Results of Mass Incarceration

Michigan demonstrates the long-term negative impacts of mandatory minimum sentencing and mass incarceration, as Canada recently enacts new laws that will imprison more individuals, for longer sentences. According to The Toronto Sun July 23, 2008 article,("Has Mass Incarceration Failed?") "Today, Michigan is lock-up central. It has 50,000 inmates - Canada, with more than three times the population, has 32,000 - and 50 correctional facilities, 35 built since 1985. Michigan's bloated prison population costs taxpayers $2 billion a year, more than the state spends on higher education, at $1.7 billion. Michigan is No. 1 in the nation in the proportion of its $9.8 billion state budget - 20 per cent - spent on corrections. Yet Michigan's violent crime rate in 2006 was 562 per 100,000 people, according to the Citizens Alliance on Prisons and Public Spending. Detroit alone had 400 homicides last year. Michigan's violent crime rate was 17.6 per cent higher than the national average; its incarceration rate is 22 per cent higher than the national average."

The article states, "But today many states, including Michigan, are reversing tough-on-crime policies that have put one in 100 adults in America behind bars - the Land of the Free has a higher level of imprisonment than China or Russia. In 2007, states spent more than $49 billion on corrections, up from $11 billion 20 years earlier. There is growing recognition that public dollars should be diverted to services and programs that address the social and root causes of crime, such as counselling for drug addicts and creating opportunities for at-risk youth."

The article adds, "There are conservative voices in Michigan calling for cost-savings to be achieved through cuts to the inmate population. Kenneth M. Braun, a budgetary and fiscal analyst with the Mackinac Center for Public Policy - described by the Detroit News as normally a conservative ally - - last year endorsed Democratic Gov. Jennifer Granholm's recommended changes in sentencing for about 230 crimes. 'The critical component is reducing the time for those convicted of non-violent offences,' he wrote. Unfortunately, Republicans last summer 'dug in their heels against genuine spending reform,' Braun stated."