Q: Tell us about yourself and your experience in law enforcement.

A: I’ve been a Greene County resident my entire life. I lived in Springfield and I live in Strafford now. I love the area. My friends and family are here. I grew up here and went to school here. I went to school at Central High School and Drury College. At an early age for whatever reason I always wanted to be Springfield Police Officer. Through different experiences like Boy Scouts, I wound up in the Springfield Police Department cadet program when I was 16 years old. They had you do fingerprints, filing, stacking property, ride alongs and other things to get to give you a taste of what it was going to be like. I stayed there until they hired me full time as a police officer when I was 20 years old. They had you walking the beats and gassing the cars. You start there and as your career progress you get more involved in the operations of the police department. The Springfield Police Department is one of the largest departments in Southern Missouri. As you move up to a sergeant, you get to see what keeps the entire department going. You see what needs to be done so when the next citizen picks up the phone you can get there and give them what they need as quick as you can. I’ve really had the ability to get in someone else’s’ shoes and see the job from a detective and a traffic officer.

When I worked full time, I continued my education. I ended up getting my master’s degree at Drury University. I’ve always loved the law. I studied basic criminology or the study of why people do the things they do and the systems in place to try to prevent or control inappropriate behaviors. I was always inquisitive as to why it’s like this. It truly gave me a different view of the world through the windshield of a police car. In the end, I retired as a police lieutenant. I was in charge of the Community Oriented Policing program which is responsible for the operations of the substations. The philosophy behind COP is getting back in touch with the community. Instead of an officer showing up in a blue suit, it’s this is “Mark” he’s my officer. You start building that report, that trust. It gives people ownership in the police department instead of just running from call to call.

Q: Why did you run for Sheriff?

A: I have a personal commitment to the people of Greene County and Springfield. I’ve given my life to make this a better place for us and our family to live in. I see the quality of life. I don’t want to sound like some old time Springfieldian but I am. I remember the time when you left your screen doors open. I know with growth and the fact that times have changed we’ll never go back there. We’re to the point now that I’m seeing these things slip away. I see the good things about low crime, the really good things we’ve enjoyed, starting to leave us. We’re getting gang members from other communities coming in. I go to rural areas and hear about repeated stealing of trucks, fuel, cattle. They aren’t just getting hit once or twice. We are starting to deteriorate. One of the reasons I got in the sheriff’s race was the book and release policy. It just does not hold people accountable. They just turn them loose. The public defenders office is now to the point that they are 157% over their limit. They are no longer going to take cases in Greene County. The jail is letting chronic offenders out. I’m not saying they’re serious offenders but they’re drug dealers and property crimes. While they’re letting these people go they’re renting out rooms in the jail, or the Justice Center as it’s called. They’re renting rooms out to the federal government. About 20% of the rooms are rented out to somebody else, generating revenue that goes back into run the county government but we’re turning chronic offenders loose. Why are we trading public safety for room revenue? As the citizen sheriff, I’ve been asking these questions. The answer I get is we need this money to run the government.

Q: What would you do to solve the jail overcrowding problem?

A:That’s one of the reasons why I got into the sheriff’s race to begin with. As we’re growing we’re starting to have big city problems. We’ve got street gang members, meth problems, property crimes all these things. I’ve spent my entire life trying to encourage these people to go elsewhere by making cases to stop them. The people that are responsible for committing these crimes don’t know a city limit or a boundary. They work Greene County, Dallas County, multiple states. It’s a handful of the population that commits 85-95% of our problems. We’re spending all of our resources on the small amount of the population. I think as a society we are going to have to look at better ways to deal with this. Just because we’ve always done it this way doesn’t mean that’s the way we are going to have to continue to do it. Building more concrete squares and letting people stand in them that’s what we’ve always done. I think we’re at the point now we’re going to have to look for different ways to impact the cycle that I’ve seen during my career. For example, when I started I was arresting the fictitious “Johnny Bad”, in the middle of my career I was arresting “Johnny Bad’s” son, and at the end of my career I was arresting his grandson.

I’ve traveled throughout the United States looking at programs that are at work in other places. These programs can be implemented right here. There are day reporting centers and restrictive custody centers. I’ve gone and viewed these different operations and the ways they are dealing with the jail overcrowding problem. The jail didn’t get like this over night. It’s been this way since 2 years after it was built. There’s technology now that allows you to put bracelets on people’s legs. We traveled to Wichita, KS to see this in use. There they even use it for orders of protection. They prohibit the person from the woman’s work, home, friend’s houses etc. If the person gets inside the prohibited area they are warned. If they don’t leave they are arrested. I’m just saying there is technology available. Just because we’ve always got the vision that someone has got to be locked in jail that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try to keep them out, keep them working and accountable for their actions. If someone gets arrested and we put them in jail, the family becomes dependent on the state to keep the family going. If you can keep this guy out, you don’t own his sicknesses, if he falls down and breaks his leg you aren’t responsible. Day reporting centers are almost like a Wal-Mart Supercenter of these services. They assess a person’s drug abuse index. They determine how severely they are addicted to substances as well as mental health issues. . I’m really sold on this day reporting center. It’s trying to somehow change someone’s behavior and get them to be productive members of society. As a sheriff, you can’t just say this is going to happen. You have to work with the people that control the funding, the judiciary, and the prosecution. We’ve researched this, we’ve been traveling and there are about 38 places that are using day reporting centers. It’s fairly new concept. The big problem I see is the book and release. It doesn’t hold people accountable.

The police officers are frustrated, the judges are frustrated. The police officers take chances to make these arrests and they bring people to jail. They walk them in the back door, they take fingerprints, they take photographs and then they let them loose basically with no bond, just turned free. The people go two blocks away, steal a car and then they’re on their way to their next crime. The response is well we don’t let serious offenders out. If you look at the statistics of people committing serious crimes, those numbers are low. Basically the people let out sell drugs, steal autos, commit burglaries yet those have an affect on people. It’s serious to the victims. These chronic offenders need to be identified and need to be held responsible.

Q: What would you do differently than the current sheriff?

A: I look at the things that have come up recently in the last six months. I see a lot of things that are occurring. I see a lot of them end up in the media when things have gone bad. I’m talking about the young girl who was pulled over about two weeks ago. I’ve told my daughters if you don’t believe it’s a police officer slow down, turn on your flashers on and drive to a well lit area. This is what we tell people to do for their safety. So she shouldn’t have been treated like that. I was one of the candidates that stood up and said you shouldn’t be treated like that by officers in a democratic society. Law enforcement is an art and a science. You work for the citizens they tell you what kind of police department they want. Sometimes officers get into the mindset that we’re the police and you’re not. We’ll tell you what’s good for you. I want to get neighborhood watches started getting deputies back in the neighborhood instead of focusing on traffic violations. Another incident was the Taser incident at the courthouse or even the inmate escape. When they sent a female inmate with a sole lone male officer, both were a recipe for disaster. I began to see inconsistent policies, inconsistent training and inconsistent leadership. I’m not trying to blame anybody for what happened but we really need to sit down and set policy and set expectations. You have to level the playing field so they know what’s expected when they come into the organization.

Q: Why should people choose you over the other candidates?

A: On the Republican side, I’ve got a life time of experience at one of the largest departments in southwest Missouri or in the state. It’s a CALEA (The Commission of Accreditation for Law Enforcement Agencies) accredited agency. That means only about 5% of the agencies in the world receive that accreditation. What it means is you are using the best practices. You are using the most up to date scientific methods and you are doing it professionally. I’ve served the citizens for 27 years and I think I gave them the best service I was capable of providing. Along with that, I have the education. I’ve always wanted to know why so I kept researching. I’ve learned scientific methods of implementing programs and testing them using objective measurement to see whether or not the program will help be a long term solution. Or I can identify it as something that’s not going to work. I’ll take the blame for it if it doesn’t work. We have to try something different. We can’t just have solutions that have us coming back and saying Mr. and Mrs. Tax payer of Greene County will you write us a check so we can build another concrete square? I’m not just reading books I’ve traveled and visited these places. I have years of creditability with judges, the prosecutors office, others in the justice system. I want to use that to implement changes to try and make it start working again so that we are better protected. I’ve got the most formal education, the most experience. I’ve also run a crime analysis unit. It’s basically an intelligence system you share your information with other public safety officers. We’ve got regional crime problems and you work with these people.

Q: What is your biggest weakness?

A:Sometimes with the resources that are available I have a tendency to spread them a little thin. Sometimes I feel the demand and I want to try and meet it. You have to constantly reprioritize everything your doing to handle the most significant. Sometimes I think I can do more than I’m really capable. I have to sit back, take a look at it and reprioritize.

Q: What would you say to those that question if you could run a sheriff’s department when you’ve only worked for a police department?

A: Crooks don’t know imaginary city limit boundaries. You deal with the same types of problems. You deal with the domestics, the child abuse and the elder abuse. All these things are going on in the county too. The techniques used to investigate are the same in a city and in the county. Again it comes down to training and leadership. I believe you can run a sheriff’s office very similar to how you run a police department. You will have to get creative because you have a lot more area to cover. I would look at every unit and see what our priorities are. We have to utilize the funding to the fullest extent possible by making officers wear a lot of hats. I haven’t talked to one citizen who says sure I’m willing to pay more taxes. That’s why we have to prioritize and get creative.