Kansas City Reentry Center

The Kansas City Reentry Center is a minimum-security state prison for male inmates located in Kansas City, Missouri. It can house a capacity of 430 inmates. This facility opened in 2015 and was formerly known as the Kansas City Community Release Center. 

Inmates who have served their sentences in the western part of the state often serve the last part of their sentence here and are paroled from this facility back into the community.

In 2002, Missouri was the first of eight states chosen by the National Institute of Corrections (NIC) as a demonstration site for the Transition from Prison to Community Model, which was renamed the Missouri Reentry Process. This model promotes state and local collaboration and provides a philosophical framework for "stakeholder agencies" to promote common interests, integrate policies and services and improve the overall transition process of those offenders leaving prison and returning to Missouri communities.

The Missouri Reentry Process (MRP) is designed to prepare offenders to be successful, productive tax paying citizens upon their release from prison. This endeavor requires an integrated network of support to help offenders address barriers to their success.

Returning can be difficult. There are challenges:

• Finding a job, housing, and transportation
• Re-establishing family relationships
• Finding treatment for substance use, medical, or mental health conditions
• Not reoffending

The objective of the Missouri reentry process is to improve the overall transition process of offenders leaving prison and returning to Missouri communities. Their principles are:

• Offenders can change and be productive citizens.
• Reentry begins when an offender enters the Department of Corrections.
• Reentry is a shared responsibility of offenders, their families, community agencies, and the state.
• A seamless continuum of services should be in place for each offender leaving the institution to reduce future criminal behavior.
• Offenders should receive training, education, and treatment to better prepare them for reentry to the community.
• Offenders who are better prepared to fulfill their obligations to their children can reduce the intergenerational cycle of crime.
• Employment that provides adequate income is critical to the offender’s financial stability in the community.
• Stable housing is one key component, which impacts the stability of the offender in the community.
• Faith-based support can play an important part in an offender’s reentry.
• Offenders should leave the institution as healthy as possible and have access to health care in the community.
• Victims must be allowed to participate in reentry and be supported by it.

Prison Insights

Visiting Hours and Rules

Visiting hours at the Kansas City Reentry Center are on Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays from 9:30 am — 1:30 pm and 2:30 pm — 6:30 pm. 

Visiting Applications

Before you can visit an inmate at the Kansas City Reentry Center, you must fill out a visiting application and be approved by the Missouri Department of Corrections. You can access the online visiting application by clicking here. If you prefer a paper application, you will have to ask your inmate to mail you one.

General Visiting Rules

All adult visitors are required to bring a photo ID, like a current driver’s license or Department of Revenue identification card. Visitors, 13 years and older, are required to show a current school photo identification card that includes their name, or a valid federal or state government-issued identification card before admission to the visiting area. 

Visitors under 18 years old, unless married to the offender, must be accompanied by an authorized adult visitor.

All visitors are subject to a search. A metal detector may be used to detect weapons or other contraband. This may be completed by a walk-through metal detector or a hand-held wand.

Allowed Items at Visit

Visitors are allowed to bring in enough change to purchase sodas and snacks from the visiting room vending machines.

Specific medical and infant supplies are also allowed during visits. However, gum, wallets, purses, electronics, and other items must be left in your vehicle or put in a locker.

Coins must be brought in a clear sandwich bag or transparent plastic pouch for use in the vending machines. 

Medications or medical equipment needed to maintain life may be taken into the facility in their original container and only in the necessary dosage for the visiting period. You should notify staff upon your arrival of the need for medication during visitation.

When you bring a small infant or child, one clear carry-all for infant supplies is allowed. This bag may contain:

• Up to six diapers
• One blanket
• Three clear, plastic bottles of prepared infant beverage
• One clear, plastic, no-spill toddler cup
• Three unopened vendor containers of baby food
• One plastic pacifier, teether, and/or rattle
• One small plastic spoon 
• One unopened package of baby wipes

Dress Code

• Clothing should not be tight, transparent, or revealing. 
• No gang, racial, inappropriate, or inflammatory language or symbols are allowed and clothing may not have a camouflage design. 
• Skirts, dresses, and shorts may be no shorter than two inches above the top of the kneecap. 
• Wrap-around or slit skirts or dresses are not permitted. 
• Holes or slits are not permitted in pants. 
• Shirts, blouses, and tops must cover the chest and stomach and have sleeves that cover the shoulders, without display of cleavage or midriff. 
• Appropriate undergarments and shoes must be worn at all times. Undergarments with wire or metal supports are discouraged because you may be required to clear a metal detector. 
• No headwear is allowed except for verified religious purposes and is subject to search.

The Missouri DOC requires you to send pictures and personal correspondence in separate envelopes. If you mail both pictures and personal correspondence together in one envelope, it will be returned.

How to Call an Inmate

How to Send Money

Each inmate has a personal account that can be used to buy items from the prison canteen. You can electronically deposit funds into an inmate’s account through JPay. Your options include their website or their mobile app to deposit money, or you can call 1-800-574-5729.

Another option is to mail a money order or cashier’s check that can be deposited to an offender’s account. It must be made payable to the Missouri Department of Corrections and be accompanied by a DOC deposit slip. Each inmate has access to deposit forms and can send the slips to you at any time. All money orders must be sent to the following address:

Offender Finance Office
Missouri Department of Corrections
P.O. Box 1609
Jefferson City, MO 65102

Please make sure that you supply all of the information requested on the deposit slip in blue or black ink. If you have questions, you can call the Offender Finance Office at 573-526-6445. You can also deposit cash into an inmate’s account via MoneyGram. The receive code for Missouri DOC is 2439. You can learn more by clicking here.

Programs For Inmates

• Reentry Services

Inmates are facing multiple barriers to success, so the reentry team helps to coordinate access to wrap-around services. Staff cultivate partnerships with organizations and agencies that can help Missourians leaving prison to find housing, clothing, food, transportation, medical care, childcare, substance use treatment, education, spiritual support, and other resources they need to succeed.

Community partners provide services and advising to offenders inside the prisons and offer follow-up services and support after release.

• Employment

Employment for Missourians involved in the criminal justice system is a win-win-win for the state. Win for employers: skilled labor force eager to work. Win for offenders’ families: stability and income. Win for communities: reduced risk and a safer Missouri. 

Supplementing the numerous vocational training programs offered at correctional centers statewide, the Reentry Unit helps to facilitate employment readiness programs. Fellow state government agencies and partner nonprofit organizations provide education and training in areas such as goal-setting, résumé building, job interview etiquette, personal presentation, and professional expectations.

The reentry team has formed partnerships with more than 300 employers throughout the state who are willing to hire Missourians with felony convictions. Offenders nearing release from prison may complete job interviews at prison hiring fairs or through video conference and secure employment offers before release. Missourians can walk out of prison and onto the job site.

Pictures of Kansas City Reentry Center

Careers at Kansas City Reentry Center

If you are interested in a career with the Missouri Department of Corrections at the Kansas City Reentry Center, you can find out more information by clicking here.