Officials responsible for arresting and prosecuting offenders report more felons are being released early from prison and aren’t being sent back when new offenses are committed.
Early parole “happens way too fast,” Butler County Sheriff Mark Dobbs said.
That, Dobbs said, is the foremost problem and concern.
“Recently, I’ve been asked by a lot of people, ‘What is going on in Poplar Bluff and Butler County?’” Dobbs said. “They have a valid point.
“We’re arresting people at a high rate. We’re prosecuting people at a high rate, but, yet, we can’t seem to keep anybody in prison.”
Butler County Prosecuting Attorney Kacey Proctor clarified, saying violent offenders, such as those convicted of first-degree murder, still are being held, but “the vast majority of them come right back” after they are released.
What officials are seeing is people who are in the Missouri Department of Corrections on cases — such as possession of a controlled substance or distribution of a controlled substance — they are considered nonviolent offenders by MDOC, said Proctor.
9-month release on 8-year sentence
Nonviolent offenders, according to local officials, are being released after having served only a portion of their sentences.
An example, Proctor said, is a defendant who went to prison on an eight-year sentence and was paroled after nine months.
“We recently had someone sentenced to five years in October, who showed up on our jail sheet” in late January for a different offense, Proctor said.
Carter County Sheriff Rick Stephens reported similar issues in his county.
“Back years in the past, if someone on parole had violated parole, we could take them directly back to the Department of Corrections,” Stephens said. “That’s not necessarily the case any longer.”
In Carter County, Stephens said, deputies recently arrested a man for the third time in six months on a drug-related offense.
“About six months ago, he got out of prison; I believe it was a three-year sentence,” Stephens said. “He did six months, and he’s walking the streets today while on parole after the third violation.”
Stephens said it is very frustrating to “try to protect the citizens” when that happens.
Protection, he said, is law enforcement’s main goal.
“The suggestion that offenders are serving a small and/or decreasing percentage of their original sentence in prison also is inaccurate,” said Karen Pojmann, MDOC communication director.
The one month for every year of a sentence, she said, is not true at all.
The average percentage of an original sentence served in prison has increased from 50% in 2015 to 53% in 2019, Pojmann said.
Revocation or not:
Parolees have ‘no fear of repercussions’
When an offender is granted parole, “in my mind, it’s nearly impossible to get them sent back … no matter what crime (is committed) on that parole,” Dobbs said.
In years’ past, the officials say, if someone on parole committed a new offense, then his or her parole would be revoked and he or she would be sent back to prison.
Now, they say, it seems the defendant has to be adjudicated of the new offense before his or her parole is revoked.
“The time of probation would run out before the conviction (of a new offense),” Proctor said. “It takes a long time to get a case to trial, and it’s not the fault of the judges.”
Proctor said there is not enough space on the courts’ dockets for jury trials “with all the other cases that we have to deal with.”
The suggestion that probation and parole clients are not being returned to prison is inaccurate, said Pojmann.
The rate of revocations to prison from probation and parole, Pojmann said, increased from 36.4% in 2014 to 48% in 2019.
Pojmann said the decrease in the overall prison population has resulted from changes in the criminal code in state law, not department policy. These changes have resulted in Missourians being placed on probation rather than incarceration for nonviolent crimes, she said.
The consequences in violating probation or parole mean far less, Dobbs explained.
“Used to, if someone completed their probation successfully, everybody wins,” he said. “There’s no new laws broken. Most likely they’ve cleaned up their act.”
Now, with this new matrix, “there’s no teeth to it, and the defendants know it,” Dobbs said. “There’s no fear of repercussions.”
If an offender used controlled substances more than a couple of times or tested positive, “that was a violation and you would go to prison,” Proctor said. “Now, they are calling that a citation and not recommending a violation report.”
As a result, he said, there are people on probation who are “active users, who are not getting their probation revoked.”
The purpose of probation and parole, Pojmann said, is to help those placed on supervision by the court or Board of Parole correct their behavior and become law-abiding citizens.
Probationers, she said, are under the jurisdiction of the courts, while parolees — those who have been released from prison — are under the jurisdiction of the Missouri Board of Parole.
“The Division of Probation and Parole supervises these Missourians for the courts and board,” Pojmann said. “Decisions regarding violations of special conditions and revocations to prison are made by the courts and the Missouri Board of Parole.”
Like parole revocations, Dobbs said, it also is “almost impossible to get someone’s probation revoked. These are the people who are spared sentencing (suspended sentences),” with the condition of not violating any laws.
Flawed matrix
Dobbs said he thinks a “large part of that on the probation side has to do with a flawed matrix that is geared toward almost guaranteed success of completing that probation no matter what the offender does.”
Pojmann said the state recently adopted and implemented an “evidence-based, validated risk and assessment tool, the Ohio Risk Assessment System.”
The ORAS, she said, is used to help officials “better anticipate problems and assess offenders’ risk and criminogenic needs” and helps officials “anticipate risks and make informed decisions about offender management.”
Pojmann said the ORAS is one of many products of the Justice Re-Investment Initiative recommendations.
Some issues recently have been raised, Pojmann said, pertaining to technical violations of probation or parole — violations of the conditions set by the courts or conditions of parole set by the parole board.
“Examples might include missing appointments, failing to maintain employment or moving to a new address without notifying the proper authorities,” Pojmann said. “Technical violations are not new offenses that endanger public safety.”
When an offender commits a technical violation of parole, the “violator is re-engaged and evaluated, using validated risk and needs assessment tools, to determine whether that citizen should be returned to prison,” Pojmann said. “These decisions are made by the parole board on a case-by-case basis.”
In the past, Pojmann said, the state experienced a lot of prison overcrowding because courts automatically revoked for technical violations.
“Our goal is to make sure we’re reserving prison space for the people that really pose a danger to the community and are engaged in criminal behavior, not people who are struggling to obey the conditions of their probation or parole,” Pojmann said.
Law enforcement, she said, is expected to make an arrest anytime a new crime occurs, “regardless of whether the offender is under community supervision at the time that the crime is committed.
“This process has not changed.”
Stephens said MDOC officials feel they need to get people out of prison on alternative programs, “which on the surface is a great concept.”
Stephens said he is all for “trying to incentivize good behavior, but, at a certain point, I believe you have to really take a stand against bad behavior to ensure that the citizens are safeguarded.”