Time to correct Corrections spending

Aug. 4, 2007 Editorial

The Mackinac Center, Michigan's free-market think tank (its thinkers prefer that description to conservative) has not been a big Granholm fan. But its fiscal policy specialist, Kenneth Braun, this week applauded the Democratic governor's plan to save money on prisons by restructuring sentencing guidelines for nonviolent offenders.

Braun also noted that legislative Republicans, whose corrections cost-savings ideas include some privatization of prisons, make some good points as well and suggested there could be a rare meeting of minds that could benefit taxpayers without compromising public safety. Here's the reality: Michigan locks up more people for longer times than most other states do and does not have lower crime rates to show for it, so its $2-billion corrections system isn't correcting much. And that ought to be corrected.