By BRENT MARTIN
St. Joseph Post
Missouri sheriffs are asking the state legislature to address a limited number of priorities, including tightening Missouri sentencing laws.
Buchanan County Sheriff Bill Puett says the Missouri Sheriffs Association has been pushing for years Truth in Sentencing laws, now sometimes called Clarity in Sentencing.
“The fact of the matter is that we have a variety of rules that allows convicted criminals to be released really, really early,” Puett tells host Barry Birr on the KFEQ Hotline. “And we have been arguing for a really long time that they need to serve more of their sentence, according to what the judge sentenced them to.”
This has been a frustrating issue for Puett, who has complained about sentencing for years. He says there is a simple reason for that.
“It’s disheartening, especially when victims call you and they say, hey, I thought that the person who victimized me got sentenced to prison and I just saw them at Walmart,” Puett says.
Puett says there is just too much slack in the sentences handed down by a judge and the time served.
“On non-violent felonies right now, they are giving them 30 days on a year,” according to Puett. “So, you’re doing one month for one year and that’s just not acceptable.”
The association advocates non-violent offenders be required to serve at least 75% of their sentence with violent offenders required to serve at least 85%.
Another priority of the association is fixing what the voters declined to fix. Voters rejected Amendment 6 in November, an attempt to shore up the retirement fund for Missouri sheriffs.
Puett says after the courts rejected the funding mechanism for sheriff pensions and the voters rejected the proposed fix, it undermines the incentive to become a county sheriff.
“If there is no retirement, there are no resources and all those things, why in the world would anybody step up and say, hey, I’m willing to take this position?” Puett asks. “Why would I subject myself to all the things that go along with it and then, in the end, there’s no retirement for me to live into my golden years?”
The courts rejected a funding mechanism in place for years, removing a vital resource to finance the retirement fund for Missouri sheriffs.
The association also wants the office of county sheriff to become a constitutional office.
You can follow Brent on X @GBrentKFEQ and St. Joseph Post @StJosephPost.