JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. — A new documentary examines how former Missouri Department of Corrections director Anne Precythe worked to change the agency’s culture after taking over a department struggling with low morale and distrust.
“Disruptors: Missouri, Anne Precythe” focuses on the department’s efforts to support staff, improve supervision and establish a shared mission across its facilities.
Precythe became director in 2017. In the documentary’s trailer, she describes the department at the time as being in “survival mode.”
“Morale was in the gutter,” Precythe says. “Co-workers didn’t trust leadership. They didn’t trust each other.”
Current and former employees featured in the trailer describe a workplace where many staff members felt overlooked and doubted whether new leadership would bring lasting change.
“You’ve got to prove yourself to these people,” one employee recalls. “That was the consensus. Not going to waste my time getting to know your name. You’re going to be gone in less than a year.”
The trailer shows that Precythe’s approach initially faced resistance from employees accustomed to previous leadership changes and abandoned initiatives. The department began focusing on placing employees in appropriate roles, developing supervisors and breaking down divisions among staff.
The effort included “The Corrections Way,” a set of expectations intended to guide employee interactions and decision-making throughout the department.
“We finally had a mission that I could understand of improving lives for safer communities,” one employee says.
The documentary also addresses how staff culture affects prison safety and the rehabilitation of incarcerated individuals. The trailer contrasts an older corrections model focused largely on confinement with an approach centered on preparing individuals to return to their communities.
“If prison can become a place of transformation, it changes everything,” Precythe says.
Produced by Prison Life Media and the Fourth Purpose Foundation, the documentary is scheduled to premiere Aug. 1 at the American Correctional Association’s Congress of Correction in Pittsburgh. It will be released Aug. 2 on Prison Life Media’s YouTube channel.
