Restoring the Revenue: Michigan Department of Corrections Budget Savings

Mama Cushingberry once said to me that "you should be careful for nothing". I pondered what she said to me and then I thought about it. Mom was talking about preventive maintenance and boy Mom was right again! After all Moms' are always right and have a lot of insights. And in these times of financial uncertainty ruling life's events, new and creative ways must be developed to restore the revenue to needed State Services. In the Department of Corrections, there are many opportunities to streamline and redirect revenue that is currently being spent on existing programs and policies. Specific policy changes in the Department will generate at least one billion dollars in savings over the next 5 years. One of my visions is when the revenue returns, I want to plan for how long the revenue will last and, how strong the revenue will be. And to do that I am proposing a 10 year master plan to accomplish this.

One of the effective methods that I propose is to start reducing the number of prisons. What will you do with the existing prisoners? Where will they stay? Wont your create prison overcrowding by tearing down and closing prisons? The answers to these questions are not that complex. The main customer of the Department of Corrections is the County Prosecutors who send the prisoners and, the prisoners themselves. Reducing the number of prisoners is an attainable goal. And to accomplish this, you have to look at each one of the prisoners on a case by case basis.

The main requirement is to remove the non-violent, low level, mentally ill, and the seriously ill from the Corrections process. Currently %82 costs are related to maintaining food, clothing and shelter for each of these inmates. These functions truly belong in the Department of Community Health because mental illness is a disease that needs treatment. Too often our Jails are used to house people who are mentally ill where in all reality these people need to be in supervised medical treatment facilities. The closing of Mental Hospitals was a mistake because when these facilities were open, the crime rate went down. Some of the people committing crime are true mental patients who do not need to be in the general population without medical intervention. State supplied medicine is cheaper and more cost effective than housing a prisoner in the Dept of Corrections system.

The second criterion that I would use is to remove all low level drug offenders from the system. Crimes like Marijuana possession and Possession with intent to deliver (a big charge to keep a person in jail) would be reviewed and the prisoner purged from the Correction's system. I would also push for this at the county level because most of the arrests are made by County and Local Police agencies. County Prosecutors would be given broad leeway and encouraged to plead these cases to low misdemeanors or civil infractions. Other alternative measures such as community service jobs such as cleaning bathrooms at State Parks and teaching at public schools as a sub-teacher.

A prisoner would be given a time adjustment for teaching subjects such as Math and Science count for a paid lunch at $15.00 per day. Otherwise 500 hours of community service is much cheaper than keeping these people in jail at $25,000 per year. Additionally, with the adoption of Proposal 1 allowing the sick and dying to receive Medical Marijuana under a doctor's prescription will further reduce the burden on the State of Michigan

These changes in the Department of Corrections would save the taxpayers $250 million dollars a year in prison costs to the taxpayers. We could move the cost savings to Dept of Community Health for proper treatment of mental health patients and still have a surplus.