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EDITORIAL: Focus on prisons is merited

St. Joseph News-Press - 3/12/2017

March 12--It's too early to tell whether Missouri Gov. Eric Greitens can markedly improve the administration of the state's corrections system.

Still, his early actions and comments on the subject are promising.

Greitens, a Republican fresh off his first election to public office, signaled his interest in the subject well before he took over in January from long-serving Democrat Jay Nixon. In December Greitens chose North Carolina Community Corrections Director Anne Precythe to lead the Department of Corrections -- an agency he described as "broken."

It was presumed Greitens was referring primarily to a management scandal in the department, but it since has become obvious his interests are broader than that.

The previous director was asked to resign after a news report showed the state spent more than $7.5 million on settlements and judgments between 2012 and 2016 related to allegations of harassment and retaliation.

"Our corrections officers struggle in a culture of harassment and neglect, in a department with low morale and shockingly high turnover," Greitens said at the time. "These men and women do important work. They need our help."

Greitens, who has been slow to embrace the concept of regularly submitting himself to questions from reporters, did just that earlier this month at a forum. He spoke again of the need to support corrections workers.

"We need to do some work to get to all of the front-line folks who are doing hard work and often putting their own safety at risk on behalf of all of us to keep us safe," he said. "We need to get down and let them know, as I and Anne have, that change is on the way."

The new governor also seems unusually interested in tackling the stubborn problem of ex-cons who reoffend.

"We need to build a Department of Corrections that actually corrects things," Greitens told the forum.

"So we're going to build a system where ... from the first day that somebody enters the prison system, we've got a plan in place and programs in place so that they can leave prison, come out, get a job, pay taxes, and if they have kids, become a role model to their kids.

"Right now, we don't have that plan, that program, that system in place."

Across the country, failure to provide true inmate rehabilitation is a persistent problem. Just keeping the focus on Missouri, it's clear we need more effective programs.

Statistics show 97 percent of offenders in Missouri prisons eventually will be released back into the community. However, according to a 2015 calculation, the state's recidivism rate -- the pace at which ex-offenders reoffend -- is a concerning 46 percent.

Greitens is focused on an important issue. Taxpayers should pay close attention to his attempts at reform.

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(c)2017 the St. Joseph News-Press (St. Joseph, Mo.)

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