Less in prison, more on probation

Before Missouri courts began using a system of recommended sentencing encouraging judges to issue more lenient penalties for nonviolent offenders and incorporate probation instead of incarceration when feasible, the state prison population was at an all-time high.

Two years later, the prison population has decreased, defying national trends, although a side effect is more people on probation than ever before, many of whom end up back in prison, according to Brian Hauswirth, spokesman for the Department of Corrections.

Missouri now leads the nation in prison population decline, and is one of only eight states to have a decrease in the number of people behind bars, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.

In October 2005, the prison population in Missouri was 30,650. In just two years it dropped by about 865 people, according to a biennial report from the Missouri Sentencing Advisory Commission.

Although Hauswirth said 38.9 percent of people on probation in the past 12 months returned to prison within the year, the majority committed violations of their sentence rather than repeated the same criminal behavior.

Recidivism rates have actually dropped, with 1.2 percent fewer people committing the same types of crimes for which they were sentenced.

"We believe a lot of that has to with re-entry programs," Hauswirth said.

The Missouri Sentencing Advisory Commission found in a study that when the recommended sentence called for probation, and a judge assigned an actual punishment of prison, the rate of repeat offenders was much higher than in cases where the actual sentence was probation when incarceration was recommended.

"The study confirms statistically what we intuitively believed: that public safety is enhanced when judges statewide follow the recommended sentences," said commission chairman and Supreme Court judge Michael A. Wolff in a prepared statement.

When former Gov. Bob Holden introduced the recommended sentencing system as a pilot program in 2003, the idea was to promote consistency and fairness in sentencing, Hauswirth said.

Before the system was introduced, sometimes a judge in one county would issue a sentence of one year where a judge in a different county might impose a much longer sentence for the same crime, Hauswirth said.

Judges can now use the recommended sentence as a guideline, although the ultimate decision is still theirs.

"Our probation officers and judges deserve a lot of the credit; they make very difficult decisions," Hauswirth said.

The commission currently has nine active members and includes political and judicial representatives as well as private citizens. Its recommended sentences are incorporated into the sentence assessment reports probation officers are required to supply to judges, along with the Department of Corrections method of analyzing risks of reoffending.

The dominant factors that go into the sentencing assessments are prior convictions and the nature of the offense, said Willard Edwards, district administrator of the local Probation and Parole Board office.

Age, employment, probation or prison history, and substance abuse problems are also considered when calculating the reports.

Locally, the differences between the recommended sentences and actual sentences are relatively small, Edwards said.

"Our judges do a good job of evaluating people at the time of the sentencing," he said.

Edwards said he hasn't seen an overwhelming effect of the recommended sentencing program on the workload of probation officers in Cape Girardeau.

Statewide, that is not the case, however.

"Caseloads have certainly jumped," Hauswirth said.

As of June 30, there were 69,662 people on parole, as opposed to only 63,251 five years ago.

The number has increased by nearly 18,000 in the last decade, Hauswirth said.

"It did increase recently, but so far we've been able to manage it," said Edwards.

bdicosmo@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 245