The next man to head the state prison system knows the new Governor wants financial efficiency in all his departments. He also knows Corrections is a Department that resists spending cuts. Former State Representative Larry Crawford has to cross over from questioning adminstration spending programs to defending them. He says he’s concerned about the growing prison population, especially increasing overcrowding at the women’s prison in Vandalia. He hopes to ease fiscal pressures on the prisons by supporting alternatives to prison for non-violent offenders and reducing staff turnover, which runs up training costs. But Crawford says there is no avoiding the fact that it costs a lot of money to keep people in prison. He says new thinking is required in dealing with the costs of Missouri’s prison system.
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