Any Michigan citizen concerned with the high cost of the state prison system can ring the bells of legislators and Granholm Administration officials who are most responsible for finding solutions.
Granholm’s prison policy liaison, Ronald Liscombe, can be reached at LiscombeR@michigan.gov.
Phones and emails for members of the House Judiciary Committee are listed here.
Members of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Judiciary & Corrections are listed here.
With the governor’s two biggest speeches — state of the state and the budget address — just a couple weeks away, it’s an important time to make your voice heard. Here are some key details on where Michigan stands on prison system reforms…
In December 2008, a dozen diverse trade groups representing business, education, local government, and non-profit interests joined together and called on elected leaders in Lansing to cut hundreds of millions of dollars in costs from the Michigan prison system through reforms to both operations and prison sentencing. The Center helped organize this coalition. Our reasoning… the Michigan Department of Corrections budget, at $2 billion and growing rapidly, was overshadowing many other strategic priorities for Michigan’s future.
- PROGRESS SINCE DECEMBER 2008
As Department of Corrections Director Pat Caruso recently outlined for the reform coalition, numerous improvements have occurred since we began pressing for change slightly more than a year ago. Examples:
- CORRECTIONS’ PIECE OF THE PIE STILL GROWS
Despite those improvements, the net Corrections budget cut for 2009-10 was $72 million – not the “hundreds of millions” the reform coalition envisioned. Despite last year’s cuts, the proportion of the general fund devoted to corrections remains above 20 percent (up from about 16 percent a decade ago). The increase in that ratio means the prison system is eating up nearly $100 million a year that used to go to other budget priorities.
- PERSONNEL COSTS
In closing four prisons in this 2009-10 budget year, the Department of Corrections will cut more than 1,500 full-time equated positions. That’s a workforce cut of 9 percent in one year. The new Corrections staffing level of 15,746 full-time-equated positions remains, by far, the largest segment of the state government workforce. Corrections employees account for 28.5 percent of all state workers.
Personnel costs account for approximately 70 percent of the Corrections budget, according to the Senate Fiscal Agency. Despite the prison closures and staffing cuts, the 2009-10 budget included approximately $35 million in increased salaries, benefits, and retirement costs. DOC administrators and the corrections officers union will begin negotiation on a new contract this spring.
The corrections reform coalition has urged the DOC and elected officials to closely consider the following personnel-related management issues:
ADDITIONAL REFORM POSSIBILITIES
Beyond the personnel bargaining table, the Granholm administration and the legislature have not yet acted on a number of other potential money-saving reforms, including:
8 Comments
I am very pleased, with these wonderful efforts, to trim the tragic size of our Michigan DOC budget. I would propose a serious look at how prisoner involvement, in growing organic, healthy food, for themselves essentially, could help the annual budget,
in least three significant ways: (1)Savings on improved health and reduced medical care, of all inmates, by having a healthier diet (2)Savings from reduced costs of buying food from vendors outside of the DOC (3)Savings from the education of many involved inmates,
in the art and science of organic, sustaina- ble agriculture. This could tend to reduce
recidivism, by preparing inmates for work and
employment, in one of the most significant
and growing jobs producing segments of Michi-
gan’s struggling economy. Other cost saving
aspects of this possible initiative, could be
discovered, by research, creative thinking
and motivation, to point Michigan in an im-
proved direction, concerning the the whole
realm of crime, justice and corrections.
I am all for reducing prison populations and increasing college student populations. The cost of educating a person at a Michigan four year college is significantly less than the cost than four years of incarceration at maximum security prison.
Less use of maximum security and more use of minimum security facilites as well as population reduction would reduce prison opporating costs considerably. Housing non-violent offenders in minimum and medium security faxcilities and allowing them to attend community college would probably reduce recidivism…if those offenders also had access to job development and placement programs. However, those programs require personnel, salaries, benefits and space all of which cost.
Closing some maximum security facilities and cutting custodial personnel that staffed them is the biggest savings. But retirement and health benefits for the retired workers will be a significant cost. And those not retired should be paid a decent wage and receive better training in care and how to relate to inmates, another cost.
Re-legalize drugs. The drug war is a colossal, multi-trillion dollar failure. Drugs are easily smuggled into the most secure prisons we have. Release all non-violent drug related prisoners immediately. Prohibition of liquor didn’t work during the last century and drug prohibition hasn’t worked since Kennedy began it during his presidency. Self-medication should not be a crime.
Non-violent property crimes should not be punished by prison time but by restitution. What more fitting punishment for a felon than to have to actually work to pay back the costs of the crime to his/her victim and the government’s court costs. It could save court costs because a criminal might be more inclined to a quick guilty plea when an option to real prison time is in the offing. As an added plus it would mean more jobs in the ankle bracelet business sector.
I agree with Ronald 100%. There are inmates that are doing time for non-violent and non-sexual crimes. Taxpayers are paying for them to sit there and they are not being rehabilitated in any fashion. Have the offender tethered; it is a win win situation. The offender pays for their own monitoring, tax dollars can go towards education instead of incarceration, it cuts the budget, and it keeps works with a job; someone has to monitor those tethers. If the public is worried about safety attach a GPS tether to the offender.
For several years now, I have pondered over the fact that a parolee can be found guilty of a violation by preponderance of evidence, resulting in years of continued incarceration, (60 months for firearm charge)when in fact, his case was dismissed in a court of law, no evidence presented, no conviction applied for the same charge the parole board will allow a guilty by hearsay for such a serious crime as a CCW. Things like this increases the state’s budget. It is actually a hate crime. Officers know that a parolee will serve two years if convicted of a CCW charge. MDOC will give a parolee five years continuance for the same charge determined by less burden of proof policies. This is unjust and increases the states budget.
If the State of Michigan was truly concerned about it’s prison population and budget, they would focus on its youth and educating them better. As a teacher in Detroit, we face extreme factors that prevent the level of student achievement desired for all students. We need more rigorous laws and policies that hold parents accountable for not sending their kids to school daily and allowing the violence and disrespect that disrupts the learning environment. If we don’t reach them when they are young and provide a quality education, you will be taking care of them in prisons or through welfare. It is sad that children are a lessor priority!
And not one word is said about the parole board that routinely resentences inmates to another 12, 18 even 24 months regardless of whether or not the inmate has complied with the minimum sentence requirements imposed by A JUDGE and the Department of Corrections at reception. These are political appointees enforcing thier personal opinions at the expense of the tax payers. My son is not a CSC, not a threat to society, if he complies with the judges order so should the parole board.