Date: February 17, 2025
To: Rep. Christ and members of the House Emerging Issues Committee
From: Gwen Smith, Criminal Justice Policy Manager, Empower Missouri
Re: Our support for HB 723
Founded in 1901, Empower Missouri advocates for the well-being of Missourians through civic leadership, education, and research. As part of our work, we organize a statewide Community Justice Coalition with the goal of decreasing recidivism, decreasing the prison population, and decreasing Missouri’s criminal justice costs all while ensuring our communities are safe. 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 support Representative Peter’s HB 723, which would repeal the Missouri Incarceration Reimbursement Act, or MIRA. This law allows the state attorney general to seize the assets of men and women who are serving time in Missouri prisons.
Annually, MIRA lawsuits brought by the AG’s office raise a fraction of a percent of the Department of Corrections budget, while seizing up to 90% of the incarcerated person’s assets. Those assets are typically in the form of money from a legal settlement, insurance proceeds when a relative dies, or funds from the sale of property. Most of the individuals sued by the AG’s office under this law do not have the means to retain legal counsel to challenge the lawsuit, and typically cannot even appear in court themselves due to their incarceration. The Public Defender’s office is not able to intervene in such cases.
The DOC budget in 2023 was almost $187 million, and the revenue obtained from MIRA lawsuits filed by Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey was $450,000. The MIRA does not provide any measurable relief for taxpayers. For the incarcerated individuals whose assets are being seized, these small windfalls could be life-changing sums of money, providing the ability to provide for family members on the outside while they are in prison or help cover the myriad of costs associated with the reentry process. This law doubles down on punishment for people who are already serving their time, going beyond the scope of the sentence set by a judge and seizing assets that would otherwise go to support loved ones and/or the individual’s life after prison.
We encourage a ‘yes’ vote on HB 723 that would repeal this outdated law and protect the rights and assets of all Missourians.
English 
Spanish
America’s Truly Criminal Justice System
Imagine where a government is given a task, fails at that task then blames the very people it failed for that failure. Then passes laws to punish, restrict, and make harder or nearly impossible the lives of those citizens they have failed. Welcome to the current American Criminal Justice System, where we call them Departments of Correction but in reality they are more Departments of Warehousing and Punishment. The Government’s responsibility is to be rehabilitating and correcting people’s lives so they will fit safely back into society, being a productive part of it. But when the government fails at it’s task instead of holding itself accountable the state blames the people under their care and supervision. Then pass volumes of laws restricting and controlling the lives of those citizens they failed long after their sentences are finished. The very fact these myriad of laws exist is public admission and proclamation by the government of the state’s failure to do their job, refusal to be accountable or responsible for that failure, and to shift the blame to those citizens the state failed. All this is at it’s core fundamentally and morally wrong being the very essence of cruel and unusual punishment.
Look how the government says we need these laws to control behavior and protect society when that was what they were suppose to be doing in prison, rehabilitating persons to safely be release back into society. For the parole board to determine when it was safe to release persons back into society, but then the state turns around and say it is not safe. No account is given to actual recidivism rates, individual risk evaluations, just blanket everyone with this crime must meet these requirements or restrictions. How cruel and unjust is that. Laws based on hate, fear and bigotry that encourage hate fear and bigotry and says to public that these people can never be fully rehabilitated, fully redeemed, fully restored back into society. You should not give these individuals a second chance, don’t forgive, don’t trust, don’t hire them, and it is ok to discriminate against them because the government does it to all these citizens.
These laws are all an insult, spit and slap in the face of so many people.
1. Every tax payer as it is saying that the taxes they paid to properly rehabilitate these individuals was wasted and did not full fill it purpose.
2. Every person who works for the Department of corrections as it says they are a bunch of incompetent buffoons who can not rehabilitate any of these individuals.
3. All those working on the parole board as they failing at their task and are continually releasing unsafe persons back into society.
4. All the persons the laws discriminate against that all the time they spent in prison, all the time with counselors and therapist, all the programs they successfully complete were just a waste of time as nothing they do can rehabilitate themselves.
5. Lastly the laws are an insult to God, that he is impotent, incapable of redeeming, restoring, or rehabilitating any of these persons.
The government failed to do it’s job and because their failure if you’re a felon of one crime or another you can’t hold public office, denied access to government programs and assistance, can not win the lottery, can to get a professional license, can not work at this job, can not have access to public amities, can not have access to private amities, denied government help, forced to public registry humiliation, denied the right to enter a voting location because of what is there, denied to enter a religious facility because what is there, can not live certain places, can not go certain places, can not be near this or that place, and the list goes on. All because the government feels they failed to do their job and blames those citizens it was suppose to help for that failure. But did they really fail, in Missouri recidivism for murders 1%, sex offenders 2%, and yet they have the most laws restricting activities of any group.
Is ruining a person’s whole life over a crime, a mistake, or poor judgement true justice. True justice is making things right again, not making things worse. We would think a parent was a terrible parent if they were to teach their child that two wrongs make it right, if some one does you wrong then do wrong to them. That we can make this a better world, a better place by increasing the pain, misery, and suffering in the world. That just throw all your problems in a box and they will solve themselves in time. Yet these are the foundational principals and ideologies that we base our criminal justice system on, you did wrong you got to be punished, lock you up in a concrete box for years that will solve the crime problem. If you put a wayward dog in a box, beat them for years, and then when you let them out would they lick your hand or rip off your face? Why do we treat people less that dogs and expect better results? We have been using the old testament biblical eye for an eye criminal justice system for hundreds of years, has it solved the problem of crime, do we have less people in prison now, less crime, or have we missed the boat? To keep doing the same thing over and over again, expect different results is like insane.
Are we to do away with prisons and jails, heavens no! There are too many people that are a threat to society or themselves to be allowed total freedom. The problem is we as a people need to change how we think about justice, realize that the old punitive criminal systems do not work, and rethink what is our ultimate goals are. Our criminal and correctional systems has an attitude of ‘putting away problems’ rather that ‘solving problems’. Anyone who commits a crime has screwed up, twisted, askew, or problem thinking to where they can not function properly in society. They committed a crime, be it murder, sex crime, theft, child abuse, car jacking, embezzlement, assault, drunk driving, cheating on taxes, speeding, etc. thinking to solve a problem or need only making things worse. Yet our ‘Justice System’ does not even try to address the thinking errors, but uses the attitude if we put (incarcerate) the problem in a concrete box (cell) it will just solve itself in time (long sentences). It fails to see the ramifications of creating other problems while not really solving the true problem, what caused the wrong thinking in the first place. ‘Tough on crime’ is really ‘Tough on criminals’ and nothing is ever really done about being tough on crime, the causes of crime or helping individuals. Long sentences, mandatory minimums, three strikes, and the like do not solve crime, nor are ‘Tough on Crime’, they are only tough on criminals but do not deal with the real issues of crime. We need to not just deal with how is their thinking has gone array and how to fix it, but how did it get array, what caused them to think like they did at the time of their crime. Think about what others have said on this issue.
Missouri Supreme Court Chief Justice Mary Rhodes Russell said “Our jails have become the largest mental health facilities in our counties. But that is not how jails are designed, nor how their staff are trained. Jails should be used in the short term to detain people accused of crimes or found guilty of minor crimes. Concrete cell blocks are not conducive for treating mental health or addiction issues.” 2-7-2024.
“We are all potential criminals, and those who we have put into prison are no worse, deep down, than anyone of us. They have succumbed to ignorance, desire and anger, ailments that we all suffer from but to different degrees. Our duty is to help them.” – His Holiness, The Dalai Lama.
“Experience shows that it is always society which prepares the ground for crime, and that the wrong doer is only the predestined instrument of its commission.” – Adolphe Lambert Jacques Quetelet (1796-1874) Belgian statistician & astronomer.
“Absolute abolition of all cruel & degrading sentences, corporal punishment and the death penalty as sanctioned and enforce by the law. Abolition of all those indefinite or protracted punishments which leave no hope and no real possibility of rehabilitation, since crime ought to be considered as sickness, and punishment as cure rather than social retaliation.” – Michael Bekunin (1814-1876).
Studies have shown that treatment is more effective for helping individuals and more cost efficient on society to provide it on the street rather than in prisons. That destroying peoples’ lives, families, homes, jobs, futures, and the like does not help in the long run. If they do not pose a threat to society, put them into treatment. If they pose a threat to society or themselves put them in confinement, and give them treatment. Everyone who commits a crime, no matter what type needs to be looked at as a patient in need of help, all need treatment of some kind. If we as a society do not try to help or treat them then we are just perpetuating the ‘revolving door’ of crime. I talked to a criminal with a long rap sheet of burglaries, thefts, and the like who said to me, “It is their fault their things get stolen, if they don’t lock them up and protect them they are just asking for them to be taken”. Do you think the system really worked with him in prison, no; Do you think his thinking ever got changed, doubt it; Will he be back in prison again, most likely. I think our criminal justice system is criminal in it self if it does not address the true issues of crime, and only perpetuates bitterness, deprivations, and hatreds leading to attitudes and thoughts of more crimes as a means to solve problems.
Sentences should not be based on set lengths for set crimes, but on a set of needed and desired out comes. Everyone who enters the criminal justice system and is convicted should be looked upon as a patient in need of help with their thinking. Sure there will be the con who can talk the socks and shoes of a guy in a foot of snow the middle of winter, fool even the best professional. Sure it will be hard work to sort out those who see their errors, permanently correct their thinking and thereby their ways and those who can never be made right again. But we need to try to sort out those who can be helped while they remain in society, those who are a real emanate threat and need to be temporally removed while they receive help, and those who can never be corrected and need to remain forever in some sort of confinement for the protection of society or themselves.
We need to stop making laws based on hate, fear and bigotry that do not really protect anyone and only encourage hate, fear, bigotry, and discrimination based on false idea that a person can never be rehabilitated. Laws like HB161, HB312, HB314, HB389, HJR26, and the like need to be stopped before they come law. Then any law that discriminates against a group of people whose recidivism rate is under 5 percent in Missouri should be repealed as you are punishing 95 percent of that group who are now law abiding citizens trying to fit back into society but the government will not allow it, making them social outcasts.
We all need to think long and hard about what justice really is and what it will take to get there. Hopefully this will get you to thinking also and we can work together as a society to really be ‘Tough on Crime’ and not tough on criminals who need our help. Our criminal justice system and our bigoted laws are shamefully truly criminal in how they work.