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| Save money on prisons without risking officers |
| By newsday.com |
| Published: 10/12/2009 |
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Michigan's budget woe's and the role corrections plays in our state's safety is no more obvious than to the corrections officer. We go to work every day, unarmed among violent criminals, to keep our communities safe from drug dealers, murderers and sex offenders. Without question, it's the toughest job in Michigan. And we do this job through good times and bad - through prison expansion in the '80s and early '90s, and through cutbacks and closures that mark this decade. The state has gone from 10,000 officers to 8,500, closed prisons, emptied gun towers, increased officer to prisoner ratios and lowered prisoner classifications to house them cheaper. The result - fewer officers responsible for more inmates with greater freedoms. We've seen an increase in critical incidents (both prisoner-on-prisoner and prisoner-on-officer) ... many serious enough to require hospital treatment. Because this happens nearly every day it has become "routine" and rarely considered "newsworthy." And yet our officers get right back up and go to work. Beyond smaller incidents, inmates can (and have recently begun to) work together in protest. Nearly 100 inmates in the eastern UP - upset about reduced exercise time and being housed eight men to a cubicle designed for five - refused to lock-up while marching the yard and shouting for others to join in. Fortunately, this ended without violence. Our prisons, however, are so full that officers frequently can't separate trouble-makers from the general population. Read More. |
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