Report | Corrections spending | Prison population | June 2008 By the Citizens Research Council of Michigan Today, the Michigan Department of Corrections (MDOC) is the largest program that state government operates directly, accounting for nearly 20 percent ($2 billion) of the current discretionary General Fund – General Purpose budget and employing nearly one- [...]
Report | Sentencing | Parole process | August 2011 By the National Conference of State Legislatures Sentencing policies provide the means to hold offenders accountable and reduce the likelihood that they will commit new crimes. Protecting the public is the key objective of sentencing actions, and state laws provide guidance on which offenders should receive [...]
Research | Length of stay | Corrections spending | Sentencing | Parole | June 2012 By the Pew Center on the States, Public Safety Performance Project Over the past four decades, criminal justice policy in the United States was guided largely by a central premise: the best way to protect the public was to put [...]
David Eggert, MLIVE.com NOTE: CAPPS opposed SB 1109, which created the new mandatory minimum 25-year prison sentences for certain violent offenders convicted of a fourth offense. CAPPS’s advocacy played an important role in narrowing the bill’s impact. LANSING, MI - Violent criminals will be imprisoned for at least 25 years if they have been convicted of [...]
CAPPS Consensus newsletter This issue of the Consensus newsletter explains SB 1109, the reasons CAPPS opposed it and habitual offender sentencing, beginning on Page 16. This fall, our legislators pushed through a hot-button crime bill that delivered good sound bites at the expense of sound public policy. Senate Bill 1109 amended MCL 769.13 to require [...]
Pew report shows Michigan far above national average CAPPS Consensus Fall 2012 A June 2012 analysis by the Pew Center on the States showed that Michigan leads the country in the average amount of time its prisoners serve. The report, Time Served: The High Cost, Low Return of Longer Prison Terms (June 2012), examined the [...]
Barbara Levine is quoted in this article about the new 25-year mandatory minimum for repeat offenders. By Nancy Derringer, Bridge Magazine FOUR STRIKES NARROWED: The House last week approved a revised version of a so-called “four strikes” bill aimed at repeat felons that could affect only 70 offenders per year. A Senate version of the [...]
Fall 2012 | CAPPS Consensus newsletter The latest CAPPS Consensus newsletter includes revealing information about Michigan sentencing practices over the last four decades, beginning on Page 6 of an article on the Pew Center on the States report that reveals Michigan’s extraordinarily long - and extraordinarily expensive - average prison length of stay: “The Pew report [...]
Detroit Free Press editorial Michigan legislators and taxpayers looking to save hundreds of millions of dollars in corrections costs should check out the Pew Center report ("Time Served: The High Cost, Low Return of Longer Prison Terms") that shows Michigan prisoners released in 2009 led the nation in average time served. Policies that would shave [...]
Michigan’s extraordinarily long average prison length of stay is a key factor driving corrections costs. CAPPS summary of four research reports on average prison length of stay, including its own, shows the policies driving up length of stay and the consequences for corrections spending. Read>> Four research reports on LOS summary