People who make a wrong move during parole or probation are the major drivers of Missouri’s growing prison population. In the past 20 years, the state’s prison population has doubled, and corrections spending has tripled.
And 71 percent of state prison admissions are people who break probation or parole, according to a data analysis of Missouri’s sentencing and correction system led by the Pew Center.
Last year, state leaders came together to reduce this financially draining trend and created the 15-member Missouri Working Group on Sentencing and Corrections.
“Perhaps the biggest waste of resources in all of state government is the over-incarceration of nonviolent offenders and our mishandling of drug and alcohol offenders,” said then-Chief Justice William “Ray” Price in his 2010 State of the Judiciary speech. Price is part of the working group.
“It is costing us billions of dollars and it is not making a dent in crime,” Price said.
In 2011, Judge Price, Gov. Jay Nixon, President Pro Tem of the Senate Robert Mayer and Speaker of the House Steven Tilley agreed to develop strategies to reduce recidivism, improve public safety and lower the tax burden. One of their first steps was to request help from the Pew Center, which has provided or funded similar projects in more than a dozen states.
The center’s Public Safety Performance Project on the States and the U.S. Department of Justice is part of the Justice Reinvestment Initiative, and Missouri was selected to participate.
The working group conducted an analysis of state data and trends and reached consensus on a package of reforms.
On Jan. 19, several members of the working group spoke about their findings at the Heman Park Community Center in University City.
George Lombardi, director of the Missouri Department of Corrections, explained the group’s recommendations to more than 100 attending community members.
One strategy is to target high-risk offenders, who will benefit most from intensive supervision and programming. Another is to frontload supervision resources by focusing on the first days, weeks and months after offenders are placed on probation or parole – the period when they are most likely to commit a new crime.
The group also recommended incorporating incentives for offenders to comply with probation and parole officers, by awarding a credit that reduces the term of supervision by 30 days for every 30 days of compliance.
Two of the forum’s speakers, state Rep. Gary Fuhr (R-Concord) and state Rep. Rory Ellinger (D-University City), introduced a new bill (HB 1525) last month to put this push this recommendation forward.
“If we can nip those technical violations in the bud, then we have a better opportunity to getting people back to work, back to being productive citizens and back with their families,” said Fuhr, a former FBI agent.
The bill proposes to create a 13-member sentencing and corrections oversight commission and establish a “compliance credit” system for non-violent offenders on parole or probation.
Fuhr said the bill may have incorporated more of the recommendations, but the state is currently revising its criminal code. The group hopes the revised code will go through this legislative session.
The room was filled with local political leaders and community members. Many who work with ex-felons urged the panelists to funnel more money into community organizations.
Ellinger told the audience that the working committee agreed that most of the savings that the recommendations would create should go towards probation and community programs.
Without any policy reform, Missouri’s prison population is projected to remain stable over the next few years, resulting in a population of approximately 30,787 inmates by June 2017, data show. The reforms will reduce the June 2017 population by approximately 245 to 677 inmates at a net savings of $3.7 to $12.6 million.
In fiscal year 2011, the Department of Corrections budget was more than $660 million.
Ellinger asked Lombardi what he would do with any savings the reforms create.
“I’d make sure there were more help programs out on the street to help probationers be successful, so they don’t come back into prison,” Lombardi said.
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