Justice Reinvestment in Missouri
In 2017, the CSG Justice Center embarked on a Justice Reinvestment approach in Missouri to help state leaders identify and address the most pressing criminal justice and behavioral health system challenges.
Violent crime in Missouri has risen in recent years, while arrests for these crimes have declined. At the same time, Missouri’s prison population continues to swell, driven mostly by admissions for supervision violations, many of which are technical violations, and admissions for prison-based behavioral health treatment, which research shows is less effective than community-based treatment. If the current rate of growth in Missouri’s prison population is not slowed, the state will need to build two new prison facilities by FY2021, which will cost nearly half a billion dollars in combined construction and operating costs.
To address these challenges, Missouri leaders requested and received support from the U.S. Department of Justice’s Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA) and The Pew Charitable Trusts (Pew) in May 2017 to utilize a Justice Reinvestment approach to study the state’s criminal justice system, with intensive technical assistance from The Council of State Governments (CSG) Justice Center. The bipartisan Missouri State Justice Reinvestment Task Force—which included designees from all three branches of government and state and local criminal justice system stakeholders—was formed to support this work.
The task force worked with CSG Justice Center staff to review analyses and develop policy options to reduce violent crime, improve community-based treatment, reduce recidivism, and invest in strategies to increase public safety. Many of these policies are reflected in HB 1355, which was signed into law in June 2018.
This comprehensive Justice Reinvestment legislation aims to provide resources to local law enforcement to help reduce violent crime, increase community-based treatment for people in the criminal justice system who have substance addictions and mental illnesses, and increase support for victims, among other measures.
Missouri Justice Reinvestment News
One of the things we know we have to do, we got to figure out how we take people who are incarcerated and how do we put them on the right path when they are released.
Missouri Governor Mike Parson
Justice Reinvestment in Missouri
In 2017, the CSG Justice Center embarked on a Justice Reinvestment approach in Missouri to help state leaders identify and address the most pressing criminal justice and behavioral health system challenges.
Key Staff
Laura van der Lugt
Project Manager, State Initiatives
Laura
van
der
Lugt
provides
technical
assistance
to
states
implementing
justice
reinvestment
legislation.
She
delivers
content
expertise
in
the
areas
of
program
evaluation
and
quality
assurance,
evidence-based
practices,
and
supervision
practices
in
both
correctional
facilities
and
the
community.
Before
joining
...
the
CSG
Justice
Center,
she
was
the
director
of
Research
and
Innovation
at
the
Suffolk
County
Sheriff’s
Department
(SCSD)
in
Boston,
Massachusetts,
where
she
oversaw
the
development,
management,
and
measurement
of
SCSD
policy
innovation
and
programmatic
strategy.
Prior
to
SCSD,
she
worked
as
the
director
of
Evaluation
and
Learning
at
Roca
Inc.,
a
Massachusetts-based
nonprofit
organization.
Laura
began
her
applied
research
career
in
the
Boston
Police
Commissioner’s
Office
of
Research
and
Development,
where
she
coordinated
and
managed
the
City
of
Boston’s
federal
Second
Chance
Act
Adult
Reentry
Demonstration
Project
grant-related
programming.
Laura
holds
a
BA
in
sociology
from
Bates
College,
an
MA
in
criminology
from
the
University
of
Pennsylvania,
and
a
PhD
in
criminology
and
justice
policy
from
Northeastern
University.
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