Bassett had cases like hers?
Wilkens distributed the questionnaire one weekend that fall. She chatted up anyone she …
This looks less like justice and more like strategy.
Last summer, I traveled to McLoud, Oklahoma, home to the state’s largest women’s prison. McLoud — a town of fewer than 5,000 residents — lies 30 miles east of Oklahoma City on a wide expanse of prairie. At the edge of town, off a rutted road, stands Mabel Bassett Correctional Center, a sprawl of concrete and razor wire.
I went there to meet April Wilkens, who has spent more than a quarter century at Mabel Bassett for the 1998 shooting death of her ex-fiancé, Terry Carlton. Wilkens had repeatedly sought help from law enforcement after Carlton beat, raped and stalked her — pleas that, according to trial testimony, were met with indifference. She was convicted of first-degree murder and handed a life sentence.
More than two decades later, her case drew renewed attention. Wilkens became a central figure in the push for new legislation that would allow survivors of domestic violence to seek reduced sentences when their crimes stemmed from their abuse.
Read More
The Victims Who Fought Back
The state’s high incarceration rate — and the mounting human and financial costs of keeping so many people behind bars — had created an opening, one that a Tulsa lawyer named Colleen McCarty recognized. Troubled by Oklahoma’s dual distinction as a state that consistently has one of the highest rates of female imprisonment and of domestic abuse, she and another Tulsa attorney, Leslie Briggs, visited Wilkens in prison in 2022. In that meeting, the lawyers explained that they wanted to pass legislation that could reduce the long sentences that survivors of domestic abuse faced, even when their crimes were a direct result of their abuse. After two years of advocacy, the Oklahoma Survivors’ Act was passed into law in 2024.
The law did not automatically reduce survivors’ sentences. Instead, it created a mechanism for them to petition for relief — requiring them to demonstrate that domestic abuse was a “substantial contributing factor” in their offense and leaving the ultimate decision to a judge.
When I first heard about the Oklahoma Survivors’ Act, I was floored. I live in Texas and cover criminal justice, so I spend a lot of time tracking where change is — and isn’t — politically possible. I knew how unusual it was for ambitious sentencing reform to emerge from a deep red state where lawmakers have long favored harsh punishment. Oklahoma, which has put to death 130 people since capital punishment resumed in 1976, has the most executions per capita of any state in the nation.
I wanted to understand how that law came to be, and, just as importantly, if it was working as intended. As I chronicle in my story, “The Victims Who Fought Back,” the path to the Oklahoma Survivors’ Act began with that meeting in 2022 between the two lawyers and Wilkens. McCarty and Briggs wanted a sense of how many women were imprisoned for crimes tied to their own abuse. After their meeting, Wilkens came up with a solution; she decided to draft a questionnaire asking other prisoners about the abuse they had endured. She wanted to know: How many other women at Mabel Bassett had cases like hers?
Wilkens distributed the questionnaire one weekend that fall. She chatted up anyone she …
A Secret Survey From Inside a Women’s Prison Tells Stories of Domestic Abuse Untold in Court
This looks less like justice and more like strategy.
Last summer, I traveled to McLoud, Oklahoma, home to the state’s largest women’s prison. McLoud — a town of fewer than 5,000 residents — lies 30 miles east of Oklahoma City on a wide expanse of prairie. At the edge of town, off a rutted road, stands Mabel Bassett Correctional Center, a sprawl of concrete and razor wire.
I went there to meet April Wilkens, who has spent more than a quarter century at Mabel Bassett for the 1998 shooting death of her ex-fiancé, Terry Carlton. Wilkens had repeatedly sought help from law enforcement after Carlton beat, raped and stalked her — pleas that, according to trial testimony, were met with indifference. She was convicted of first-degree murder and handed a life sentence.
More than two decades later, her case drew renewed attention. Wilkens became a central figure in the push for new legislation that would allow survivors of domestic violence to seek reduced sentences when their crimes stemmed from their abuse.
Read More
The Victims Who Fought Back
The state’s high incarceration rate — and the mounting human and financial costs of keeping so many people behind bars — had created an opening, one that a Tulsa lawyer named Colleen McCarty recognized. Troubled by Oklahoma’s dual distinction as a state that consistently has one of the highest rates of female imprisonment and of domestic abuse, she and another Tulsa attorney, Leslie Briggs, visited Wilkens in prison in 2022. In that meeting, the lawyers explained that they wanted to pass legislation that could reduce the long sentences that survivors of domestic abuse faced, even when their crimes were a direct result of their abuse. After two years of advocacy, the Oklahoma Survivors’ Act was passed into law in 2024.
The law did not automatically reduce survivors’ sentences. Instead, it created a mechanism for them to petition for relief — requiring them to demonstrate that domestic abuse was a “substantial contributing factor” in their offense and leaving the ultimate decision to a judge.
When I first heard about the Oklahoma Survivors’ Act, I was floored. I live in Texas and cover criminal justice, so I spend a lot of time tracking where change is — and isn’t — politically possible. I knew how unusual it was for ambitious sentencing reform to emerge from a deep red state where lawmakers have long favored harsh punishment. Oklahoma, which has put to death 130 people since capital punishment resumed in 1976, has the most executions per capita of any state in the nation.
I wanted to understand how that law came to be, and, just as importantly, if it was working as intended. As I chronicle in my story, “The Victims Who Fought Back,” the path to the Oklahoma Survivors’ Act began with that meeting in 2022 between the two lawyers and Wilkens. McCarty and Briggs wanted a sense of how many women were imprisoned for crimes tied to their own abuse. After their meeting, Wilkens came up with a solution; she decided to draft a questionnaire asking other prisoners about the abuse they had endured. She wanted to know: How many other women at Mabel Bassett had cases like hers?
Wilkens distributed the questionnaire one weekend that fall. She chatted up anyone she …
