prison

Missouri already has an expungement system that allows people convicted of certain nonviolent misdemeanors and felonies to petition the court to seal their records. The "Clean Slate Act" would make that process automatic, potentially helping thousands of Missourians find housing and a job.

Rep. Melanie Stinnett, a Springfield Republican, sponsored the bipartisan bill that could give voting rights back to more than 53,000 Missourians. It passed the Missouri House 107-36, and is now waiting for action in the Senate.

More and more Missourians are waiting in jail for services from the state’s mental health department, which has a backlog of more than 500 people with stalled cases. Hear what mental health directors are telling state lawmakers.

In a prison system rife with drugs, a new civil rights lawsuit accuses the Missouri Department of Corrections of punishing people for addiction, rather than treating it.

John Diehl served in the Missouri House from 2009 through 2015. He resigned in 2015 after being caught sending sexually explicit texts to an intern.

Anti-capital punishment advocates say the death penalty is costlier to taxpayers than life in prison because many defendants appeal their sentences, and the appeals process can force victims’ families to relive their trauma.

Deandre Pointer lost his challenge to the way the Missouri Department of Corrections calculated his time-served credit. His attorney says he will appeal.

The “mortality” of Missouri prisoners is not a performance standard for the state’s health care contractor, the MDOC director said this month.

Advocates and incarcerated people say prisoners were ordered outside during the recent winter storm, and punished with segregation or discipline if they refused.

"We're talking about constitutional rights in someone's dying moments," one advocate said.

A judge wrote that the Missouri attorney general’s office “repeatedly offered excuses ranging from secretarial blame to Dropbox malfunctions and staffing issues" and failed to meet multiple court deadlines. The lawsuit was filed by the mother of 27-year-old Jahi Hynes, who died by suicide in a Missouri prison.

CoreCivic applied this week to receive a special use permit from Leavenworth to reopen its prison as a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detainee center, called the Midwest Regional Reception Center. A federal judge previously called CoreCivic's facility “an absolute hell hole.”