A group of Missouri officials deserves praise for advancing practical steps to help reverse some disturbing trends in criminal justice.
The Working Group on Sentencing and Corrections - with representatives from the executive, legislative and judicial branches, as well as prosecution and defense lawyers - was created in June to explore ways to improve the state's public safety return on corrections spending.
After months of analyzing data, the group on Wednesday issued a 10-page report, complete with recommendations.
The data revealed a problem.
The trend that began in the 1990s to build more prisons resulted in an inmate population that more than doubled from 14,074 in 1990 to 30,729 this July.
Similarly, corrections spending increased by 249 percent from 1990-2009, topping $660 million this fiscal year.
The crime rate, however, essentially remains flat. The working group reports: "Yet all this spending on corrections has not produced commensurate improvement in public safety."
The group found revocations of parole and probation accounted for 71 percent - characterized as an "overwhelming majority" - of prison admissions.
Further analysis revealed a majority of those revocations were based on "technical" violations of parole or probation.
In response, the working group advanced a range of recommendations. Among them:
• Grant probation and parole officers more authority to use sanctions, including shock incarceration, for technical violations.
• Combine drug and alcohol treatment with monitoring by supervising officers.
• Offer incentives for compliance with supervision.
• Hold victims accountable for victim restitution.
• Create an oversight group to monitor implementation of the recommended reforms.
Missouri Supreme Court Judge William Ray Price Jr., a working group member, summarized the objective when he said: "It's not a question about being soft on crime or hard on crime; it's a question of being smart on crime, to get the best results for our people at the lowest expense."
The existing model of increasing incarceration at increasing expense with no improvement in public safety isn't working.
The new recommendations - incentives, sanctions, treatment, accountability - are derived from a comprehensive, intelligent interpretation of the data.
Let's find out if they create a smarter approach to criminal justice.