Prison Reform in Missouri

As co-chair of the Missouri Working Group on Sentencing and Corrections, Rep. Chris Kelly has been involved for the past several months in studying, hearing testimony, and further analyzing the specific issues involved in prison reform in Missouri.  Given his day-to-day knowledge of Missouri’s prison system as a former judge, Rep. Kelly has been a long-time proponent of prison reform.

With assistance from the Pew Center on the States, the Working Group is focused on designing the first major overhaul of the state’s prison system in decades.  The summary from the December 2011 Consensus Report of the Working Group points to the long overdue need and the opportunities afforded by significant prison reform:

Missouri’s prison population has doubled and corrections spending has tripled during the past 20 years. In an effort to get taxpayers a better public safety return on their corrections dollars, state leaders created the Missouri Working Group on Sentencing and Corrections. The Working Group conducted extensive analysis of state data and trends and has reached consensus on a package of reforms that will improve public safety, hold offenders accountable, and contain corrections costs by strengthening community supervision. This package is estimated to reduce Missouri’s projected prison population at the end of FY2017 by 245 to 677 inmates at a savings of $7.7 to 16.6 million. The Working Group recommends that $4 million of those savings be directed to swift and certain sanctions at the local level and a portion of the remaining savings be reinvested in evidence-based practices.

See the article in the RiverFront Times for further details.

Access a full copy of the report recently released by the Missouri Working Group on Sentencing and Corrections here.

Category: House Updates, In The News