Michigan Punishing Itself With Over Correcting Its People

[XLFD]

As 51st Circuit Court Judge Richard I. Cooper (in the background of the picture) wraps up his lengthy career as a jurist by getting even tougher on crime and justice (as noted here), and helping the prosecutor Paul Spaniola (foreground) try to put away people that are either innocent of any crime for many years (like Todd Lane Johnson) or  pressured unethically into admitting to crimes they couldn't have committed (like Fred Lewis ), Mason County is sending its people off to prison for hard time for lesser crimes.  This trend is likely to continue with his successor as three of the four candidates for his office are or have been prosecutors.

Questionable incarceration isn't just a local phenomenon; even though our local courts have proven efficient enough on providing state housing for more and more of our local people, throughout Michigan this is consistently happening enough so that our state has an unenviable distinction that only eight other states share. 

According to figures from the Kaiser Family Foundation, in the 2011 fiscal year Michigan was one of eight states to allocate more funding to its prisons than its universities, over two billion dollars is pumped into corrections each year.  Similarly, according to a 2012 Pew Research Center study, Michigan prisoners are behind bars 17 months longer than prisoners in 34 other states. 

Social change and rising crime rates in the 1960s and 1970s led to tougher laws and policies filtering in through the 1980s which “significantly increased sentence lengths, required prison time for minor offenses and intensified punishment for drug crimes.”  Not surprisingly, since the year 1980, Michigan's biggest growth industry has been its prison system .  Notably, it more than tripled from under 15,000 inmates to over 50,000 between 1984 and 2002.

Alarmingly, the Kaiser Family Foundation also has found that Michigan is the leader of all states in using a bigger share of its general fund for prisons/corrections.  All told it costs just slightly less that $100 a day to house an inmate on average, or about $35,000 a year.  It can cost the taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars a year just for medical bills alone for one inmate.  As medical costs rise, and our inmate population grows older, these costs can only go up.

A 2013 study by the Pew Center for the States, found Michigan's rate of incarceration dropped 12 percent between 2007 and 2012, and during the same period, crime fell 17 percent.  This counterintuitive result shows that there may need to be some tough decisions to make by our decision-makers on whether they believe the money spent on corrections can be more efficiently utilized than sending low-level criminals to prison and keeping them there for a long time.

Maybe it would be a good idea for our next 51st Circuit Court judge to campaign on reducing the costs of corrections by not refusing plea deals that would keep low level criminals out of the prison system and put them in prison anyway?  But do either of the four candidates have the courage to be looked at as being soft on crime and punishment, while being heavy on common sense? 

Probably not; this is, after all, Mason County, Michigan.  We have a reputation to uphold. 

[Johnny]

So XLFD, the next circuit court judge is suppose to think about the cost of housing a criminal when excepting or denying a plea deal?  He or she isn't suppose to be thinking of the law the broke, the family that could be involved or the harm that they did to someone or that persons family?  I am sure if something happened to you or one of your family members and the next circuit court judge excepts a plea deal, you will be ranting and raving over that decision.

What else is ironic is that you are talking about tax payers money and how we should be saving money by not sending people to prison.  Aren't you the one costing CITY tax payers money by filing petty lawsuits and making FOIA requests for silly info just because you have noting better to do besides cost tax payers money?  I find you starting this post comical and ironic.  You are getting upset by sending criminals away for longer than YOU think they should go away and its costing us money by sending a CRIMINAL to prison.  But XLFD files lawsuits because the city moved a city council meeting with YOU knowing in the correct amount of time.  

I am sure your comeback will be about how it cost way more sending away a prisoner than paying you out on stupid lawsuits and the costs of FOIA requests.  But as a tax payer and someone who has an occupation,  I'd rather have my income go towards sending a prisoner away than paying someone like you off just so you can have a new computer.  Normal people use their income from their job to buy things such as that.  Maybe you should look into that, for a way of making money for your family.  

[XLFD]

 I appreciate your trying to help me write a good comeback for your comment, Johnny, because I was almost ready to give up on your comment since it was confusing and I couldn't figure out whether your use of "excepting" and "excepts"  in the first paragraph was intentional or due to your lack of proper schooling ("except" means 'not including', "accept", means 'agreeing to', which is what I believe you were trying to say).

A judge should informedly reflect on all variables in a case and weigh them according to standing laws and his own scale of justice.  As for the case in point here, Tammi Spofford and Sarah Knysz are being made to stay in prison for up to five years, because one drove her husband's truck back to his house, and the other five-month pregnant one didn't flee from a murderer with a gun.  Oh, and this is big:  she removed the battery from her cell phone.  The nerve.

All big time non-crimes without a victim and could only be defined as accessory after the fact by using the most broadest definitions.  These are people in our prison system sucking up about $70,000 each year, found guilty by association.

I find it particularly ironic that in 2013 alone, the City of Ludington admitted in a stipulated judgment that they broke two laws within the Open Meetings Act (ironically, in a judgment signed by Richard Cooper himself), was found by the Michigan Appeals Court to owe me court costs and disbursements due to my prevailing in a FOIA lawsuit against them because they did not supply records they were legally required to disclose, and that arbitration before federal court deemed that $15,000 would be a fair settlement cost between the City (with co-defendant John Shay) and me for the damages suffered by me via the Workplace Safety Policy.

Everyone should have the right to know about an open meeting, everybody should have the right to inspect or get copies of most public records, everybody should have the right to go to their local city hall and police department without having to risk being charged with a misdemeanor, everybody should be able to attend an open meeting, everybody should have the right to vote, everybody should have the right to due process, etc. 

The City of Ludington, in all of its corrupt glory, violated those rights for me and others.  If you are not part of the problem, wise up and become part of the solution.   

[AQUAMAN]

Great reply X, and right on cue for Johnny. We see these "trolls" here that come and go quite a bit. Ever notice how anonymous they always remain? Page "set to private, you must become a friend first". Then you look and see, they don't have any friends. And are always on the defensive and attacking when any thread isn't an acceptable program in their sheeple mind. The same type of sheeple that one radio show proclaimed today to be "always looking for fault with their fellow man for asking too many questions, looking for any single word in a sentence to pounce on for discrimination and making judgments, etc.". These are the type of progressives that never ever have any change of mind, even with facts and figures at their fingertips. They are programmed robots for all intents and purposes, and remain so until death. Thus, we can't expect any learned statements nor posts as such, just the same jibberish and outbursts to quell their system of agendas. Warped agendas that don't defend our constitution nor rights, but an agenda to always agree with any standard of justice and governing that we are prey to. Mason County has and continues to have people in positions of power that abuse it every chance they get, and are proud of it. I know attorneys and people state-wide that won't come here to practice law, or buy property, just because the system here is so warped and over the top with injustice. 

[Willy]

I found an interesting article; http://www.pewstates.org/news-room/press-releases/us-imprisonment-r...
Texas and other states’ successes: In 2007, before the economic crisis, Texas put a halt to its prison construction boom and invested $241 million in treatment and diversion programs. The results have been dramatic: State taxpayers avoided nearly $3 billion in new prison spending, and the parole failure rate is down 39 percent since 2007.5 Meanwhile, the statewide crime rate has fallen to levels not seen since the 1960s.6

Many other states that have experienced recent drops in the crime rate also have taken substantial steps to rein in the size and cost of their corrections systems. Often backed by overwhelming bipartisan votes, leaders in these states have shortened terms behind bars for lower-level offenders or diverted them from prison altogether. Several states, including South Dakota and Oregon during their 2013 legislative sessions, reinvested large sums of the resulting savings into probation and parole supervision to break the cycle of recidivism and improve public safety.

Johnny
You still don't seem to understand what has taken place regarding how the City has been operating and how X has been treated. Do some research so you can fill in the blanks.

[XLFD]

Good data, Willy, and it will quite often be countered by those wishing to expand the prison-industrial complex by using uncommon anecdotes of low-level criminals getting out early and committing higher level crimes.  However often this does occur, it is politically difficult for Democrats or Republicans to go up against when you ask for reform.  The current reformers run up against that, much like Michael Dukakis did because of the early release of Willy Horton while he was governor of Massachusetts when he ran for president in 1988.  This was not the same Willy Horton who helped win the Detroit Tigers the World Series in 1968.

[wildfire]

Well first of all if 35,000 is paying for 1 inmate for medical then someone is getting the stick the, cause the inmates in Ionia prison don't don't any medical n if they put in for it the nurse/doctor their WILL tell them their is nothing wrong with them just lose fat cause they are "FAT"  & here these guys have lost tons n tons of weight n the more they lose their won't be any "FAT' on the bones to pad them selfs n their will hurt more, I understand its not the holiday inn But  you don't don't your teeth fix, you don't get in to see  DOCTOR  WHEN YOU ARE DEATHY SICK  n coghing so bad they sound like they are coughing up a lung, their are spiders n all kinds of insects going out of the vents n the guys are getting bitten by these spiders , They have mersa going around in their , they only get fed on 57 cents a day in their, and   the ones that have the bottom bunk's well they are the special boys,   i don't know how many have them,  that r special but the rest sleep in a pad as thin  as a sheet on a steel bed n the pillow is as flat as a sock as i been told, So if the state gets so much money for each inmate going in their were does that 'MONEY" go n what for, cause it sure isn't helping any of them guys in their,Also maybe the 51st court needs to check out all the cases again before or after the fact to see what cooper said their where loop holes in the case n why he aloud the case to go on n why he did not dismiss the case when he seen the complaint real mother told her what to say in the court room, that should of been grounds for dismissal , So the court needs to not throw people in prison like Todd Lane Johnson, n Fred Lewis  that are innocent, The reputation of Mason County, Michigan isn't looking good so many people already think other wise about that town, n have for many years, most people are smart not to move their cause if they do it will end up bad for them at some point or another, I have herad that from alot of people  n some will say its ok to visit but their would never live their again. 

[AQUAMAN]

Typical troll that Johnny, Soooo! So do your homework, and quit putting words that aren't there in other people's mouths. 

[XLFD]

You can stay above the poverty level and pay a fair share of taxes with a family of six while earning $32,000 a year as a household, but you can't support one average prisoner living in a small cubicle.   Sad.