Brian Kamees, Oklahoma Department of Corrections No. 130221, is 60 years old. He is incarcerated at the James Hamilton Correctional Center for a property crime he committed in 1987. Kamees stole a VCR valued at $399 and another item valued at $126, making the total value $525, from a retailer called Sight and Sound in Oklahoma City. Today Kamees’ crime would be a misdemeanor, with a maximum sentence of one year in the county jail.
In 1989 Kamees was sentenced to 50 years in prison for grand larceny and sent to Joseph Harp Correctional Center, where he was a successful student enrolled in my college freshman English class. This is when I came to know Kamees. He was paroled in 2013. In 2018 he was placed on unsupervised parole and no longer reported to a parole officer. Nevertheless, Kamees was required to provide his address and phone number to the parole office so they could keep track of him. This he neglected to do.
In 2025 Kamees was arrested for speeding in Mustang. He allowed the officer to search the car he was driving, which was used by multiple people. Police found a backpack containing .89 grams of methamphetamine. (That quantity would be about the weight of a raisin.) Kamees was charged with drug possession and returned to prison for violating parole, even though he claims the backpack was not his. If Kamees were tried today on the drug charge, it would be a misdemeanor, with a maximum sentence of one year in the county jail…