{"id":9225,"date":"2026-04-22T05:50:01","date_gmt":"2026-04-22T10:50:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/westplexnews.com\/index.php\/2026\/04\/22\/on-sentencing-reform-missouri-can-be-the-show-them-state\/"},"modified":"2026-04-22T05:50:01","modified_gmt":"2026-04-22T10:50:01","slug":"on-sentencing-reform-missouri-can-be-the-show-them-state","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/westplexnews.com\/index.php\/2026\/04\/22\/on-sentencing-reform-missouri-can-be-the-show-them-state\/","title":{"rendered":"On sentencing reform, Missouri can be the Show-Them State"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure><img decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"683\" src=\"https:\/\/missouriindependent.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/031025-bm-studio-1-1024x683.jpg\" class=\"attachment-large size-large wp-post-image\" alt=\"\" loading=\"lazy\" \/><figcaption>\n<p>Doug Burris, St. Louis\u2019 interim Commissioner of Corrections, on Monday, March 10, 2025, at St. Louis Public Radio in the city\u2019s Grand Center neighborhood (Brian Munoz\/St. Louis Public Radio).<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Missouri\u2019s moniker as the Show-Me State is said to originate from a Congressman who said that his midwestern roots preferred evidence over eloquence. \u201cI am from Missouri,\u201d he is purported to have said. \u201cYou have got to show me.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Now, 127 years later, Missouri can show other states \u2014 and the federal government \u2014 how its criminal justice and public safety reforms have borne fruit. That opportunity comes with federal legislation called the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.congress.gov\/bill\/119th-congress\/house-bill\/5883\/text\/ih\" target=\"_blank\">Safer Supervision Act<\/a>. The bill, according to <a href=\"https:\/\/laurellee.house.gov\/media\/press-releases\/congresswoman-laurel-lee-introduces-legislation-reform-federal-supervised\" target=\"_blank\">its sponsors<\/a>, \u201creins in the federal supervised release system and ensures it is focused, effective, and accountable to taxpayers.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>In short, the sponsors argue the current federal system relies too heavily on supervised release. This creates an unmanageable workload for federal probation officers. As a result, too little attention is paid to supervising high-risk individuals, where it is most needed. Their bill seeks to discern between those who need close supervision and those who do not\u2014allowing resources to be allocated more effectively<\/p>\n<p>I spoke with Doug Burris, who was described just last month by <em>St. Louis Magazine<\/em> as \u201csomething of a jail turnaround artist.\u201d From 2000 to 2018, Burris served as Chief U.S. Probation Officer for the Eastern District of Missouri and then two short stints as Director of St. Louis County Justice Services. He recounted that in the early 2000s the Missouri Department of Corrections was failing on several fronts.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe state prison population was increasing,\u201d he said, \u201cand many of those released to the community experienced a revolving door back to incarceration.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>They returned not because of new violence or criminal behavior, but because of technical violations of their probation.<\/p>\n<p>The result was not only an increase in the workloads of probation and parole officers, whom Burris describes as doing heroic work, but more Missouri families dependent upon state assistance programs when their primary provider went back to prison. Missourians were paying twice: once to lock up people for small infractions, and second to support the families they left behind.<\/p>\n<p>And it appeared it might cost taxpayers a third time. By around 2012, said Burris, \u201csome people projected needing to build a new prison in order to keep up with demand.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Thankfully, according to Burris, legislators in Missouri took action that became a model for others. <a href=\"https:\/\/house.mo.gov\/Bill.aspx?bill=HB1525&amp;year=2012&amp;code=R\" target=\"_blank\">HB1525<\/a>, adopted in 2012, streamlined the system by creating clear incentives that moved low-risk, compliant individuals off supervision faster. The effort succeeded because, as Burris said, \u201clegislation followed the science of criminal behavior and how to deal with it.\u201d The state was able to reduce the number of people in the criminal justice system by 18 percent without any negative implications for public safety.<\/p>\n<p>Later, in 2018, Missouri passed <a href=\"https:\/\/house.mo.gov\/Bill.aspx?bill=HB1355&amp;year=2018&amp;code=R\" target=\"_blank\">HB1355<\/a>, which among other things, tightened supervision standards by requiring better risk assessments. It expanded treatment-focused responses where needed and focused resources on higher-risk individuals. This effort also proved successful because, as Burris notes, \u201cIt allowed probation and parole officers to become more effective by assessing risk, using alternatives to reincarceration and focusing on those most likely to reengage in criminal activity.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>It is not often that government initiatives work as intended, but it is gratifying when they do.<\/p>\n<p>Incidentally, to their credit, current U.S. Reps. Eric Burlison and Jason Smith <a href=\"https:\/\/documents.house.mo.gov\/BillTracking\/PDFViewer\/web\/viewer.html?file=https:\/\/documents.house.mo.gov\/billtracking\/bills121\/jrnpdf\/jrn066.pdf#page=30\" target=\"_blank\">voted in favor of HB1525<\/a> when they served in the Missouri House. (U.S. Sen. Eric Schmitt was absent on the day it was approved in the state Senate.) In 2018, current U.S. Rep. Bob Onder <a href=\"https:\/\/legiscan.com\/MO\/rollcall\/HB1355\/id\/750701\" target=\"_blank\">voted for HB1355<\/a> in the Missouri Senate.<\/p>\n<p>Burris said other states \u201chave not been quick to follow Missouri\u2019s lead.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He points to one neighboring state constructing a new 3,000-bed prison, at a price estimated to exceed $1 billion, not counting the ongoing costs to operate the facility. Missouri currently averages $100 daily to incarcerate an inmate, meaning that had Missouri not reformed our system, taxpayers would be paying in excess of $100 million annually to maintain a similarly sized prison.<\/p>\n<p>In reforming its parole system, Missourians did well by doing good.<\/p>\n<p>When he served as Missouri Treasurer in 2017, <a href=\"https:\/\/youtu.be\/gZ2Ge2p4M7c?t=2831\" target=\"_blank\">Schmitt<\/a> told a Show-Me Institute audience about the reforms enacted by the state legislature in the aftermath of the Ferguson riots. He said, \u201cWe did something in Missouri that is being replicated in other places now.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>That should be a source of pride \u2014 even if born of tragedy.<\/p>\n<p>So, too, with federal probation guidelines. Missouri and its legislators should be proud of what was accomplished in 2012 and 2018, and we should be eager to support those same reforms at the federal level.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe are from Missouri. We have something to show you.\u201d<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Doug Burris, St. Louis\u2019 interim Commissioner of Corrections, on Monday, March 10, 2025, at St. Louis Public Radio in the city\u2019s Grand Center neighborhood (Brian Munoz\/St. Louis Public Radio). Missouri\u2019s moniker as the Show-Me State is said to originate from a Congressman who said that his midwestern roots preferred evidence over eloquence. \u201cI am from&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":9226,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_kadence_starter_templates_imported_post":false,"_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9225","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.7 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>On sentencing reform, Missouri can be the Show-Them State - WestplexNews.com<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/westplexnews.com\/index.php\/2026\/04\/22\/on-sentencing-reform-missouri-can-be-the-show-them-state\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"On sentencing reform, Missouri can be the Show-Them State - WestplexNews.com\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Doug Burris, St. Louis\u2019 interim Commissioner of Corrections, on Monday, March 10, 2025, at St. Louis Public Radio in the city\u2019s Grand Center neighborhood (Brian Munoz\/St. Louis Public Radio). 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