Adam Ford
F L I N T O I D
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http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080228/NEWS06/80228077
LANSING — Michigan is one of just four states to spend more money on prisons than higher education, according to a new report.
The study, released Thursday, estimated that Michigan spent $1.19 on corrections for every $1 spent on public universities and community colleges last fiscal year. Only Vermont’s ratio was higher. Michigan was followed by Oregon and Connecticut. Minnesota had the lowest ratio, spending 17 cents on prisons for every $1 on higher education.
Forty-five states spent more on higher education than prisons. One state, Delaware, spent the same amount, according to the Pew Center on the States.
The report said state governments do not necessarily make explicit choices between higher education and corrections funding. But a dollar spent in one area is a dollar not available in another. Higher ed and corrections compete for state tax dollars, while Medicaid, for instance, gets a mix of federal funding, too.
For the first time in history, the study said, more than one in every 100 American adults is in jail or prison. While the prison population increased last year in 36 states and the federal system, it declined in Michigan from 51,577 to 50,326, or 2.4 percent.
Michigan has one of the nation’s worst records for additional investments in higher education. State universities are getting less in state aid for operations now than they did in the 2002 fiscal year, resulting in higher tuition increases.
Democratic Gov. Jennifer Granholm has said Michigan’s prison population could be pared down by bringing sentencing guidelines in line with other states, paroling inmates convicted of nonviolent offenses, releasing sick prisoners and making other changes.
“Their report mirrors what the governor has been trying to do with corrections reform for the last five years,” spokesman Liz Boyd said Thursday. “We want to be smart on crime and spend our limited resources on proven ways that work.”
Democratic and Republican lawmakers, state corrections officials and others from the administration are talking with the Council of State Governments to find ways Michigan can trim its corrections costs, which total $2 billion a year.
Sen. Alan Cropsey, R-DeWitt, who is participating in the talks, said the real question should be whether people are safe in Michigan — a core government function — not if more money should be spent on prisons than other things. The Corrections Department must find ways to stop released inmates from victimizing people and returning to prison, he said.
Cropsey said the percentage of the state’s convicted felons going to prison is less than the national average. Michigan also has more violent crime and arrests more offenders than nearby states, he said.
In arguing for policy changes, the Granholm administration has noted that Illinois, Ohio and Pennsylvania have more residents than Michigan but incarcerate fewer inmates. |
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