LETTERS: CORRECTIONAL OFFICERS SALUTED

To the editor:

In Missouri, we continue to celebrate the significant drop in violent crimes committed. Tough legislation and concerted efforts by law enforcement to target dangerous felons for sterner sentences have put more bad actors behind bars. Whereas the police, the highway patrol, the sheriff and the marshal are armed in the community when the criminals are apprehended, the correctional officers who supervise these felons throughout their sentences are not. Our officers' arsenal features their training and temperament and each shift's teamwork. This week, May 3-9, is National Correctional Officers Week, and this letter touches on the ways, working three tours seven days every week, our state's correctional officers' commitment to public safety is measured.

The day-to-day responsibility for the management of Missouri's inmate population falls to 4,793 state correctional officers, terrific men and women who supervise 24,377 dangerous felons under circumstances far more complex than at any other time in our state's history. In just the past six years, the prison population has increased by 8,791 offenders. And more of the prisoners are spending more time in prison. Moreover, the inmate population has failed at far more than citizenship. The vast majority of offenders also failed to earn a high school diploma, failed to get or keep a job and failed to get and stay sober when they were in the community.

Our officers' participation in inmates' prerelease preparation has resulted last year in the full-time engagement by 99.3 percent of all general-population inmates in work, school and substance-abuse programs and the award of 1,529 GED certificates.

We are fortunate to have found correctional professionals who place the public's safety above their own and keep the system stable in a period of rapid change. With great ability they have turned problem inmates into inmates with problems who are now fast-tracked to problem-solving strategies. Their character and conduct as uniformed personnel are celebrated this week. Kindly accept this invitation to join with me to celebrate the service of those who give to us the longest lasting public safety.

DORA B. SCHRIRO, Director

Missouri Department of Corrections

Jefferson City