Commissioners named rebuilding or expanding the aging jail as a top priority for 2009, but the struggling economy would make it difficult for a countywide jail tax to pass, Buskirk said. “I’m not going to ask the public to dig into their pocketbooks,” he said. “I got a pocketbook, too, and mine’s got a bottom.”

Setting the tone for the county board will be a new sheriff with a different philosophy about how to address the jail’s problems.  Former Kalamazoo County Sheriff Michael Anderson predicted in July that a tax request would be presented this year, but he lost in November to sheriff’s Sgt. Richard Fuller (pictured), who said during the campaign that the jail could be improved without going directly to taxpayers. “I’d like to explore ideas” other than a jail tax, Fuller said Friday. “We have to deal with this aging facility. What can we fix that would be worth putting money into? How would our money be best spent?”

The three counties a year ago commissioned the study to see whether they could save money by banding together in operating a single jail … Sheriff Larry Stelma told officials last month the study will show the county’s current 1,478-inmate capacity is enough to handle needs for now, despite concerns that necessary upgrades to older parts of the jail could mean 50 to 75 fewer beds. Officials are planning how best to spend the millage county voters approved in August for upgrading maximum-security cells in parts of the jail built in 1958 and 1974.

“We don’t have an immediate need, and we would need to figure out how to pay for it,” said Assistant County Administrator Wayman Britt, who worked on the study.

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.