Police Oppose Bill that Would Put Parole on 'Autopilot'

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Law enforcement representatives from four metro counties and Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette said at a news conference Monday that proposed legislation that would grant parole to inmates in the state’s prison sentence after serving their minimum sentences creates a threat to public safety.

House Bill 4138, which will allow Michigan Department of Corrections (MDOC) inmates to be released upon serving their minimum sentence in state correctional facilities. These individuals will be paroled from state custody, but released into communities around the state with no additional funding for parole violations, parole officers, or community corrections officials.

Also, in attendance were Macomb County Sheriff Anthony Wickersham, Macomb County Prosecutor Eric Smith, Wayne County Deputy Chief Scott Gatti, Oakland County Chief Deputy County Executive Gerald Poisson and Genesee County Chief Assistant Prosecutor Randall Petrides.

Bouchard, who called the news conference, said the proposed legislation would shift the burden of corrections costs to local governments “instead of looking at reforms to help us alleviate current problems.”

It costs $35,149 a year to house an inmate in a Michigan state prison, according to The Detroit News. The Michigan Department of Corrections annual budget is around $2 billion.

“County jails around the state are dealing with overcrowding in jails every single day,” Bouchard aid in the statement, adding the proposed legislation would “put our communities at risk.”

Cooper, reeling off a list of career criminals, said legislative leaders should ask their families “whether or not we should be making it easier for criminals to be released from prison.”

According to a report from the Prosecuting Attorney Association of Michigan, which Cooper said is supported by U.S. Department of Justice Statistics, one in four probationers are arrested within a year of release from supervision. Further, half of inmates re-entering the penal system were sentenced for violating the terms of their probation or parole.

Michigan’s violent crime rate is the highest in the Midwest, is 39.6 percent higher than 11 other states, 55.8 percent higher than Ohio and 16.8 percent higher than the national average. Though violent crime is trending downward across the country, violent crime rates in Detroit, Flint, Pontiac and Saginaw are five times higher than the national rate, Cooper said.

“We oppose autopilot, early release of violent criminals which jeopardizes the safety of Michigan citizens,” Schuette said.

However, Barbara Levine, the associate director for policy and research at the nonprofit Citizens Alliance on Prisons and Spending, said the legislation merely formalizes what the law has intended all along.

“Inmates are supposed to be eligible for parole if they have served their time without any serious incidents and have scored high on tests showing they are low risk for re-offending they should no longer be in prison,” Levine said. “This doesn’t do anything new. There still will be reviews. There still will be scoring.”

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The problem, she said, is illustrated by the fact that about 1,900 people who have completed their minimum sentences and have scored high for early release have been “subjectively held up” by the Parole Board and “essentially resentenced people past a minimum sentence.”

She said inmates who score high on the parole board’s standards are less likely to reoffend or crowd county jails. Parolees numbered 10,540 in 2013, the latest year for which statistics are available.

Levine’s group estimates that within five years, the legislation could shave $75 million a year from prison costs.

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