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Michigan Provides More Avenues for Rehabilitated Juveniles

January 7, 2013 By Jeanette Moll

Some juveniles who commit delinquent acts truly learn from their actions and are able to turn their lives around. For juveniles who have reached this level of rehabilitation, it is important that their past mistakes don’t stand in their way of living productive, law abiding lives.

Michigan recently enacted legislation that would allow rehabilitated youths convicted of three or fewer misdemeanors or certain felonies to seal their records after completing their sentence. Prior to this legislation, only first-time misdemeanants could seal their records in Michigan.

This measure is important to ensure that youths who have turned their behavior around and are set on the right path can go to college or find gainful employment without their record standing in their way. Sealing records can also incentivize good behavior and full adherence to rehabilitation, as juveniles know that if they make the right choices their past won’t unnecessarily hold them back.

Filed Under: Juvenile Justice, Michigan, Priority Issues, ROC Blog, State Initiatives

Crime, Workforce, and Economic Development

October 18, 2012 By Jeanette Moll

In a recent poll, Detroit residents pegged crime as their biggest concern. This bucks the national trend of Americans worrying less and less about safety as crime rates drop. In fact, only one percent of Americans elsewhere believe that crime is the nation’s most important problem.

Much more troublesome, Detroit residents also say they plan to move—likely due, in part, to their daily concerns about public safety.

Without a viable workforce, economic development in Detroit will likely remain stunted, unable to thrive without citizens to fill the jobs, buy consumer goods in city limits, or use services that employ other Detroit citizens.

Evidence-based criminal justice policy is key to fixing the problem in Detroit and in similar cities. With targeted interventions that truly address the underlying causes of crime, low-level offenders can effectively be rehabilitated, leaving prison bed space free to house the violent, dangerous offenders each jurisdiction needs off its streets to truly thrive.

Filed Under: Michigan, Other, Priority Issues, ROC Blog, State Initiatives

Michigan Considers Swift & Sure Sanctions

October 10, 2012 By Jeanette Moll

In an effort to more effectively supervise probationers and parolees, Michigan is looking to Hawaii for answers. Specifically, the HOPE Court, founded in Hawaii in 2005, provides swift and sure sanctions for supervision violations. This is a more effective method of supervising offenders in the community because the prospect of immediate sanctions, including a weekend in jail, deters far more misbehavior than long-off, delayed, and less-than-probable revocations.

In the original HOPE Court, this method has reduced positive drug tests by 86 percent and reduced missed probation appointments by 80 percent. Revocations as well as reoffending are down more than 50 percent.

Other jurisdictions—including Fort Worth, Texas, and New Jersey—have followed suit. Increases in reoffending, as well as high numbers of technical violators being sent to prison, are causing Michigan officials to consider whether they too should adopt the swift and sure sanction model. Given the dramatic gains in public safety, as well as millions in taxpayer savings possible, the HOPE Court could provide hope for Michigan’s correctional system.

Filed Under: Adult Probation, Michigan, Priority Issues, ROC Blog, State Initiatives

Encouraging New CSG Report on Declining Recidivism in 7 States

September 25, 2012 By Vikrant P. Reddy

This morning, the Council of State Governments Justice Center released an encouraging new report on declining recidivism rates. The report examined the 2005 and 2007 recidivism rates in seven states: Kansas, Michigan, Mississippi, Ohio, Oregon, Texas, and Vermont. In all seven states, recidivism rates in 2007 were significantly lower than those in 2005. Indeed, one state–Michigan–realized an extraordinary decline of 18%. As the report explains, between 2005 and 2007, these seven states made a concerted effort to identify the offenders most at risk for re-offending, and they prioritized their limited re-entry resources for these at-risk populations. The Secretary of the Kansas Department of Corrections explained his department’s new philosophy: “One of my wardens constantly asks his staff, right down to the line staff, ‘What can we do to reduce recidivism?’ This gets them thinking that reentry is an important part of what they do…that they can do something to improve the likelihood that the people who leave their custody are successful when they return home.” The results speak for themselves:

Recidivism

Plummeting Recidivism Rates





Filed Under: Kansas, Michigan, Ohio, Parole and Re-Entry, Priority Issues, ROC Blog, State Initiatives, Texas, Vermont

Community Based Re-Entry in Detroit and Cleveland

July 10, 2012 By Jeanette Moll

One of the most important and fundamental aspects of an effective criminal justice system is proper reentry that ensures public safety is protected while successfully transitioning an offender from prison to the free world. To achieve these dual goals, two jurisdictions have adopted novel community-centered approaches to reentry.

In Detroit, with a program nicknamed “New Beginnings,” police officers serve as mentors to parolees, aiding offenders in job placement and arranging for community service and volunteerism opportunities. Police officers also focus on the old habits that put the parolees in prison in the first place, and coping mechanisms for their new lives, such as anger management techniques. The program participants hope that changing an offender’s attitude about law enforcement and helping him to see a police officer as an ally may increase the likelihood of desistance.

New Beginnings is an example of focusing reentry on both public safety, via supervision and daily contact with law enforcement, and successful transitioning, due to the job placement and mentoring.

In Cleveland, “Breaking the Cycle” focuses first and foremost on job placement. Given the evidence that demonstrates the correlation between high employment rates among ex-offenders and decreased recidivism rates, Cleveland’s focus on employment is well-placed. Further, Breaking the Cycle seeks to be realistic with offenders about what employers expect and the beliefs held about ex-offenders.

Both New Beginnings and Breaking the Cycle are community oriented reentry programs that go beyond the supervision usually found in parole programming and instead seek to put offenders to work and keep them out of prison for good.

Filed Under: Michigan, Ohio, Parole and Re-Entry, Priority Issues, ROC Blog, State Initiatives

Sentencing Serious Juvenile Offenders

June 14, 2012 By Jeanette Moll

An interesting new report released on Michigan juvenile offenders reveals that most states do not use juvenile life-without-parole (“JLWOP”) sentencing. The few that do use it, however, use it often. Specifically, two-thirds of all “JLWOP” sentences have been issued by just five states (Michigan, Pennsylvania, Florida, Louisiana, California), while in the past five years most states (39) only issued zero or one JLWOP sentence each year. The U.S. Supreme Court will soon decide two cases related to the constitutionality of this hotly debated issue.

Filed Under: California, Florida, Juvenile Justice, Louisiana, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Priority Issues, ROC Blog, State Initiatives

Criag DeRoche’s Radio Interview with Tony Conley

June 13, 2012 By Vikrant P. Reddy

This morning, Craig DeRoche, the former Speaker of the Michigan House and a signatory to the Right On Crime Statement of Principles, discussed Right On Crime on the Tony Conley Morning Show on 1320 WILS in Lansing. Listen to the full interview here:

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Filed Under: Michigan, Priority Issues, Prisons, ROC Blog, State Initiatives

Bridge Magazine Highlights Conservative Leadership on Corrections

March 14, 2012 By Jeanette Moll

Bridge Magazine, a publication from the Center on Michigan, is in the middle of a month-long series analyzing the recent rise in the number of conservative legislators who are taking prison and corrections issues head-on and implementing smart, cost-effective reforms.

In a recent article, Bridge noted that 13 states that passed prison reform measures in 2011 were led by Republican governors. Ten of those states also had a Republican-controlled legislature.

Singling out Texas as a leader, Bridge discussed the issue with Texas legislators Representative Jerry Madden and Senator John Whitmire, who led the wave of reform in Texas that established the model for several other states, including Ohio, Alabama, and Florida. Bridge also noted the support from well-known conservative advocates, including Grover Norquist, a signatory to the Right On Crime Statement of Principles.

Filed Under: Michigan, Priority Issues, Prisons, ROC Blog, State Initiatives

Using Incarceration to Solve a Contract Dispute in Michigan?

February 20, 2012 By Jeanette Moll

Eight years ago, the transportation department for the state of Michigan contracted with a bridge and construction company called Ambassador Bridge to work on a throughway between Michigan and Canada. The two parties interpreted parts of the agreement differently, and the state sued Ambassador Bridge for breach of contract.

Two years after the trial—which, naturally, was a civil trial—had concluded, and Michigan had won, the trial judge threw the 84-year-old owner of Ambassador Bridge, Matty Moroun, and the company’s president, Dan Stamper, into jail for contempt of court because Ambassador Bridge had not complied with the court’s order to complete the work on the bridge.

The construction executives, who spent one night in jail with the threat of more to come, had been under the impression that they were in complete compliance with judicial orders.

Jail time—even one night—should not be used to force the hand of a party to a contract dispute. Ordering specific performance on a contract and then jailing a party for failing to perform is akin to putting a person in debtor’s prison. Such criminal sanctions for otherwise civil disputes are unnecessary and needlessly wasteful of several state resources including the courts that are forced to hear the appeal, the jail space occupied by the non-criminal business owners, the jailers who monitor that jail space, and the sheriff deputies called upon to arrest and transport the offenders.

Furthermore, the use of criminal sanctions in otherwise ordinary business disputes does not exactly encourage growth in Michigan, a state with dismal employment rates where the expansion of business, construction, and innovation are sorely needed.

Filed Under: Michigan, Overcriminalization, Priority Issues, ROC Blog, State Initiatives

Truth-Telling from Some Michigan Inmates

January 18, 2012 By Jeanette Moll

In a correctional facility in Detroit, once a month, hardened adult inmates do something rather rare: sit quietly in a circle and discuss their lives with complete strangers. Those strangers, male youth from across Michigan who were referred from a variety of state agencies, are here to listen to the reality of the aftermath of a criminal life through the Youth Deterrent Program.

Not surprisingly, these truths have an extraordinary impact on juveniles, often from bad neighborhoods, and sometimes just beginning to run afoul of the law.

The Detroit Free Press details how the inmates and young men share stories of lost parents, the fallacies of gang life, and how their own children are left fatherless as they serve long terms behind bars.

Preliminary results are encouraging. The first group of participants, about 100 youth, after hearing the hard truth about criminal activity thus far have avoided any serious trouble in the almost two years after completing their program work, according to the program director.

While this is not a panacea for all juvenile delinquency, showing juveniles how a life of crime usually ends up may be, for some, exactly what they needed to hear.

Filed Under: Juvenile Justice, Michigan, Priority Issues, ROC Blog, State Initiatives
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