Missouri Department of Corrections Strategic Plan & Initiatives
Our mission in the Missouri Department of Corrections is to improve lives for safer communities.
Our strategic plan serves as a road map to guide us in that mission. Strategic initiatives — the actions we take to achieve our goals — support three major themes:
- Creating a safer work environment
- Developing our workforce
- Reducing risk and recidivism
Safer work environments for staff and offenders help increase staff retention and cultivate models for desired offender behavior. Staff are better able to focus on their duties when they feel secure in their environment — a condition essential for fostering growth and effectively changing the behaviors and mindsets of Missourians we supervise.
Developing the workforce means attracting and keeping great people and giving them opportunities to grow personally and professionally. The department provides tools such as training, education, programming and mentorship along multiple career paths while advocating for improvements such as increased wages and a welcoming work culture.
Reducing risk and recidivism is the ultimate desired outcome of our efforts — what happens when a professional workforce operating in a safe and supportive environment is able to flourish. Our initiatives promote successful offender reentry into communities, reducing the chances that the people we help will commit more crimes or return to prison or jail.
Initiatives & Measures
As a team, we believe the Department of Corrections can and must foster a culture of continuous improvement to better serve Missouri communities, tax payers staff and offenders. We have developed strategic initiatives that directly align with our strategic plan and add value to the services we provide for the citizens of Missouri. Each contains metrics for measuring desired outcomes. While boosting offender success and public safety, we aim to effectively and efficiently invest time and resources to ensure taxpayers get the best return on their investment.
These initiatives are organized on our strategic placemats to reflect our commitment to continually improve our environment, our workforce, and the outcomes for those we supervise:
Detailed strategic initiative information is available to staff on the K drive. A summary of each initiative is available here:
The Planning and Grants team within the Department of Corrections Research, Planning & Process Improvement unit serves as a pillar of support to corrections units, divisions, the department and statewide stakeholders through information sharing, facilitation, collaboration, motivation and innovation.