The Real Cost of Prisons Weblog

Granholm is expected to tell lawmakers she intends to begin commuting sentences of inmates who pose no safety threat to the public; among them will be aged and medically fragile criminals. Granholm also intends to look seriously at releasing, with Michigan Parole Board approval, non-violent drug offenders serving a long string of short minimum sentences.

But Granholm will need legislative approval to significantly reduce a prison population 20-percent larger than either the a national and Midwest averages.

If those averages were applied to Michigan, says the Citizens Research Council of Michigan, the prison population would be around 40,000 and the prison budget some $500 million less.

Compared with other states, "we are out of whack," Patricia Caruso, director of the Michigan Department of Corrections, said Friday.

"The goal of the department is to protect the public," she said, adding, however, that it makes sense "to release those who can be safely released."

She said Granholm's "expectation" is that the department will begin reducing its spending relative to the rest of the state's general fund for discretionary spending. At $1.86 billion, prison spending is about 20 percent of that general fund budget. Ten years ago, it was 15 percent.

A commutation policy designed to reduce prison population would be a big departure for a governor -- and former attorney general -- who has been stingy about releasing inmates.

In a little more than four years as governor, Granholm has commuted the sentences of just nine inmates, all for medical reasons. The most public case for commutation before her administration currently involves Dr. Jack Kevorkian, imprisoned for assisting in a suicide and suffering from a range of maladies, according to his attorney.

"The governor has the power to commute sentences," said Sen. Alan Cropsey, R-DeWitt, who oversees prison spending. "I'd be very interested to know which old folks we're talking about letting out of prison, if we're talking about people who committed first-degree murder."

Cropsey said he is willing to consider Granholm's call to more clearly define which felons should be imprisoned and which ones instead should be sentenced to local jails, residential centers or home confinement.

He said the state can't rapidly reduce its prison population by 10,000 without compromising public safety, but he supports Granholm's efforts to expand programs designed to improve the success of prisoner re-entry into society.

Among the medically fragile inmates who could be considered for release, are some of the 12,500 inmates who have some history of mental illness, Caruso said. Cropsey said it's critical that paroles who received medication behind bars continue to take it upon release.

Caruso said the effort to cut population would be long term and require greater investment in local support services. Granholm will release her proposed 2008 state budget on Thursday. Caruso provided no detail of what the projected costs or savings from the policy changes Granholm is proposing.

Barbara Levine, director of the Citizens Alliance on Prisons and Public Spending, said there are some 16,000 inmates who could be released if the state returned to incarceration policies in place as recently as a decade ago.

Levine said inmates on good behavior who have served 85 percent of their minimum sentences should be considered for parole. Parole violators returned to prison for non-criminal, administrative offenses, should have their time back in prison capped at six months to a year.

Only 53 percent of parole-eligible inmates considered to be low risk to the public were released from prison in the first nine months of 2006, said Levine, citing department data. That compares with an 81-percent parole rate in 1996. Returning to that rate of release would free up 4,600 prison beds and save $114 million, she said.

"If they're really going to take the size of the population down, they have to tackle these broader policy questions," Levine said.

Granholm can't run for re-election, but asking lawmakers who can run to consider releasing felons could be tricky given the 2006, election-year killing spree by an inmate named Patrick Selepak, who was mistakenly released by the department.

The prison changes, administration officials say, are part of a broader program of government reform designed to produce savings in a budget in chronic imbalance for nearly six years.

In her State of the State address, Granholm will call on local governments and school districts to consolidate the delivery of services. Schools in fiscal 2008 would receive state aid bonuses for using administrative services provided by intermediate school districts. In 2009 they would be financially penalized if they don't.

Granholm intends to show voters that spending can be restrained, because on Thursday she's expected to call for higher taxes in part to avert a $377 million cut in K-12 funding yet this school year. Administration aides won't say what taxes are on the table and say she won't outline that part of her 2007 agenda on Tuesday.

Granholm Friday accepted and praised a report by a 12-member bipartisan budget panel she appointed that asserts that the state can't balance its budget without a tax increase. The panel, co-chaired by former Govs. William Milliken and James Blanchard, buttressed Granholm's view that continued steep cuts in state spending on education and health care would harm the state's quality of life.

Senate Majority Leader Mike Bishop, R-Rochester, reiterated Friday that "tax increases on Michigan citizens is not the best long-term solution to our economic troubles."

http://www.mlive.com/news/statewide/index.ssf?/base/news-8/1170538803212200.
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