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June 29, 2006
MI: Prisons system is one fifth of state budget
http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060629/POLITICS01/606290
382/1022/POLITICS
Michigan's prisons house 50,270 inmates, more than double the number from 20 years earlier. It's the fifth-largest system in the country.
Taxpayers will spend $1.8 billion this year for the prison system, a four-fold increase over the cost in 1986. It costs $875,000 a week to feed the inmates and nearly $5 million a day to operate the system.
The prison system gobbles up one-fifth of Michigan's general fund, up from 7.4 percent in 1986.
The 16,568 corrections employees make up more than 31 percent of state government's total work force. Twenty years ago, corrections workers represented about 16 percent of the total work force.
Posted by lois at June 29, 2006 10:23 PM