“Long overdue,” says Governor Tim Walz as lawmakers hold a first-ever legislative hearing at a state prison — this morning (Wed 8am) in Stillwater. The governor says, “I think this hearing will focus on, how do we make these corrections facilities safer, but I’m also asking,… what do we do on the front end to reduce incarceration rates and then at the end to make sure that recidivism rates are low.”
Walz says the push to reduce opioid addiction in Minnesota ties in well with efforts to reduce Minnesota’s prison population. “We can do better in the state of Minnesota,” he says. “We can do better in terms of protection of our corrections officers. We can do better in the treatment of our inmates, and we can certainly do better in reducing the number of folks that we’re incarcerating.”