Missouri is a mass incarcerator

Mass incarceration is far worse in rural Missouri than it is in other parts of the country.

The New York Times recently analyzed prison admissions at the county level. The analysis showed a “prison belt” reaching from Texas to Indiana, driven largely by counties with fewer than 100,000 people. The data suggest that drug offenders continue to receive harsh sentences in places that are mostly white and politically conservative.

Several counties in Missouri registered at the high end of the get-tough spectrum. A portion of the state stretching from Bethany, a town near the Iowa border, to the Lake of the Ozarks is particularly eager to send offenders to prison, according to the analysis.

The community-level differences are striking. Jackson County, which diverts many offenders to drug court, recorded 15.4 prison admissions per 10,000 residents in 2014. Lafayette County, which is just to the east, recorded 91.5 admissions per 10,000 residents the same year. 

Criminal justice experts say that the disparities challenge the idea of equal protection under the law. “This data puts governors and legislative leaders on notice that if they want to put criminal justice reforms into effect, they need to look at how prosecutors use and abuse their discretion,” Peter Wagner, executive director of the Prison Policy Initiative, told the Times.