Date: February 18, 2026
To: Chairman Schroer and Members, Senate Judiciary Committee
From: Mallory Rusch, Executive Director, Empower Missouri
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 1294, SB 894, and SB 882. These bills would repeal the current minimum prison term structure and impose sentencing ranges to be served before becoming eligible for parole. These bills would also do away with conditional release, which is the time at which, barring any extenuating circumstances, an incarcerated person must be released onto supervision. We believe that while the spirit of this legislation to simplify Missouri’s complex sentencing structure is well-intentioned, doing away with conditional release without simultaneously reforming the parole process would have unintended consequences, leaving more people incarcerated for longer and straining the state’s resources.
In FY2025, according to the annual report put forth by the Department of Corrections, conditional releases made up 13.5% of all releases from prison, or about 500 individuals. 5.4% of releases (or about 200 individuals) were discharged at the end of their full sentence. Conditional release was created as a fail-safe to ensure that parole boards release people from prison for at least some period of community supervision. If conditional release is no longer mandated, there is no reason to think everyone currently being held until their conditional release date would be paroled instead. Data from states similar to Missouri, including Alabama and West Virginia, shows that parole boards in those states routinely deny parole to more people than their guidelines recommend. Similar data that would shed light on parole grant rates compared to recommendations in Missouri is not publicly available. Our parole process needs increased transparency and accountability, so those denied parole know why they are being denied, and so the public knows how the parole board is operating and if recommendations are being met. These proposed changes to the sentencing structure rely heavily on the parole board to function fairly and effectively, without any reforms made in response to long-standing concerns about the parole process. I urge the committee to vote against these bills until this issue has been addressed, and I thank you for your time and consideration of this matter.
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