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Downsizing prisons

Downsizing prisons

Get-tough policies such as three-strikes laws, most of which took effect in the 1980s, have more than quadrupled the nation’s prison population in the past 40 years. Ohio’s prisons held fewer than 8,000 inmates in 1974, compared to more than 50,000 last year. The race to incarcerate has cost states billions of dollars that could have gone to education, roads, and other needs.

Most states, including Ohio and Michigan, could safely reduce their ballooning prison systems by at least 20 percent and save tens or hundreds of millions of dollars. Last month, a widely respected non-profit, nonpartisan advocacy group — the Citizens Alliance on Prisons and Public Spending (CAPPS) — showed how to do it in Michigan.

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Its detailed report, “10,000 Fewer Michigan Prisoners: Strategies to Reach the Goal,” lays out dozens of strategies to, among other things, lower the number of people who enter state prisons, reduce minimum sentence lengths, increase medical and other paroles, and establish earned “good time” sentencing credits.

By reducing Michigan’s prison population, now at roughly 44,000, and closing seven prisons over the next five years, the reforms would save Michigan $250 million a year, Barbara Levine of CAPPS, the report’s author, told The Blade’s editorial page. Michigan now spends $2 billion a year on corrections — more than it spends on higher education.

The Michigan House is considering several of the report’s recommendations, including a bill to enact presumptive parole that would, except when public safety is at risk, grant paroles at an offender’s earliest release date. The Michigan Department of Corrections and Legislature should adopt CAPPS’ proposals, following Gov. Rick Snyder’s call this spring for criminal justice reforms and a more cost-effective and humane prison system.

In Ohio, Gov. John Kasich should also put together, or authorize, a road map for downsizing this state’s prison system, which costs $1.5 billion a year and holds more than 50,000 inmates. Such a report could be done by the state Department of Rehabilitation and Correction (DRC) or an outside consultant.

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At issue in Michigan’s excessive prison population are the state’s lengthy sentences and low parole rates. Average lengths of stays in Michigan prisons are far longer than those in other states.

In Ohio, the problem is not chiefly length of stays. Ohio’s 27 prisons hold thousands of nonviolent mentally ill and drug-addicted offenders whom the state could treat more effectively, and far more inexpensively, in the community.

DRC Director Gary Mohr has proposed community sanctions and treatment alternatives to incarceration for such offenders. Still, he needs help from the General Assembly to fund such programs and, when necessary, to enact laws such as those that would make all Ohio inmates eligible for good-time credits.

Ohio could save hundreds of millions of dollars a year by safely reducing its prison population. Governor Kasich should examine the blueprint for Michigan developed by CAPPS — and then create a similar road map for change in Ohio.

First Published July 13, 2015, 4:00 a.m.

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