MI - Former DOC Director - No One Gets Rehabilitated

The Real Cost of Prisons posted this today. Click here to read the whole article

Robert Brown Jr. of Lansing was director of the Michigan Department of Corrections, 1984-1991.
Brown: Prevention, not prisons, best serves public safety
Behind bars, no one gets rehabilitated; costs unsustainable

The current debate over prison spending misses a fundamental point. Crime prevention is the best protection for public safety!

Prevention includes pre- and post-natal care, early childhood education, after-school programs, mental health and substance abuse treatment.

Michigan's corrections budget is $2 billion because our prisoner count has grown to 51,000. To significantly reduce spending, we must reduce the prisoner population. And concerns that sentencing fewer people to prison and releasing more on
parole would threaten public safety give prisons too much credit.

The impact of prisons on crime rates is debatable. In 1984, Michigan prisons held fewer than 15,000 people. Our incarceration rate was 158 per 100,000 citizens and our violent crime rate was 760 per 100,000. By 1992, the incarceration rate had climbed to 408 and the population was nearly 39,000. However, the crime rate actually increased to 770.

Offenders are sent to prison as punishment and to be segregated from the community. Prisons are not designed to "rehabilitate." Making education, vocational training and treatment available to prisoners is important, but such programs can be delivered much less expensively in the community.

Consider these facts:

Many people who repeatedly commit property or public order offenses have substance abuse or mental health problems - or simply lack the skills to find employment. More punishment will not enable them to function as law-abiding citizens. Addressing their problems before they offend is a much better investment.

Sixty percent of annual prison commitments are probation or parole violators.

To reduce these numbers, the Michigan Department of Corrections is moving away from sheer surveillance of people under community supervision. It is marshalling community resources through the Michigan Prisoner ReEntry Initiative to improve parolees' chances of success.