\u201cWe should save our prison beds for people we are afraid of and not people we are mad at.\u201d
\nWhile I am not sure exactly who coined the quote above, I give credit to former Missouri Supreme Court Judge Ray Price. Wherever it came from, it\u2019s worth repeating. And given the tremendous cost of incarceration in our state, both social and financial, this sounds like something about which we should all be able to agree\u2026right?
\nThroughout our nation\u2019s history we have very much embraced a \u201cretribution\u201d mindset pertaining to those who violate our laws. What this means as law abiding citizens who feel wronged or threatened by criminals and their actions is, we want vengeance and we want to see them punished. Following the Classical School of Crime Theories, we believe when the costs of committing crimes outweigh the benefits then crime rates will go down. While this is a rational conclusion, the flaw in this logic is the assumption that those who commit crimes are rational. As a result, the United States, under the \u201cGet Tough on Crime\u201d banner, now incarcerates more people per capita than any other industrialized nation \u2013 by far. And we have not seen the decreased crime rates we expected. It\u2019s time to rethink the way we do business.
\nLike it or not \u201cde-carceration\u201d has come to Missouri. After steady increases in our prison population from FY2011 to FY2018, we have seen a decrease over the past two years, placing our FY2020 population for both males and females below their respective FY2011 numbers. Missouri presently ranks 7th in the country for highest per capita incarceration rates according to our own Department of Corrections. We are moving in the right direction but we have a long way to go. Are you ready?
\nWhat de-carceration means to Missouri, and specifically Boone County, is people we are used to seeing being sent to prison are now being left in the community. I know from various conversations among thoughtful and like-minded people that many are actually not ready for this change. So now what do we do with people recently released from prison when they continue to use cocaine, or even marijuana? The Department of Corrections, and rightly so, now assesses these individuals for their danger to the community and if it\u2019s determined that we have no reason to be afraid of these individuals, they are not going to be sent back to prison. This should be seen as good news; but now what?
\nPlease note that prisons are very good at what they were designed to do and they should be applauded. People who escape from prisons in the current era make national news. Prisons were designed to confine people and they do just that. It is when we begin placing new expectations on our prisons that we become frustrated. Mental health, anger management, substance use and addiction, and many more such issues are best addressed in our community \u2013 not prison. It\u2019s time now for Boone County to rise up and create the supports and resources needed to effectively address these issues and more. It\u2019s time for Boone County to partner with the Department of Corrections to see our declining prison population drop even further.
\nIn2Action and the Reentry Opportunity Center have been created to do just this. And we are good at what we do. The 1-year recidivism rate in Boone county is over 26%. For the same period \u2013 measuring apples to apples \u2013 people who completed the in2Action program had a recidivism rate of less than 6%. As a community we can be an example to the rest of the state, and even the nation, if we embrace this challenge and come together to create more and better solutions.
\nHelp is on the way and many great efforts are soon to be revealed. Please stay tuned to our future newsletters or consider joining our Central Missouri Recovery Coalition to both speak into these solutions and learn what\u2019s coming next in real time. To join the coalition please email comocoalition@gmail.com and simply ask to be added to distribution list.<\/p>\n
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\u201cWe should save our prison beds for people we are afraid of and not people we are mad at.\u201d While I am not sure exactly who coined the quote above, I give credit to former Missouri Supreme Court Judge Ray Price. Wherever it came from, it\u2019s worth repeating. And given the tremendous cost of incarceration […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":5458,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5844","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-directors-comments"],"yoast_head":"\n