By Chad Livengood and Karen Bouffard
Detroit News
LANSING, Mich. — The Michigan Department of Corrections’ crackdown on parole absconders following high-profile crimes by state-supervised convicts has created a shortage in temporary bed space in Metro Detroit.
That’s resulted in increased costs to transport parolees to and from the Charles Egeler Reception and Guidance Center in Jackson, department spokesman Russ Marlan said Monday.
With half of the state’s 20,000 parolees living in Metro Detroit, Corrections officials are searching for 400-500 beds to house those suspected of violating the terms of their parole, he said.
But reopening the recently closed Mound Prison in Detroit is not an option, officials said, nor is there room at Detroit’s other state prison, Ryan Correctional Facility. The department’s predicament comes as the Legislature is close to finalizing the Corrections Department budget for the fiscal year that starts Oct. 1. The House calls for closing a prison and opening a privately run facility while the Senate is looking for millions in savings through wholesale job cuts while not closing any facilities.
Michigan’s prison population, which stood at 43,859 as of Friday, has increased by about 1,000 since the beginning of the year because of parolees going back to prison, a decline in the number of people being paroled and a slight increase in court-ordered prison sentences, Marlan said.
Without temporary bed space, the department is unable to get parole absconders off the streets, Marlan said.
An exact figure for the additional costs incurred from the parole crackdown was not available. But Marlan said the agency is expending “hundreds of thousands of dollars” of its $2 billion annual budget for added fuel and prison guard overtime moving parolees back and forth between Metro Detroit and the Jackson prison.
Marlan said the agency is not considering reopening Mound, which the state closed in January to save money. He declined to list the agency’s options for temporarily incarcerating parolee absconders, but said crowded county jails in Metro Detroit are not a possibility either.
“We’re probably getting close to making a decision,” he said.
Sara Wurfel, spokeswoman for Gov. Rick Snyder, said: “We’re currently working with the Department of Corrections to evaluate our options and address needs for short-term beds that have arisen for parole violators,” Wurfel said.
Mel Grieshaber, executive director of the Michigan Corrections Organization, which represents 7,000 correctional officers, has been aware of the increasing prison population but has believed the department is finding room for the extra prisoners within existing facilities. He hasn’t heard any talk of reopening Mound or any other prison.
"(Mound has) around 1,200 beds, so to reopen that it would seem that would leave quite a few empty beds,” Grieshaber said. “If they open that prison they’re going to be causing vacancies at other places.
State Rep. Richard LeBlanc, D-Westland, said the bed shortage for parole absconders should make Corrections officials, Snyder and the Republican-controlled Legislature reconsider the Mound Prison closure.
“It is time to reassess and take corrective action within Corrections,” LeBlanc said.
In February, Corrections director Daniel Heyns ordered an internal audit of 70,000 ex-convicts under the department’s parole and probation supervision.
Since then, five probation agents have been suspended with pay in the aftermath of several Metro Detroit homicides involving ex-cons the agents were supervising.
Parolees can be arrested and placed into Corrections Department custody for failure to report to their parole agent, failure to report a change of address, not showing up to work or committing new crimes.
The state’s dilemma comes as lawmakers are debating whether to force the agency to close the aging Michigan Reformatory in Ionia and transfer that central-Michigan prison’s 1,300 inmates to a privately owned facility in rural Lake County.
The Republican-controlled House’s budget plan estimates $7.1 million in savings for the privatization plan.
Republican state senators, however, have different ideas for the Corrections budget and want to slash $55.8 million by eliminating 580 management, support staff and secretarial jobs, which could result in layoffs.
The Senate is unlikely to go along with closing a prison, said state Sen. John Proos, R-St. Joseph, chairman of the Appropriations Subcommittee on Corrections.
Asked whether he thinks Michigan needs an additional prison opened, Proos said: “There isn’t a shortage of prison beds.”
“I’m sure the Department of Corrections is reviewing the options that are available to manage their bed space concerns,” Proos said.
Proos said his immediate concern is negotiating a Corrections budget with the House. Republicans are under a self-imposed deadline of June 1 for delivering the state budget to Snyder.
Copyright 2012 The Detroit News
All Rights Reserved