A state with a massive structural budget deficit. A state with a dysfunctional political culture, with no consensus on how to fix matters. A state with a massive prison system.

Familiar? Well, the description would fit Michigan, but today's topic is California - specifically a sea change in prison policy advanced by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.

The celluloid tough guy is going soft on parole. According to the Sacramento Bee, Schwarzenegger wants to eliminate parole for "all nonserious, nonviolent and non-sex offenders."

Another example of Tinsel Town liberalism? No, simple mathematics.

The Bee again: "The proposal would cut the parole population by about 65,000 by June 30, 2010, or more than half the Christmas Eve count of 123,144."

In turn, this change and others would help California cut a staggering $842 million from its prison system. If the governor gets his way, California would be spending only about $9.6 billion on corrections. (That's more than Michigan's entire general fund.)

Michigan's problems are picayune on that scale, but equally huge in context. With state revenues tanking, Gov. Jennifer Granholm and the Legislature will be desperate for big savings to avoid tax increases.

In that climate, the Michigan Department of Corrections and its nearly $2 billion in spending are a prime target.

Barbara Levine of Citizens Alliance on Prisons and Public Spending says "17 or 18" states have adopted so-called "flat sentencing," in which felons are given a set sentence, not a range of time they could serve. In this system, the felon serves the time and is released.

Under Michigan's system, felons get ranges and then go before the Parole Board to seek release. Levine, in a Jan. 4 column, noted that 11,000 current prisoners are currently eligible for parole. The state, due to the decisions of the Parole Board, continues to imprison them.

And, in some of those cases, that has to be a good thing.

The argument over prison reform has long been dominated by the question, "What happens if someone you release turns back to crime?" A released prisoner is, by definition, more dangerous to the general populace than one imprisoned at Jackson or Ionia.

But when you keep thousands of people in prison, at an average cost of $34,000 per year per person, the burdens mount.

Or, as Levine put it, "The only way to save money is to close prisons."

For the 2010 budget, Michigan will have about $7.8 billion for its general fund, the Senate Fiscal Agency says. If the state holds the line on corrections, roughly 25 cents of every dollar would go to imprisonment work.

Clearly, that leaves much less for health care, for investments in education, heck, even for catching and trying suspects.

Levine says her group saw flat sentencing as unattainable in the current political climate. They just want the Parole Board to start paroling more people who have served their time and are not dangerous.

Pick one, pick the other, pick something, because Michigan will soon find its prison policies "overcrowding" its wallet.

What do you think? Write Derek Melot, Lansing State Journal, 120 E. Lenawee St., Lansing, MI 48919. For past columns, visit www.lsj.com/columnists.