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| Senator proposes bill to lengthen prison stays |
| By Michael Bushnell - Missourian |
| Published: 02/25/2009 |
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JEFFERSON CITY – Before he even was sworn in as a state senator for his first term, Kurt Schaefer, R-Columbia, filed a bill to require criminals to serve prison terms closer to their actual sentences than is current practice. Currently, the average convicted felon serves less than one half of the actual sentence before release, according to the Missouri Corrections Department. But Sen. Schaefer proposes requiring a minimum of 85 percent of a sentence be served before release. He acknowledged he has found it difficult to promote a bill perceived as increasing prison populations and the costs associated with them, while the state grapples with a more than $250 million budget shortfall. Schaefer said his main goal is not to incarcerate large numbers of people for a much longer time, but to create more truthful sentencing. He said judges are currently sentencing felons to exorbitant prison terms, knowing they will only serve a fraction of the time. "Right now judges are getting pre-sentencing reports for what length prison terms they can give," Schaefer said. "So you'll get a judge giving a twenty-year sentence because they believe the person needs to spend at least four years in prison. If the judge knew, and the victim knew for certain that the defendant would serve 85 percent of whatever sentence was given, you would see sentences reflecting that." The state Corrections Department reports there are 30,377 felons serving time in state prison at a daily cost of $45.02 per inmate. That amounts to a taxpayer cost of $1.37 million every day to house Missouri inmates. According to the department, felons currently in state are projected to serve 47.5 percent of their sentence before release. Legislative staff report the average sentence of those released in 2008 was slightly greater than 38 percent of the original sentence. Read more. If link has expired, check the website of the article's original news source. |
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