Date: February 21, 2024To: Chairman Evans and Members, House Judiciary CommitteeFrom: Gwen Smith, Criminal Justice Policy Manager, Empower MissouriRe: HB 1655 As the largest and oldest anti-poverty non-profit 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...Lee mas

For the past two years, Empower Missouri has been spearheading research into the practice of private probation in Missouri, to better understand its scope and implications for policy reform. Missouri is one of 12 states to utilize the controversial practice of private probation. Private probation is used in some counties to outsource supervision for misdemeanor...Lee mas

Over the last six weeks, we have described Missouri’s practice of outsourcing probation and supervision services to private businesses and introduced why it is a problem and why we seek to make this a priority. For another brief summary of the issue, Human Rights Watch produced a short video describing how for-profit companies impact us....Lee mas

In part one of this series, we provided a brief introduction to the concept of private probation – the practice of outsourcing probation services for minor and low-level offenses to private businesses. In the second part of this series, we will explore  the issue in more depth, and answer two questions: how serious is the...Lee mas

Members of Empower Missouri’s Criminal Justice Coalition have been discussing Missouri’s use of private probation and the impact on our communities. Missouri is one of about nine others who have outsourced probation services. In conversation with family and friends,  we realized there are a lot of us who have never heard of the practice. This...Lee mas

Es el momento adecuado en el estado Show Me para cambios aún más positivos en nuestro sistema de justicia y Empower Missouri, junto con los defensores que son parte de la Smart Sentencing Coalition, estarán ahí para impulsarlo.Lee mas