Just three years after Missouri legislators warned that the state might need two more prisons to accommodate a flood of new inmates, Gov. Mike Parson plans to oversee the closure of more housing units within the current 20 facilities, reports the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Parson shuttered a prison last year to account for a drop in the number of inmates. In 2017, the department was housing 33,000 inmates and looking at a possible bill of $189 million to add cells. Because of changes in the criminal code, more people are being sentenced to probation instead of incarceration for some crimes. The current prison population is 26,000. The corrections department will take 1,756 offender beds offline and will eliminate the need to fill 131 currently vacant full-time positions.
Closing housing units reduces staffing needs and enables the department to staff prisons more efficiently staff facilities, boost safety and reduce mandatory overtime, said a spokeswoman. The plan is expected to save $6.5 million and help the state avoid more than $6 million in pending maintenance and repair projects. The agency plans to use $3 million to expand the number of radios at all of the prisons, as well as fix security cameras in the facilities. The department has 823 correctional officer vacancies, many of them open due to low pay and harsh working conditions. Combined with the closure of the Crossroads Correctional Center in Cameron, the proposed changes will mean a drop of more than 2,600 beds within the department in a year’s time.