Gov. Jennifer Granholm's proposal to close one old prison and cut the number of state prison inmates about 10 percent is drawing fire, but it shouldn't. The governor is taking an overdue step in getting a handle on this state's soaring Corrections costs.

Of course, the reduction in prison population has to be handled with care. The Corrections Department has had a bad record of lost paperwork and bungled paroles, which has had fatal consequences.

But as the governor's budget notes and this newspaper has long contended, we jail more people than our Midwest neighbors, but don't have a lower crime rate to show for it. We are not getting the best bang for our Corrections Department dollars.

Currently, the Corrections budget, at almost $1.9 billion, accounts for about a fifth of the state's General Fund. One in three state employees work for the prison system, tending 51,500 prisoners.

The governor hopes to save $92 million by reducing that number by 5,500 by the end of 2008. Those turned loose would include medically fragile prisoners, older prisoners and those who could be deported to other countries to be housed at their expense.

All of these are sensible ideas. In addition, the governor proposes the closing of one of a cluster of prisons in Jackson, with the release or transfer of 1,500 prisoners.

The governor also recommends a revision of sentencing guidelines so that prison is not the only option for judges. There is a role here for the Legislature to engage in some law reform. Prison space is expensive and should be a carefully managed resource.

To ease the transition, the governor proposes to invest $20 million in a project called the Michigan Prisoner Re-entry Initiative, in which state and community officials work out plans to ease prisoners back into society.

Her budget notes that a pilot project using these methods achieved a 21 percent reduction in the rate of repeat offenses by released prisoners.

All of this will take some finesse by the department. Last year, the department's own investigation in the wake of the release of Patrick Selepak, who went on a killing spree after he was mistakenly released from custody, found delayed parole hearings and botched paperwork in the cases of 41 inadvertently paroled felons. A number of the felons in addition to Selepak were implicated in new crimes.

The Corrections Department concluded it would need better communication with state and local police, tighter supervision over its own parole officers and better training in law and parole procedure for its own parolees.

The department should now have an improved playbook for its agents and officials to handle more paroles of appropriately screened prisoners and should be able to make the governor's program work.

Dangerous prisoners should be jailed, but they should also be released when they no longer present a threat to society. The state can't simply acquiesce to an ever-expanding prisoner population and Corrections budget.

Michigan spends more on its prisons than its universities. That can't continue.