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December 10, 2006
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With so many challenges facing the state, Michigan needs to stop spending $5 million a day -- almost 20% of the state's general-purpose money -- to lock people up. Especially when it's not getting that much for its investment.
Incarceration rates here are among the highest in the nation at a time when the state is strapped for cash. And Michigan's prison population, now a record 51,044, is on the rise again, increasing 3% so far this year. The state added nearly 1,700 additional inmates in the first 10 months of 2006. Prison planners did not expect to hit the current population until March 2008.
Much of this year's bulge in the prison population can be attributed to one case: the murderous crime spree last February of Patrick Selepak, a former parolee who was mistakenly released from prison. In response, state parole officers are sending far more parolees with minor violations back to prison. But Selepak's mistaken release had nothing to do with parole policies, and everything to do with human error.
Before Michigan's prison costs balloon beyond $1.9 billion a year, before the state considers opening two more prisons, at a cost of $35 million to $40 million apiece, lawmakers must find ways to stop that growth, which is easily attainable without compromising public safety. Every dollar spent on corrections takes resources from health care, higher education, roads and other vital services.
No agency has greater long-term potential for controlling state spending than the Michigan Department of Corrections. Following the lead of other Great Lakes states that have more rational criminal justice policies and lower crime rates could save Michigan $400 million a year. Among the best ideas:
• Improve prison education and the Michigan Prisoner Re-Entry Initiative, which helps inmates get jobs, housing and assistance once they're released from prison. Michigan prisons release roughly 11,000 offenders a year. Nearly half of them go back. So far, Corrections officials say their re-entry program has reduced recidivism by 6%; keeping more people out lowers costs.
• Revise sentencing guidelines to divert more nonviolent offenders into community programs, saving hundreds of prison beds and millions of dollars by cutting sentences.
• Give more inmates regular, face-to-face parole review. Roughly, 17,000, or a third of the state's inmates, are beyond their first parole eligibility date, and some of them could be safely released. In 1991, only 16.5% of the state's inmates were parole eligible.
• Create more community-based alternatives to prison, such as electronic bracelets and drug courts. Most inmates have substance abuse problems, and many of them could be more effectively, and less expensively, supervised and treated in the community. Judges around the state know this, and many have created sobriety courts.
Michigan simply cannot afford to go on another prison building binge. Perhaps massive investments in incarceration could be justified if they made our streets and communities safe. But studies show little, if any, correlation between crime and incarceration rates.
Everyone pays the high costs of excessive confinement. Legislators must take a bold approach to cutting incarceration costs.
Copyright © 2006 Detroit Free Press Inc.