Sentencing Reforms In MI Sparks Reform Debate
Significant and converging overcrowding and financial pressures have brought the debate over the Michigan Department of Corrections to a point where innovative reform is a genuine possibility. The problem:
Michigan’s prison system is hemorrhaging money while having little effect on the crime rate in the state, according to state officials and local government experts. “Michigan’s incarceration rate is one of the highest in the country, one of the highest in the world,” said Russ Marlan, communications director for the Department of Corrections. According to Marlan, the cycle started with an increase in the number of convicted felons. Last year, 55,000 people were convicted of felonies – over 10,000 more than in 1998. “The number just keeps growing and growing and growing, and we’re not seeing any resulting decrease in crime,” Marlan said.
Ideas are being floated all around the state, and some “advanced” counties are happy to trumpet their successes:
“We compare good corrections to good parenting,” said Grace Kalafut, director of Kalamazoo County’s Community Corrections. Kalafut said her agency pays closer attention to criminal history, mental health and social behavior than the state and other counties do.Kalafut said one of her agency’s most innovative programs provides pre-trial supervision and guidance, which she says targets offenders when they are the most vulnerable and reflective, and most apt to start changing their ways.
The combination of fiscal and social pressures is making this kind of debate more common throughout the country. More from Michigan at the Capital News Times.