Mo. lawmakers want prison overhaul

JEFFERSON CITY, MO (MISSOURI DIGITAL NEWS) - Missouri lawmakers want an overhaul of the state's inefficient prison system.

Prison populations have reached an all-time high and prison spending has almost doubled in ten years. A joint commission met to review a report suggesting major changes in the probation process, co-chair Representative Chris Kelly says.

"Are there better ways to deal with technical probation or parole violations rather than to send people back to prison?" Kelly asked

The committee is looking at ways to cut costs and inmate population. Kelly says the committee will draft a bill next month and introduce the new legislation in January.

Matt Evans, Missouri Digital News

Read More

Nixon wants to move nonviolent offenders to treatment centers, probation

JEFFERSON CITY, MO (MISSOURI DIGITAL NEWS) - Members of Missouri's executive, legislative and judicial branches are teaming up on a new project aimed at keeping nonviolent offenders out of prison.

Governor Jay Nixon and other top officials announced a plan they say will help reduce the costs of running the state's prisons.

A new bipartisan group is now looking for ways to put the state's nonviolent offenders in treatment centers and probation programs in order to keep them out of prison.

Nixon says similiar policies in Kansas, Arkansas and Kentucky have saved those states money.

"While the simple act of a crime and the simple act of a life might be one act at one point, this is a very complex social issue," Nixon says.

Nixon says he hopes proposed legislation will be ready this winter.

Elizabeth Hagedorn, Missouri Digital News

Read More

Missouri lauded for reduction of recidivism rate

The state of Missouri is receiving praise for improving its rate of criminals who return to prison three years or less after their initial release.

A recently released Pew study applauds Missouri for its decrease in prison recidivism, one of three states to do so.

Adam Gelb is ​ the director of the Public Safety Performance Project at the Pew Center on the States.

"The overall message is that while the national number is fairly flat, some states like Missouri are making significant progress in putting research about what works into action and cutting their return to prison rate. So I think what other states can take from Missouri is that this is not an intractable, unsolvable problem," Gelb said.

Missouri decided to follow the research and began laying out a plan in order to decrease their recidivism rates by using more effective and inexpensive ways to monitor offenders and using new strategies and technologies, instead of throwing them back in a prison cell, Gelb said.

"Our hope is that policymakers in Missouri and elsewhere will start to see that it’s time for a triumph of sound science over sound bite," Gelb continued. "It’s going to move beyond the tired old debate between treatment and punishment. The research shows you get the best impact when you combine the carrot and the stick."

Missouri has succeeded by bringing down their rate by 10 percent in three years.​

Rachel Weatherford, KRCU

Read More

Loughner to be evaluated in Springfield, Missouri

The suspected shooter of Arizona Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords and others has been ordered to be transferred to Springfield, Missouri for a mental evaluation.

Federal Judge Larry Burns issued the order on Monday, saying an exam has to be conducted at the Springfield facility by April 29.

Burns said the Springfield prison has the most accomodating mental health unit to evaluate Jared Loughner on whether he was sane at the time of the shooting or whether he is sound enough to stand trial.

Loughner's public defender Judy Clarke has argued moving Loughner could make his mental state worse, as he would have no contact with his public defender during his stay in Missouri.

A spokeswoman for the Springfield Bureau of Prisons said the facility's mental health unit evaluates and treats 300 of the 1,100 inmates who are at the prison or are transferred there.

Loughner is accused of killing U.S. District Judge John Roll and five others

Meghann Mollerus, Missouri Digital News

Read More