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| Errors Come Back to Haunt Granholm |
| By pressandguide.com/ |
| Published: 07/14/2009 |
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Prison errors come back to haunt Granholm July 15, 2009 If it weren't for bad luck, this current governor would have no luck at all. Jennifer Granholm has now presided over the longest recession in Michigan history since the Great Depression. She has presided over more budget cuts than any other governor, with still more to come in the pipeline. Her track record of lost employment will never be broken, and then there is the corrections department. While she can't control the economy, she does have some influence over what happens in the prison system, and in recent days, the record stinks. Item: 62 sex offenders were erroneously released. Item: A mentally ill inmate was erroneously released. Item: A former inmate on parole was targeted to be arrested, but before the corrections folks got to him, William Dunlap got to his girlfriend. He allegedly killed her with a sledgehammer and an ice pick. A prison spokesperson suggested, "In many of these cases, after the fact, you wonder if you could have done something different." Really? Add to all this the Granholm administration's forced march to parole 3,400 inmates who have served their minimum sentences. Republicans are lobbing one political haymaker after another at the governor, suggesting the public is unsafe. The next shoe to drop will be GOP attempts to link Lt. Gov. John Cherry to all this, as well. Remember, Cherry's running for Granholm's job next year. In a moment of extreme candor about a month ago, Corrections Director Patricia Caruso stated the obvious: Running the prison department is a "ticking time bomb." Unfortunately for Caruso, the ticking is getting pretty loud. House GOP leader Kevin Elsenheimer (R-Bellaire) is demanding that the "early prison release program" be halted. He labeled the recent rash of screw-ups an "appalling breach of security and the public trust." Really? The governor's office, in a rather feeble attempt at a retort, reminded the GOP leader that this was not an early release program. It was a distinction without a difference that appeased no one. Then in another statement of the obvious, the governor's office noted that Granholm, in reference to the 62 sex offenders, "is demanding that safeguards be put in place to prevent this from occurring again." Really? Even though the department rounded up these folks before they did any harm, the fact that it happened in the first place can't be erased. Caruso is in a Catch-22. She and the governor will take some hits for reducing the prison headcount to save money. But even if the state built more prisons and handed the bill to the taxpayer, eventually some of those crooks would get out and commit more crimes. Read More. |
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