Coalition tells Snyder how to cut prison costs

Gov.-elect Rick Snyder can cut Michigan’s spending on prisons by reforming the state’s sentencing rules, expediting paroles, and reducing prison staffing costs, according to a report released by the Corrections Reform Coalition.

The coalition, which is sponsored by the Ann Arbor-based Center for Michigan think tank, provided the report in response to a request from Snyder for help with ideas on how to trim prison costs which now take up 23 percent of the state budget.

The Detroit News reports:

Prison costs are $1.9 billion of Michigan’s general fund in 2010-11, or 23 percent of the total budget. That’s up from $1.6 billion, or 17 percent of the budget, 10 years ago.

The prison population is at about 44,000, down from a peak of about 51,500 in 2007.

To reduce the prison population further, the coalition told Snyder he should implement recommendations of the Council of State Governments under which inmates would serve no less than 100 percent but no more than 120 percent of their minimum sentences, and additional prison time for technical parole violations would be restricted.

A notable absence in the coalition report is any mention of privatizing prison services — a key item in the Republican House budget proposal this year.

This spring the House GOP claimed that Michigan could save $38 million a year by contracting out food service at the state’s prisons.

The Michigan Department of Corrections, however, warned that privatization could undermine the nutritional content of inmate diets and create additional medical costs among the nearly 5,000 inmates who are serving life sentences.