We've been talking for years about Michigan's need to cut unnecessary spending. So let’s talk about our state’s expensive practice of tossing criminals in the slam and throwing away the key.

Gov. Jennifer Granholm's 2009 budget calls for $2.06 billion for the Michigan Department of Corrections. That’s up dramatically from 1999, when we spent $1.4 billion on warehousing felons.

And the situation is likely to just get worse. Last month, the highly respected, nonpartisan Citizens Research Council (CRC) concluded that we'll probably spend another $600 million over the next few years as the prison population both increases and ages.

Michigan also incarcerates far more people than nearby states -- but despite popular myth, Michigan has a crime rate no higher than our neighbors. We do keep them locked up longer, however.

According to the CRC, the average stay in Michigan prisons is 42 months, much higher than the Great Lakes state average of 29 months. Michigan also spends some 30% more per inmate than our neighbors. CRC concludes if we cut our prison spending down to the average amount our neighbors spend on prisons, we'd have an extra $500 million to save or divert to other priorities.

By contrast, Michigan public universities will get around $1.5 billion for FY 2009. That's the same as they got in 1999 -- although actually considerably less, when you factor in inflation.

Over the last six years, Michigan has had the unwelcome distinction of leading the nation in reducing state spending on educating young people -- or, in other words, on our future.

Those are odd priorities indeed for a state desperately in need of bright, highly educated young people to jump-start our ailing economy. Any real chance of doing something about it? Nope.

Why? Simple; politicians are scared stiff of being called "soft on crime." And they're terrified of being blamed if a single inmate is paroled early and commits a terrible crime, even though around 10,000 prisoners are released each year.

Peter Luke, the respected Lansing analyst for Booth Newspapers, suggests that prison funding is such a hot potato that the only practical way to get somewhere is to do what the U. S. Congress did with military base closings. Pick a distinguished commission; ask it to make a series of recommendations, and then put the whole thing up for an up-or-down vote in the legislature.

Here’s another idea, contributed by my cousin, Tom Power, a circuit judge in Traverse City . He wrote to me that prison population is determined by two factors: The circuit judges who send people to the prison system and, an appointed state parole board that controls who leaves the prison system -- and when.

Noting that the state must provide the number of prison beds required by these decisions, he said: "I suggest we allow each circuit court a set number of beds, give that court parole responsibility for its prisoners, and thereby put the responsibility for prison utilization and the need to control (population) in the same hands."

He would like to see the number of prison beds provided by the Department of Corrections determined by the legislature and governor through the appropriations process. Those beds then would be distributed among the 57 circuit courts, which each one having a set percentage of the beds made available.

Judge Power points out that "the most important and politically explosive problem would be how to allocate prison beds among the various circuits. Allocation of beds proportionate to population is the most obvious method. But circuits with a history of higher crime will argue they should receive more beds than their populations would warrant. So in addition of population, beds could be allocated based on historic prison use or number of felonies reported to the police."

He goes on to point out that Michigan’s prison capacity has risen from around 10,000 in the early 1980’s to more than 50,000 today – the consequence of “lock ‘em up and throw away the key” attitudes that prevailed in the 1980s and 1990s.

Nor has harsher sentencing alone been to blame. “While it has been popular in some quarters to blame sentencing practices, a recent study found that there are thousands of prisoners held in the prison system beyond their first parole eligibility date . . . This indicates the expansion in prison use over the last two decades may be due as much to toughened parole standards.”
His suggestion of putting both prison entry and release in the same hands – the circuit judges – is a sensible and elegant solution to a very hot political potato.

Both ideas -- newsman Luke’s suggestion about a special commission and Judge Power’s idea about giving control to circuit judges -- are complimentary. Together, they offer a simple, comprehensive, common-sense way to deal with exploding prison costs. The smart people in our legislature should look closely at both.

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Editor’s Note: Former newspaper publisher and University of Michigan Regent Phil Power is a longtime observer of Michigan politics and economics, and a former chairman of the Michigan chapter of the Nature Conservancy. He is also the founder and president of The Center for Michigan , a centrist think-and-do tank which publishes the Michigan Scorecard. The opinions expressed here are Power’s own and do not represent the official views of The Center. He welcomes your comments at ppower@thecenterformichigan.net