New sentencing reports cut state costs

Refined versions of pre-sentence investigation reports, called Sentencing Assessment Reports, may help expedite the sentencing of Missouri criminals or encourage less costly alternative sentencing programs that don’t add to already densely populated prisons.

The Missouri Sentencing Advisory Commission and the Board of Probation and Parole introduced the streamlined Sentencing Assessment Report statewide Nov. 1. Officials say the new reports will take 30 days to reach the desk of a requesting judge as opposed to 60 days or more in the past.

According to the MOSAC Web site, Missouri’s state prison population has risen to more than 30,000 from 15,409 in 1993. Nonviolent offenders comprised 46 percent of the prison population in 1993 but now comprise 55 percent.

MOSAC Executive Director Kim Green said alternative sentences also save the system money.

He said two months of data from six test programs, extrapolated for the entire state for a full year, indicate the reports would have prevented 1,097 criminals from receiving prison sentences. That would have saved $14 million, since it costs $38.32 per day to keep a criminal in prison but only $2.73 to supervise someone on probation or parole, he said.

For more information about changes to Sentencing Assessment Reports, see SBJ’s Nov. 7 issue.