Warden, Top Deputy Walked Off the Job at “Wild West” Missouri Prison
Warden Michele Buckner’s 25-year career with the Missouri Department of Corrections (DOC) came to an abrupt end on January 7, 2025, when she was reportedly walked off the job at South Central Correctional Center (SCCC) in Licking. Guard Maj. Robert Hopping, another DOC employee with two-plus decades of experience, was similarly dismissed the previous month.
DOC spokesperson Karen Pojmann confirmed the departures, but not the details; those were provided by Lori Curry of the advocacy group Missouri Prison Reform. “Everyone that I hear from, including current staff, former staff, and people who live [at SCCC] say that it is overrun with drugs and other contraband, that there is a lack of order, there’s a lack of policy being followed,” Curry said. “It’s basically the Wild West in there.”
A call to a confidential hotline for DOC employees to report corruption sparked an investigation, which “uncovered significant amounts of drugs and contraband at the facility,” Curry said. “Employees were reportedly allowed to come and go freely through the back of the facility without checks or body scans, contributing to the influx of illegal items.”
Pojmann dismissed Curry’s comments, saying they contained “inaccuracies,” though she also declined to provide any details. Buckner was the second DOC warden removed in less than a year; former Jefferson City Correctional Center Warden Doris Falkenrath was cut loose in June 2024, just months after four guards were let go over their roles in the December 2023 death of prisoner Othel Moore. As PLN reported, Moore, 38, was restrained and pepper-sprayed when the guards put a spit hood over his head, and he suffocated. [See: PLN, Aug. 2024, p.43.]
Contraband drugs have plagued Missouri lockups, even after physical mail for prisoners was banned in 2022 and the DOC began scanning and digitizing mail for delivery on tablets provided by JPay. In fact, as PLN also reported, the number of prisoner overdoses has actually increased since then—with the highest tally recorded at SCCC. [See: PLN, Apr. 2023, p.60.]
Additional source: Missouri Independent
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