In the wake of a series of scandals in the Missouri Department of Corrections, Governor Eric Greitens signed an executive order forming a task force to reform Missouri’s corrections system.
The 21-member task force will be comprised mostly of politicians (such as the governor and state legislators), appointed state officials (such as the director of the Missouri Department of Corrections and a member of Missouri’s Probation and Parole Board), and criminal justice insiders (such as the state’s chief justice, a prosecutor, a public defender and police officers).
Only three members of the task force will represent the community or advocates from outside the criminal justice system: a representative from a victim services organization, a former offender and a member of the public, with all three appointed by the governor.
It will be chaired by Missouri Director of Corrections Anne Precythe or her designee.
According to a press release, “this task force will follow a data-driven approach to develop policies that improve public safety, reduce corrections spending, and reinvest savings in strategies that can decrease crime and reduce recidivism. A bipartisan group will work with The Council of State Governments Justice Center to merge data across criminal justice agencies and leverage lessons and research from other states to improve our criminal justice system.”
According to the executive order, the task force will be guided by a number of principles and goals, including: maintain a safe and effective correctional system; maintain capacity for our most violent offenders; provide evidence-based interventions to reduce recidivism and deter crime; ensure accountability and set clear performance measures for our criminal justice system; minimize the need to increase prison capacity; and increase public safety through a reinvestment of a portion of any identified savings into other areas of the criminal justice system, or other public systems, which have been proven to reduce recidivism.
The governor ordered the task force shall to produce a written report of their recommendations by December 31 and to develop omnibus legislation based on their recommendations for the 2018 legislative session.
