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Featured Blogs
Criminologist joins SJM team
Anne Mahar, Safe & Just Michigan’s research specialist, joined our team in 2019. She returned to Michigan, where she grew up, after teaching criminal justice at Arcadia University in Pennsylvania. Anne said she went into [...]
Introducing Veronica French! SJM’s new office manager
Safe & Just Michigan is pleased to welcome Veronica French onto our team as our office manager. Veronica comes to us from the Michigan State University Museum, where she worked as on collections assistant and [...]
Breaking down barriers to employment for millions of Michiganders
Unemployment in the United States is currently so low that we’re at a point that some economists call “full employment.” That means that virtually everyone who wants a job can find one. It sounds like [...]
Safe & Just Michigan welcomes new policy analyst
Safe & Just Michigan is excited to welcome Policy Analyst Josh Hoe to our team. Many of you may already know Josh from his work as an advocate for criminal justice reform and as the [...]
Women in Prison: Fewer but growing
While Michigan has seen its overall prison population steadily fall over the past years, this not been the case for incarcerated women. It’s important to note that women still comprise a very small percentage of [...]
The power of story
We held a meeting with the Michigan Coalition Against Homelessness at the Heartside of Michigan United Way in Grand Rapids and each of our meeting guests took a few minutes to tell their stories. There [...]
A day inside Macomb Correctional Facility
The man sitting across from me never got to say goodbye to his mother. She died while he was incarcerated and he wasn’t able to be with her during her last days or to join [...]
Old, sick and expensive: The graying of Michigan’s prison population
Michigan doesn’t have the death penalty, but that doesn’t mean people don’t die in our state’s prisons. In 2017 alone, 106 people died while they were incarcerated in Michigan, according to the Michigan Department of [...]
Medically Frail Parole gets a second chance
Just a few months ago, it appeared as though legislators had no appetite for creating medically frail parole for incarcerated people in Michigan who can no longer accomplish regular daily tasks such as feeding or [...]
The long haul: why long sentences hurt everyone in Michigan
Michigan has seen its prison population fall 23 percent since 2006, when we recorded the largest number of incarcerated people in our state at 51,515. That’s the good news. However, this decline has been offset [...]
How short stays have a lasting impact on Michigan prison policy
Here’s a paradox: Michigan is known around the country for having the one of the longest prison sentences in the country, but even so, more than seven out of every 10 people committed to prison [...]
Fewer people are going to prison — here’s why
We know by now that Michigan’s prison population is falling. From the high of 51,515 people reached in 2006, our state’s prison population has fallen 23 percent to 39,666 as of the end of 2017. [...]