Back in 2019, Institute researchers highlighted Fresh Start Act legislation that other states had passed before Missouri passed its own version the following year. The Fresh Start Act modifies occupational licensing regulations for workers with a criminal record to make it easier for the formerly incarcerated to find gainful employment.

What does that matter? Well, strict occupational licensing rules for those who have criminal records can make it harder for those with a checkered past to find work. Not only can that impede successful re-entry efforts, but it limits the supply of workers. The Fresh Start Act does not allow criminal records to disqualify an individual from receiving an occupational license unless the criminal conviction directly relates to the occupation (an individual with a conviction relating to children would not be able to obtain a teaching license, for example). But for the vast majority of former inmates, relaxing licensing rules is a good thing.

Licensing burdens are, of course, a problem for many seeking work, but those with criminal records are particularly at risk for being written out of entire sectors of the economy. State legislatures have started addressing this problem; since 2015, 38 states, including Missouri, have reformed their occupational licensing laws to make it easier for ex-offenders to find work in industries in which the state requires an occupational license to operate.

The Fresh Start Act may seem like a small thing, but for the formerly incarcerated, it could mean the world. More should be done on licensing in general—including the regular sunsetting of all licensing regimes —but this legislation was a good step.

The post A Criminal Justice Reform in Occupational Licensing appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

Currently, Missouri requires licenses for 240 occupations, 37 of which are for low- to moderate-income jobs. Many licensing boards list “good character” or not having committed “any offense involving moral turpitude” as a requirement for applicants or renewal of licenses. While it may make sense to prohibit some ex-offenders from obtaining a license, these vague statements shut out almost anyone with a criminal record regardless of the nature of their offense, the time that has lapsed since they served their time, or if they have successfully completed rehabilitation. It also precludes an employer from exercising its discretion in determining a person’s fitness for a position.

On one hand, it seems wise to refuse licenses in certain cases—say someone with a history of substance abuse or drug dealing applying for a pharmacy technician license. On the other hand, blanket bans of ex-offenders create obstacles to getting jobs that may have no connection with the crime committed and make it more likely that the offender will eventually return to prison. Other states—including Arizona, Indiana, Minnesota, and Tennessee—have shown there is a better way forward that strikes the balance between safety and second chances.

Instead of allowing licensing boards to have wholesale bans on those with criminal records, Fresh Start Legislation would require that boards list specific crimes that are directly related to the occupation in question and consider factors such as time passed since the last conviction and the nature of the offense. .

Under Fresh Start laws, boards may only outright deny applicants if they have a conviction within the last five years or if the conviction was for a violent or sexual crime. This means more dangerous criminals and repeat offenders would still be able to be screened out. But if someone has an older conviction for a nonviolent crime and has remained crime free since being released, their application must be considered and they are allowed to appeal the decision if denied.

Missouri’s Governor recently mentioned the need for better prisoner education so prisoners can be released ready to enter the workforce. But how much can educational programs accomplish if ex-offenders are being automatically shut out of hundreds of occupations? By removing unnecessary obstacles to ex-offenders leaving prison, a Fresh Start law would be a good first step to help these people get jobs and fully reintegrate into their communities. 

The post Giving Ex-Offenders a Fresh Start When Looking for a Job: Part Two appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

Whether it is for a technical violation of the terms of their parole or because they committed a new offense, having so many people return to prison is expensive. The average cost to incarcerate just one person for one year is $21,000. Multiply that by thousands of people serving years-long sentences and the cost of recidivism for Missouri taxpayers is in the millions.

While there are several important factors that may contribute to recidivism rates, research has found that finding employment upon release strongly affects whether someone will end up back in prison. This study from the Justice Center at the Council of State Governments explains why employment for ex-offenders is important:

Employment can make a strong contribution to recidivism-reduction efforts because it refocuses individuals’ time and efforts on prosocial activities, making them less likely to engage in riskier behaviors and to associate with people who do…Employment also has important societal benefits, including reduced strain on social service resources, contributions to the tax base, and safer, more stable communities.

Last year, Show-Me Institute’s Patrick Tuohey testified on a bill that would have removed the restriction on anyone convicted of a felony from obtaining a license to sell lottery tickets—a law which essentially prohibited them from working at convenience stores or gas stations. While this bill wasn’t adopted, other states have taken an approach that Missouri should consider.

Instead of considering different licensed occupations piecemeal, Fresh Start Legislation adopted in other states requires a comprehensive review of licensing boards’ restrictions on ex-offenders. Such a review can help ex-offenders by removing unnecessary barriers to employment. Part two of this blog post will dig more into what a Fresh Start law would look like and how it could help Missouri reduce its recidivism rates.

The post Giving Ex-Offenders a Fresh Start When Looking For a Job: Part One appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

Missouri leads the Midwest in incarceration rates, and we’re eighth highest in the nation. We just recently lost to Kentucky our position of having the highest incarceration rate for women. If we do nothing to slow the flood of new inmates, Missouri will need to spend about $485 million in the next five years to build and operate two new prisons. For comparison’s sake, the entire budget of the state Department of Corrections is $725 million in 2018. (It was $580 million in 2006.)

According to the Missouri Department of Corrections’ 2016 Profile of Institutional and Supervised Offender Population, 41 percent of inmates are incarcerated for nonviolent and/or drug-related crimes. These two offender groups, incidentally, are the fastest-growing populations since 2011. Missourians could save hundreds of millions of dollars if courts had the flexibility to sentence these offenders to treatment programs or probationary periods prior to locking them up—while still retaining the ability to protect us from violent or habitual offenders.

Furthermore, research indicates that large sentences are not as effective a deterrent as swift capture and conviction. And large sentences are expensive, and not just in terms of the public dollars used to house and feed inmates. They also impose a significant cost on families and make it harder for ex-offenders to re-enter the workforce and become productive members of society.

The good news is that there is a better way.

Other states, such as Texas, have found ways to increase public safety and reduce recidivism while reducing public spending on prisons. Reducing mandatory minimum sentencing in certain circumstances is a part of that public policy strategy. Let’s return to judges the discretion they need to separate violent offenders from those who pose less of a threat. To do nothing will put greater pressure on public coffers while offering no respite from crime.

The post Reform Missouri’s Mandatory Minimums appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

One major component of these reforms would be to increase the number of community treatment centers for substance abuse and mental health. Currently, 35 percent of admissions are for in-prison treatment because no alternative exists in the offenders’ community. Unfortunately, the task force found that Missouri’s in-prison treatment programs are ineffective, thus wasting taxpayers’ dollars. Establishing more community-based treatment programs could produce much better outcomes and be a better use of the state’s resources.

The proposed legislation would also assist law enforcement in combatting violent crime, increase access to victim compensation, and adopt better practices throughout the Department of Corrections to reduce recidivism. Given that Missouri’s prisons are already over capacity, pursuing these reforms would be a step in the right direction.

The post An Opportunity for Responsible Criminal Justice Reform appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

Under current law, the Missouri Lottery Commission is prohibited from licensing anyone who has been convicted of any felony from selling lottery tickets. This means that these men and women—regardless of the type or severity of their crimes—are effectively barred from working at many convenience stores and gas stations. If this bill is adopted, employers have more flexibility in hiring. While they are not required to hire convicted felons, they are not barred from doing so either.

Research shows that ex-offenders who are unable to find employment are more likely to re-offend. A 2014 study by the Indiana Department of Corrections concluded that the ability of an offender to find work after prison was “significantly and statistically correlated with recidivism, regardless of the offender’s classification.” A 2016 study conducted by the Center for Economic and Policy Research concluded that:

In 2014, overall employment rates were 0.9 to 1.0 percentage points lower as a result of the employment penalty faced by the large population of former prisoners and people with felony convictions. For men, their employment rate was 1.6 to 1.8 percentage points lower.

These barriers to employment are significant. A survey of The National Inventory of Collateral Consequences of Conviction database, a project of The Council of State Governments’ Justice Center, shows 221 mandatory barriers to employment in Missouri due to a criminal conviction. While some of these make sense, others do not.

Common-sense reforms can remove unnecessary legal barriers to ex-offenders becoming productive members of our communities. What’s more, they amount to the government cleaning its own house rather than trying to pass the buck on to businesses.

The post Helping Ex-offenders appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

If Missouri can reduce growth in the cost of our criminal justice system through responsible reform, shouldn’t we do it? Governor Greitens’s proposed budget for FY2019 includes some of the recommendations from the task force, such as treatment courts and community-based treatment programs, but much was left out. With Missouri taxpayers staring at such a large bill, additional reforms deserve serious consideration.

Reform objectives fall within three broader categories: reducing violent crime, reducing treatment-related admissions, and reducing recidivism. Addressing each of these areas could help slow the growth of our prison population.

Let’s take a closer look at what the task force has proposed:

• Reducing Violent Crime in Our Communities by giving more state support to local police departments, providing more support for victims, updating technology systems, and providing incentives for county jails to reserve limited jail space for dangerous offenders
• Reducing Mental Health and Substance Abuse Treatment-Related Admissions by improving current treatment programs in prison, improving community-based treatment options, strengthening community supervision centers, and expanding behavioral health services
• Reducing Recidivism and Readmission to Prison by amending supervision practices to reduce revocations, better preparing people leaving prison, providing proper training on risk assessment and correctional practices for staff, and supporting treatment courts

The total cost of these reforms is estimated at $189 million over the next five years—about $300 million less than the cost of building two more prisons.

With our prisons already over capacity, we need to begin thinking about reform immediately. Lawmakers have introduced criminal justice reform bills that include “Raise the Age” (requiring 17-year-olds to be tried as juveniles), mandatory minimum sentencing reform, and changes to state reimbursements to county jails. Nevertheless, additional reforms will likely be needed in order to control, let alone reduce, our prison population in the coming years.

When faced with similar circumstances in Texas—spend $2 billion on new prisons or curb incarceration rates—the legislature decided to invest $241 million in reforms instead. Now Texas is closing facilities that are no longer needed, and crime rates fell 26 percent between 2007 and 2014. With a bit more urgency, perhaps Missouri can also protect taxpayers while at the same time making our communities safer. 

The post Missouri Needs Criminal Justice Reform-and Fast appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

Giving judges this discretion should reduce concerns that offenders will be let off the hook too easily. Repeat offenders, or those whose crimes are especially serious, could still be dealt with appropriately. Meanwhile, the juvenile justice system could handle the others, which could benefit both the teens and the state.

One concern about this policy is the cost. Based on the fiscal note for similar legislation introduced during the last legislative session, placing more teens in the juvenile system would cost an additional $6.715 million per year. Dr. David Mitchell, an economics professor from Missouri State University, used an alternative cost calculation in a paper he presented at a recent Raise the Age panel discussion.

He argues that even though the per-person/per-year cost is higher in the juvenile system than in the adult prisons, 17-year-olds sent to adult prison spend more time behind bars, on average, than they would if they were in juvenile detention centers. Thus, the cost savings would be higher for the Department of Corrections than originally estimated and the net burden on the state would be closer to $2.432 million per year. He also points out that this amount is only .008% of the state’s budget.

So the cost of this policy to the state would be less than previously assumed. The benefits, however, could be large according to Dr. Mitchell’s estimates. Based on several factors, there could be long-term economic gains from placing most 17-year-olds in the juvenile system.

First, teens convicted of crimes have better earning potential if they go through the juvenile system. Studies have found that teens who have been in adult prison have a 20 percent lower chance of being employed after they are released and work 25 to 30 percent fewer hours if they do manage to find a job. On the other hand, teens who were convicted of a crime but did not go to an adult prison had almost as good a chance at finding a job as teens who did not commit a crime at all.

Second, there is a large disparity in recidivism rates between the juvenile system and the adult system. In Missouri, the recidivism rate for youthful offenders coming out of the adult prison system is about 67 percent, whereas the rate for those coming out of the juvenile system is 15 percent.

With these two factors in mind, placing most 17-year-olds into the juvenile system could be fiscally beneficial to the state. They would be more likely to have a job and be paying taxes (money gained for the state) after serving their sentences, and less likely to end up back in jail (less money being spent by the state).

It’s impossible to know exactly how much raising the age could save the state, but Dr. Mitchell’s analysis indicates that it would be a worthwhile investment. With such a small upfront cost and  potentially large long term gains for the state—not to mention positive impact on these teens’ lives—shouldn’t Missouri join the vast majority of states with this sensible reform?

The post What Is the Cost of ‘Raising the Age’? appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

A policeman sees a man looking for something under a streetlight and asks what he has lost. He says he lost his keys and the policeman decides to lend a hand looking for them. After a few minutes, the policeman asks if he is sure he lost them there, and the man replies, no, he lost them on the other side of the street. The policeman asks why he is searching here, and the man replies, “well, this is where the light is.”

When education researchers want to measure the impact of a policy or program, they are forced to look where the light is. That usually means looking at student test scores, graduation rates, and a set of relatively limited short-term indicators.

Fortunately, school-choice researchers are starting to look at outcomes beyond just test scores, casting light into areas that were previously shrouded in darkness.

In fact, not only does new research show that school choice can boost test scores and increase the likelihood that low-income students finish college, but studies also suggest that students in school choice programs are less likely than their traditional school peers to commit crimes.

Researchers studying the high-performing Promise Academy in the Harlem Children’s Zone found promising results for students at that school, which uses a lottery system to place students in the limited number of available spots. Four percent of lottery “losers” were incarcerated compared to none of the lottery “winners.” In addition, charter school students were 17 percentage points more likely to enroll in college immediately after high school, and female lottery winners were 10.1 percentage points less likely to report having been pregnant as a teenager than lottery losers.

The Charlotte-Mecklenburg district in North Carolina used a lottery system to place students into schools that have a limited number of available seats. A study by David J. Deming at Harvard University shows that high school students who “won” the lottery and were placed into their first-choice school were arrested 70 percent less for drug charges and 45 percent less for other felony charges compared to students who entered the lottery but did not secure a spot in their first-choice school.

Schools that use lottery systems for admission are especially helpful for comparison studies because they allow researchers to compare two groups of students who both showed a desire to attend a school of their choosing. But even in situations where there is no lottery, researchers can use other techniques to help ensure the validity of their findings.

For example, researchers from the University of Arkansas found the following reduction in crime rates for male students, relative to incidence rates for their age among the general population: 79 percent for felony crimes, 93 for drug related crimes, and 87 percent for thefts. Because private school enrollment through a voucher program is not capped in Milwaukee, researchers couldn’t sort students into lottery-winner and lottery-loser groups. Instead they “used comparison groups constructed through an algorithm that matched [voucher] students with Milwaukee Public School (MPS) students based on grade, neighborhood, race, gender, English language learner (ELL) status and math and reading test scores” (see page 6 of the study).

These studies are encouraging, and suggest that school choice can not only enrich the lives of students, but also help make our cities and communities safer. No wonder school choice is becoming more popular.

The post Studies Show Benefits of School Choice Extend Beyond the Classroom appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

According to the National Institute of Corrections, “The crime rate in Missouri (2015) is about 18% higher than the national average rate.” Missouri is also eighth in the nation in its incarceration rate, imprisoning 530 people per 100,000 population in 2015.

Then there is the cost. The Department of Corrections budget has grown from $580 million in 2006 to $710 million in 2016. In the last five years that growth has been driven chiefly by adult institutions. The only good news in Missouri’s prison data is that as of 2012, Missouri paid $22,350 each year per inmate, well below the national average of $32,142.

Missouri is not alone in struggling with crime and incarceration rates. High crime rates in the 1970s led many state legislatures to adopt harsh sentencing guidelines, including mandatory minimum sentences for various crimes. The states embarked on “throw the key away” crime control measures that increased the prison population at great public expense. But research has shown that there are diminishing returns to harsh sentences—they don’t always result in a reduction in crime. States have been reexamining their sentencing laws, and the results are promising. Early research from around the country suggests that some criminal justice reforms, such as those that address mandatory minimum sentencing, can reduce crime rates and save states money. The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) has published an excellent paper on the matter.

According to the Missouri Department of Corrections’ just-released Profile of Institutional and Supervised Offender Population (page 33), of the 30,754 members of the prison population, 41 percent are there for either nonviolent crime (7,377 inmates) or for drug-related crimes (5,403 inmates). These two offender groups, incidentally, are the fastest-growing populations since 2011. Imagine how much Missouri could save if courts had the flexibility to sentence these nonviolent offenders to treatment programs or probationary periods prior to locking them up—while still retaining the ability to treat violent or habitual offenders harshly.

Furthermore, imagine the benefit in human capital if nonviolent and drug offenders were sentenced to treatment or probation instead of being warehoused in state institutions with few opportunities for self-improvement.

The model reforms ALEC recommends are known at the Justice Safety Valve Act, and have been introduced in the Missouri general assembly as HB1037 and HB1046. If these reforms can do what they have done elsewhere—protect Missourians while avoiding unnecessary sentencing and costs—they are well worth consideration.

The post Criminal Justice Reform: Addressing the Costs of Incarceration appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

Under current law, sentencing courts are required to issue minimum prison terms based on several criteria including severity of the crime, previous convictions, and whether the infraction involved violence and/or firearms. The new legislation gives courts greater discretion.  In cases not involving serious physical force or abuse of a child, courts may:

depart from the applicable mandatory minimum sentence if the court finds substantial and compelling reasons on the record that, in giving due regard to the nature of the offense, the history and character of the defendant, and his or her chances of successful rehabilitation, imposition of the mandatory minimum sentence would result in substantial injustice to the defendant or the mandatory minimum sentence is not necessary for the protection of the public.

The opportunities presented by the Justice Safety Valve Act—cost savings for taxpayers, real rehabilitation for offenders, and reduction of recidivism—seem well worth the legislature’s consideration.

The post Criminal Justice Reform: Mandatory Minimums appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

As I have written before (here), Missouri’s criminal expungement laws are due for an upgrade.

SB 588 would increase the availability and affordability of criminal expungement applications for certain low-level and nonviolent felony and misdemeanor offenses. Allowing criminal expungement in specific cases will help those who have paid their debt to society and demonstrated successful rehabilitation to move past their mistakes and become productive citizens.

The “ban the box” movement is a related effort, in this case intended to increase economic opportunity for past offenders by eliminating questions concerning criminal records on applications for employment. Following the lead of 21 other states, last month Missouri Governor Nixon “banned the box” on state employment applications with Executive Order 16-04, by requiring that state employment applications not ask about criminal records until the later stages of the hiring process.

The criminal expungement reforms within SB 588 would allow many more low-level offenders to re-assimilate themselves into society by opening up job opportunities beyond government employment. Instead of waiting the two decades required for qualified (nonviolent) felony offenses and the one decade for qualified misdemeanor offenses, rehabilitated nonviolent felony offenders could apply for expungement after five years from the completed sentence; for misdemeanor offenses, the waiting period would only be three years.

SB 588 would contribute to the restorative and rehabilitative functions of Missouri’s justice system. Increasing access to higher-quality jobs should greatly improve the economic prospects of nonviolent past offenders, thereby reducing the chance of recidivism as well.

The post A Second Chance after Successful Criminal Rehabilitation appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

Why should we expunge some criminal records? Because an arrest record, even from years ago, can stand between a person and a job. Low-level offenders who have served their time and have demonstrated their successful rehabilitation should not be held back by their past mistakes. They should be given an opportunity to move forward and contribute meaningfully to society. Expungement provides this opportunity.

Missouri currently allows the opportunity for expungement of a limited number of non-violent, low-level felonies and an approved list of misdemeanor offenses (see here for a link to the Missouri Revised Statutes for Expungement) after a period of time. In this current legislative session, Missouri Senate Bill 588, House Bill 1889, and House Bill 2224, would increase the number of times that an offender can petition for expungement and reduce the waiting period between the end of the sentence and eligibility to petition for expungement.

Currently, offenders have to wait 20 years if they committed a qualified (non-violent) felony, or 10 years if they committed a misdemeanor or ordinance violation or were arrested. These reforms would shorten the time for felons to five years and all others to three. Most importantly, these bills would expand the eligibility for expungement of records to include a wider range of misdemeanors, low-level, non-violent felony convictions, and arrests.

As Senator Bob Dixon of Springfield has said: “[this allows] the legislators to have a very frank discussion about a real expungement process that provides a path of restoration to those who have done wrong but have learned from their mistakes and have corrected their ways over a period of time so that they can, among other things, find employment.”

The best way to prevent recidivism is to help rehabilitating offenders get jobs. A 2009 study by the Missouri Department of Corrections (here, p. 26) found that Missouri offenders who were unemployed or employed only part time consistently had higher recidivism rates than those who were employed full time (working 35 hours or more a week).

Reforming criminal expungement strengthens Missouri’s program of restorative and rehabilitative justice and ultimately promotes greater economic opportunity for individuals who have paid their debt to society. That goal is worth pursuing.

The post Giving Non-Violent Offenders a Second Chance appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

Not only is barring felons from professions such as hairdressing or real estate bad economic policy, it is also unjust in that it extends a criminal’s punishment beyond the confines of prison, to the rest of his or her life. When a person is found guilty of a crime, a judge decides on a sentence, which is sometimes modified by a parole board. This sentence is intended to make up for the crime. However, according to Human Rights Watch:

Offenders may lose the right to vote, to serve on a jury, or to hold public office, among other “civil disabilities” that may continue long after a criminal sentence has been served.

Some would go so far as to label continuing disenfranchisement of ex-felons, such as being barred from voting or working in certain professions, as a form of double jeopardy, which is prohibited by the Fifth Amendment.

According to Associate Circuit Judge Christine Carpenter in this article in the Columbia Daily Tribune, inability to find a job is the biggest obstacle for prisoners attempting to rejoin society. Carpenter, who presides over attempts to reintegrate prisoners into the community, praised a program that uses federal subsidies to employ newly released prisoners in part-time community service jobs. Such programs could make a huge difference to ex-cons who are barred from so many professional licenses. If such barriers were dissolved, on the other hand, then the government wouldn’t need to waste money on subsidies that pay people to hire ex-cons.

The post Extending Prison Terms Beyond Prison Walls appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

The prison system in Missouri is one area of the state budget that would benefit from some fiscal restraint, as John Payne has noted before. According to an op-ed in the Saint Louis Post-Dispatch, the Missouri legislature has proposed to reduce the number of nonviolent first offenders sent to state prisons, and it is projected to realize significant savings as a result. From the editorial:

If 1,200 offenders were put into judicially supervised drug treatment programs and 800 received “enhanced probation,” costs would go down to $7.1 million.

Those savings would increase steadily and reach $26.6 million a year if a prison were to close. Aggressively pursued, the financial goal could be reached within a year.

Additionally and parenthetically, the article also points out that the practice of incarcerating nonviolent felons has some negative unintended consequences that perpetuate the state’s fiscal troubles:

Recidivism and re-incarceration rates have risen, guaranteeing that “this cycle will continue to worsen at a faster and faster pace, eating tens of millions of dollars in the process,” [Missouri Chief Justice William Ray] Price said.

Missouri would be wise to consider the competing needs of other programs for this money, such as education and incarceration of felons that committed violent crimes. Alyssa Curran articulated this point in a previous post on this blog:

Regardless of how one feels about the morality of such activities, it’s hard to justify expending so many resources on their prosecution when the core functions of the judicial system — protecting life, liberty, and property from actual direct, measurable harm — is suffering from a lack of resources.

The post How to Save $26.6 Million Annually appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

Missouri has twice the number of nonviolent offenders in prison [as] it did in 1994. The number of new inmates in 1994 was 4,857; in 2009 it was 7,220. The cost per inmate is now $16,456 per year or about $45.00 per day. The total appropriation to the Department of Corrections in 1994 was $216 million now it is over $670 million—an increase of over 300 percent[.] Worse yet, Missouri’s recidivism rate is 41.4 percent within two years.

Price is also concerned with inconsistencies in sentencing across the state’s judicial circuits. The average sentence for the lowest sentencing circuit is 4.5 years and for the highest circuit is 9 years.

The Chief Justice shares the same opinion that most citizens have about crime—violent, dangerous criminals need to be incarcerated—but he doubts the effectiveness of locking up first-time offending drug and alcohol addicts. Price states boldly: “We also know that simple incarceration, no matter how expensive, does not cure addiction. Treatment with strict judicial oversight does.”

If newspaper editorials are any kind of indication, the idea that we need a cheaper and more humane way of dealing with drug offenders and the like is extremely popular. Hopefully, political inertia will not doom such a worthy cause.

The post More Support for Sentencing Reform appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

We have all undoubtedly felt overworked and underpaid, and during a recession, the proportion of the labor force feeling this way has surely increased. As Judge Price pointed out, those who make some of the most important decisions throughout the entire criminal justice system — state prosecutors — are being spread thin. This is a worrying state of affairs if we want prosecutors to make well-considered decisions. People work better when they are happier — it’s as simple as that.

One of the most pressing issues mentioned in Judge Price’s address is the state’s overspending on the incarceration of nonviolent criminals, something that Show-Me Institute research assistant John Payne mentioned in an earlier blog post. This is a situation resulting from too many restrictive laws that have resulted in the criminalization of nonviolent offenses, such as transactions involving drugs, alcohol, and even prostitution. Regardless of how one feels about the morality of such activities, it’s hard to justify expending so many resources on their prosecution when the core functions of the judicial system — protecting life, liberty, and property from actual direct, measurable harm — is suffering from a lack of resources.

Too many people are being arrested and tried for crimes that have no complaining victim. As Reason editor Radley Balko has observed, “Because there is almost never a complaining victim in vice crimes, law enforcement officers must go to extraordinary lengths to investigate and prosecute these crimes. This leads to all sorts of other problems, including invasions of privacy, entrapment, and police corruption.” The situation has also led to inconsistency in prosecution throughout Missouri. The toughest counties are prosecuting five times as many offenders as the most lenient counties.

Judge Price has has offered a rather convincing reason to change these policies, and to decrease the rate of prosecution and incarceration of nonviolent criminals — because we can’t pay for it. What’s even more convincing is that we cannot afford to pay for the proper treatment and rehabilitation for these offenders. Price outlines how poorly the system treats people who haven’t directly harmed anybody else, by tearing them from their lives, throwing them in a “concrete box with very expensive guards, feeding them, providing them with expensive medical care, surrounding them with hardened criminals for long periods of time, and separating them from their families who need them and could otherwise help them[.]” What’s worse, while in prison, some of them are being trained by full-fledged violent criminals on how to further divide themselves from mainstream society. These people are also citizens, and deserve to be given a chance to reintegrate into society.

Price provides some sobering numbers:

In 1994, shortly after I came to the Court, the number of nonviolent offenders in Missouri prisons was 7,461. Today it’s 14,204. That’s almost double. In 1994, the number of new commitments for nonviolent offenses was 4,857. Last year, it was 7,220 — again, almost double. At a rate of $16,432 per offender, we currently are spending $233.4 million a year to incarcerate nonviolent offenders … not counting the investment in the 10 prisons it takes to hold these individuals at $100 million per prison. In 1994, appropriations to the Department of Corrections totaled $216,753,472. Today, it’s $670,079,452. The amount has tripled. And the recidivism rate for these individuals, who are returned to prison within just two years, is 41.6 percent.

Price observes that if the state government were run like a business, these wasteful practices would have been done away with years ago. “Business” may not be the most convincing metaphor to use, because one of the classic economic justifications of government action, particularly the justice system, is that public goods are not optimally provided by markets. Some economists, however, have suggested that many aspects of government action that are commonly justified in terms of their status as public goods, including some within the justice system, can’t correctly be considered public goods:

The standard economics approach to delineating the optimal set of the state’s functions is unsatisfactory.² In particular, when economists such as Joseph Stiglitz (1988: 24) indicate that “a primary role of government” is to provide the legal framework “within which all economic transactions occur,” not much is said about the desired content of the laws, and how it might affect the desirability or efficiency of their enforcement. Besides, there is typically no mention of nonstate enforcement mechanisms and their relationship to those of the state. The impression is created that all conflict resolution in economic life is in the unavoidable domain of the state. That impression is in contrast with the empirical evidence (see, e.g., Greif 1997, Gow and Swinnen 2001, and Waldmeir 2001).

This confusion is related to the use that is made of the concept of public goods as being nonrival in consumption and nonexclusive (Samuelson 1954: 387–89). If these goods are to be provided at all, taxes and the related state’s coercion are necessary. However, which goods are truly public? Is the justice system the domain of the state because the relevant services are a public good? Clearly, that cannot be said of all such services. Then, which “justice services” constitute a public good? Is the lighthouse, the favorite textbook example of a public good, a public good? Ronald Coase (1974) has shown that lighthouses in 19th century Britain were operated and financed privately. This finding, however, has not prevented the lighthouse to continue serving as the primary example of a public good in many textbooks (e.g., Stiglitz 1988: 75).

There may be fewer public goods in real life than typically assumed. As a result, the necessary (or desirable) scope of the state’s activity may be narrower, too. Some of the goods declared “public” may in fact be private goods, pushed into the state’s domain by public intervention that has eliminated or undercut the possibility of voluntary private financing of these goods. In other words, some uses of the theoretical concept of public goods may inadvertently constitute ex post justifications for the results of previous expansion of state activity.

Judge Price is not an economist, but by questioning whether the routine prosecution and incarceration of nonviolent offenders for committing consensual crimes actually provides more value than cost for the people of Missouri, this may well be the type of argument he was trying to make, using different terminology. Price is suggesting that it’s time for a more thorough analysis of which interests are truly being served by prosecuting many types of nonviolent offenders, and whether such prosecution actually provides results that could be considered a public good. His address doesn’t contain all the answers, but it’s the starting point for a worthy debate.

In times of fiscal crisis, it sometimes becomes necessary to embark upon a new policy path, and welcome changes that we might otherwise avoid. Whether Judge Price’s recommendations are inspired by a concern for justice or for more practical financial reasons, this would be a positive step for the government to take. The judiciary appears to be willing to do its part in order to withstand the jolts of the recession, but are the other branches of government also up to the task?

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Geisman’s view has been challenged by William Ray Price Jr., Chief Justice of the Missouri Supreme Court, who last week called for increased drug court funding.

From the Post-Dispatch:

“We know drug courts work. We have more than 8,500 graduates,” said Price, who is seeking $2 million more a year for drug courts. “We know the tremendous savings that result from drug courts in Missouri.”

As for studies about drug courts, Price had this to say in his speech to the state House and Senate:

At one fourth to one fifth the cost of incarceration, more than one half of drug court participants graduate, and recidivism is only in the 10 percent range. The last five meta studies on drug courts, from all across the United States, have shown that drug courts reduce crime from 8 to 26 percent.

As the editorial board of the Post-Dispatch noted, this is the low-hanging fruit in our justice system. I will reiterate that the cheapest of all alternatives here is to not to criminalize the behavior of nonviolent drug offenders at all, but since that is not currently on the table, drug courts are an improvement over prison — even if you think people who consume politically incorrect substances should be forced by the state to change their behavior.

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During his annual State of the Judiciary address, Missouri Chief Justice William Ray Price, Jr. urged lawmakers to take a closer look at the incarceration of nonviolent offenders and the expansion of the state’s drug court system.

In a speech today before the house and Senate, Price said Missouri’s “broken strategy of cramming inmates into prisons” isn’t working and costs the state millions of dollars each year.

He said the state should focus on rehabilitating nonviolent offenders, instead of sending them to jail. Jailing nonviolent offenders, Price said, frequently leads to higher recidivism rates. 41.6 percent of nonviolent offenders who are jailed, then released, return to jail within two years, he said.

Price praised the state’s drug court system, but said it needs at least $2 million more funding per year to operate at full capacity.

According to the Show-Me Institute’s new spending tool, “Show-Me: The Books,” Missouri spends more than $2.7 billion a year on the Department of Corrections. Much of that spending keeps violent criminals off the street and is justified, but much of it goes to lock up petty criminals and drug offenders. Of course, I would go much further than Judge Price by eliminating prosecution of all victimless crimes (e.g., drug possession, prostitution) completely, but given how rare it is to hear someone in power even approximate my position, I will gladly take it.

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