PRISON EDUCATION, TREATMENT PROGRAMS TARGETED

Violent inmates seeking to better themselves through education classes or
substance abuse treatment may have to wait longer for those services under
the proposed state budget.

The Department of Corrections plans to close three of the five education
programs, which help inmates acquire their high school equivalency degrees,
at the state's prisons for the most serious offenders.

The budget plan would end programs at maximum-security prisons in Cameron,
Potosi and Jefferson City and cancel a $423,000 contract with Lincoln
University to run the program at the minimum security prison in Tipton.
Instead, some Department of Corrections workers who had run the program in
Jefferson City would be transferred to Tipton. Maximum-security prisons at
Charleston and Licking will still have the program.

The budget also would close the substance abuse treatment program in
Jefferson City and move 12 workers from there to handle the program now run
at the minimum security Maryville institution under a $1 million contract
with Northwest Missouri State University.

Northwest Missouri State officials said the end of their contract would
cost 25 people their jobs by May 31. The university said it's trying to
help those people with unemployment benefits and job training.

All told, the budget for corrections' education and treatment services
would drop from the current $24.2 million to $18.7 million in the fiscal
year starting July 1.

Corrections Department spokesman John Fougere said Monday that eliminating
the services at maximum security prisons would save the state money while
ensuring that prisoners closer to their release dates still could participate.

Missouri Western State College has the contract to run the Cameron
education program, and Chris Shove, who oversees it, said closing it would
be a shame because of how much it helps inmates.

"We do know that the inmates that do receive some kind of education, it
greatly reduces their recidivism," he said. "It's one way to lower the
inmate population so that people don't continue coming back in the
institutions, that they actually find viable work and are able to start a
real career."

Inmates at maximum security prisons could participate in education or
substance abuse classes if they are transferred to the remaining
maximum-security or lower-level prisons, he said. State law requires
inmates to earn, or attempt to earn, a high school or equivalency degree
before being paroled.

The prison program cuts are included in both the House and Senate budget
plans for the fiscal year starting July 1. The House already has passed its
version of the budget, and the Senate was expected to take up the budget
Tuesday.

Fougere said the programs already have begun winding down in anticipation
of the cuts.

The closings will cause the prison system to rely even more on volunteers
to offer some educational services, Fougere said.

He said other programs, such as classes focusing on crime's impact on
victims, could be expanded.