There's a terrific editorial" in today's Free Press on what's wrong with the Michigan budget: the quick answer to that question is one word, "prisons." The more complicated answer is that the Republicans in the State Senate obstinately refuse to admit the fact that the Michigan prison system is dysfunctional and extravagantly wasteful.
Consider these facts, all found in this must-read editorial:
* Michigan spends more on prisons than it does on higher education.
* In 1980 one in 20 employees of the state civil service worked in prisons; today the number is one out of three.
* The incarceration rate in Michigan is, on average, 40% higher than in the seven other Great Lakes states, all of which report lower crime rates.
What's the Republican plan? Same as always: cut funding, outsource, privatize--with absolutely no evidence that these will accomplish anything useful. In fact, one place where privatization was tried, medical services, turned out to be a complete disaster, bringing "national shame," "negligent care," "unnecessary suffering and deaths."
The Free Press editors provide a long list of steps that Michigan could take to make our prisons more efficient: these include re-examining sentencing guidelines, better oversight of the State Parole Board, and more humane treatment of offenders with mental illness. All of these would make for a better and cheaper prison system, and all are opposed by Republicans in the Senate, who routinely spread distorted, deceptive claims calculated to play on people's fears and ignorance.
Michigan faces an enormous budget crisis, and the Republicans in the Senate are doing everything they can to obstruct realistic, humane efforts to address it.
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4 comments:
Glenn Loury has an excellent article in the July/August Boston Review titled: Why Are So Many Americans in Prison? Many of the issues raised have special significance for Michigan given our large minority prison population. “This historical resonance between the stigma of race and the stigma of imprisonment serves to keep alive in our public culture the subordinating social meanings that have always been associated with blackness.”
Here’s another surprising impact of our justice system on black imprisonment rates. “Black Americans are jailed at the rate of three thousand per hundred thousand whereas South Africa managed to preserve apartheid by imprisoning 729 black males per 100,000.” Paul Kennedy, Preparing for the Twenty-first Century.
Are you insane? Do you not see the high rate of unemployment in this state? We are worst in the nation. Somehow it is the prison system that turns out to be the problem? We have MANY people that cannot sell their houses for the amount they owe on them due to there being so many people leaving the state or unemployed and yet somehow the prison is the problem? Maybe we should look at our illustrious do nothing govenor for answers to this. If people were employed, we wouldn't be having the declining revenue that mainly resulted in our current budget fiasco. You need to use your brain or stop using your hands (to type).
To Anonymous: Did you even read the link to the article?? Gromit was stating that spending money on the prison system is wasteful. The article states that the DOC is responsible for a big part of Michigan’s budget crisis. However, republican leaders continue to oppose reasonable ideas and continue to defend failed sentencing and parole policies which in turn could help curb our current financial crisis.
Maybe you should look at your President for accountability on our economic condition, or did you not realize we are in an occupation that is bankrupting this country and for no good reason other than to make the rich richer!!!! Operation Iraqi Freedom (what an f’ing joke!) was never a war against Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, it was an invasion of the federal budget, and no occupying force in history has ever been so efficient to deplete our treasury as the Bush administration. Follow the money !! And anonymous you shouldn’t hold so much "contempt prior to investigation" do yourself a favor and at least read the article before you comment on it.
Regards, Rachael S. ;)
I wasn’t sure if you had heard the tragic news today, but your previous post “The Truth About Iraq” which included an op ed piece from the New York Times titled “The War as We Saw It” suffered a great loss on Monday. Yance T. Gray and Omar Mora (authors of the article) died when a cargo truck overturned west of Baghdad. Jeremy Murphy, also a contributor to the article, was shot in the head and is being treated for a severe brain injury. This was probably just about the time that Petraeus was about to report the progress on the surge. WTF is it going to take? When I heard about this it made me cry. When in the F is this going to end??!! As my previous comment to your initial blog didn’t get posted, I wanted to include some of my thoughts when I initially read this article. The fact that Bush quit drinking doesn’t mean that he is sober, there IS a huge difference!!! I seriously think that the man (piece of s@$%) suffers from brain damage, which is clearly evident from his continued blatant disregard for the facts! I can’t tell you how outraged I feel right now after hearing the above news! I hope that this just strengthens our resolve!!!
Rachael S.
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