Date: February 26, 2025
To: Chairman Schroer and Members, Senate Judiciary Committee
Re: SB 251, SB 281, and SB 449
As the largest and oldest anti-poverty advocacy organization in our state, Empower Missouri is committed to improving the quality of life for all Missouri residents through advocacy. Since our inception, Empower Missouri has focused on the criminal justice system and its impacts. Our Community Justice Coalition consists of community advocates and organizations from across the state who work with those who have been impacted by the criminal justice system. Many coalition members are formerly incarcerated or have currently incarcerated loved ones, and all are connected by a vision for a future without mass incarceration.
We are providing testimony today regarding SB 251, SB 281, and SB 449. These bills would repeal the current minimum prison term structure and impose significantly longer sentences. With the current state of prison understaffing, coupled with research that shows increasing mandatory minimum sentences can have an adverse effect on public safety, we believe these bills would move Missouri in the wrong direction while bearing enormous costs on state residents.
Current law stipulates certain percentages of prison terms must be served by people with one or more previous prison commitments. Additionally, anyone convicted of a dangerous felony must serve 85% of their sentence. These bills would amend the law significantly, each proposing a slightly different term structure:
- SB 449 would mandate that anyone convicted of a non-dangerous felony serve a minimum of 80% of their sentence before becoming eligible for parole.
- SB 281 would also require anyone convicted of a felony (not just those with a previous prison commitment) to serve a minimum of 75% of their sentence, as well as imposing other percentage increases for those with prior commitments.
- Finally, SB 251 proposes a major increase in minimum percentages served for individuals with prior prison commitments.
People committing violent crime in Missouri are already serving a substantial portion of their sentence before returning to the community on parole or conditional release.
In fact, in many cases, people are staying in Missouri prisons longer than they were in previous years. People designated a dangerous felony offender are already required to serve at least 85% of their prison term, and DOC data from FY ‘23 suggests that the average person sentenced for a class A, B, or C violent felony served nearly 79% of their sentence before being released. The average time spent in prison for these offenses increased from 9.2 years in FY ‘14 to 12.2 years in FY ‘23. During the same period, the percentage of time served among Class D or E violent felony releases increased slightly from 51 to 54%.
Longer sentences don’t deter criminals. Certainty of being caught does.
Decades of research show that harsh sentences are not an effective crime deterrent, and a more effective deterrent is the certainty that you will be caught. However, in 2022, 64% of violent crimes reported to police in Missouri were not solved. There are clearly other avenues to pursue to address public safety concerns. For example, SB 473, sponsored by Senator Schroer, proposes a reporting system for improving violent crime clearance rates wherein the Department of Public Safety would prioritize grant funding for jurisdictions with low clearance rates. When it comes to moving away from mandatory minimums, there is a roadmap for Missouri to learn from: over 30 states have reformed or repealed their mandatory minimum sentences in the past two decades while maintaining public safety. And states that have dug in on “truth in sentencing” have seen terrible results:
- Wisconsin had a 14% growth in the prison population and a severe programming shortage as a result
- Georgia has seen dangerous environments within prisons, leading to more crime committed upon reentry, with significantly higher reincarceration rates
- Arizona saw a 50% increase in rule infractions in prison, a 20% reduction in educational programming enrollment, and a higher rate of reincarceration
These bills will make our prisons less safe.
Currently, correctional officers have one primary tool at their disposal to encourage good behavior in prisons– the ability for folks to earn an early release. These bills remove that tool, which will inherently make prisons less safe for detainees, staff, and contractors. Prison deaths are already at a record high in Missouri, and DOC is having a very hard time attracting and retaining staff to run their current facilities. This will make prisons less safe and therefore even a less appealing place to work, contributing to further understaffing of prisons.
These bills would come at an enormous cost to taxpayers, at a time when Missouri is attempting to cut taxes.
The changes proposed in these bills, but particularly SB 449 and SB 281, will carry an enormous fiscal note and create a major strain on the DOC. Director Trevor Foley recently stated in a Senate Appropriations Committee hearing that the DOC currently has 960 staff vacancies. As a result, Missouri spent $54 million last year on overtime pay for correctional officers. Increasing minimum sentences will increase both the prison population and corrections costs without making our state safer. Prisons cost most states almost five times more than they did in the mid-1980s due to having to house and feed people for much longer periods of time. The fiscal notes for these bills note that if these bills are passed, the Department of Corrections would almost certainly need to build a new prison facility, the costs of which are not included in the fiscal notes. However, DOC has projected those costs to be between $800M and $1 billion.
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