Would it surprise you to know that Michigan has 1,287 fewer police officers today than it did in September 2001? This is ironic when you think Michigan has four border crossings into Canada and the government has put an emphasis on “Homeland Security” issues since the 9/11 attacks. But the issue of the decrease in police officers on the streets of Michigan’s communities goes far beyond Homeland Security.

This country, Michigan included, went on an incarceration boom to respond to the rising violent crime rate of the 1980s and early 90s. In 1975 the prison population of this country was 240,593. This population has increased to over 2,000,000 today. The reasons for this increase include minimum and mandatory sentences, truth-in-sentencing laws, habitual offender laws, sentencing guideline changes, tightening up early parole and charging juveniles as adults. Taking these violent and habitual offenders off the street has seriously affected our crime rate. In September of this year, the Bureau of Justice Statistics released the results of the National Crime Victimization Survey for 2004. The results confirm this major reduction in crime. Violent crime against persons age 12 or older was down 57% from 1993 to 2004. Property crime during this same period was also impacted with household burglary rate falling 49%; car theft 54%; and the theft rate 49%.

How have these statistics impacted the reduction of police officers in Michigan as well as other states? Many mayors, city managers and township supervisors have pointed to these dropping crime rates as a reason to reduce staffing levels in their police departments. Here are just a few of the many departments that have been impacted by these reductions:

• Livonia – 14 down
• Saginaw – 76 down
• Southfield – 9 down
• Washtenaw County – 35 down

This crime drop is about to abruptly come to an end and many of these jurisdictions will be ill equipped to handle it. Why is it about to come to end? PAROLE. A considerable percentage of the inmates who were incarcerated during this prison boom will be released back onto our streets. Very few offenders stay in prison forever. As a matter of fact, 95% of all state prisoners will be released from prison at some point. Almost 80% will be released on parole. Nationally, we are releasing well over 500,000 prisoners a year back into the community. This is twice as many prisoners as we had in our entire prison system in 1975. These are individuals who come from a corrections system that offers little or no rehabilitation.

In 1982, slightly over 13,000 inmates were housed in Michigan prisons. Today that number has swelled to over 49,000. Almost 16,000 of these inmates are eligible for parole. Inmates become eligible to apply for parole upon serving their minimum sentence. In 1992, then-Governor John Engler reorganized the parole board as a direct result of the murder spree of Leslie Allen Williams, a sex offender who was paroled in 1990 and then went on to murder four teenage girls. The Michigan Parole Board was reorganized to consist of ten full-time, non-Civil Service employees appointed by the Director of the Department of Corrections. Since the Director is an appointee of the Governor, the Governor can influence appointments to the parole board. The attitude of the board following the 1992 reorganization was one of reluctance to grant parole. If a new governor is looking at saving money during a very poor economic period, parole is a viable option. The most recent Michigan Parole Board statistics available are those for 2001 to 2003. It is interesting to note that the percentage of parole grants during that period increased from 47.7% to 51.8%. The Michigan Department of Corrections budget for 2006 is a staggering 1.88 billion dollars. The annual cost for housing an inmate is approximately $30,000. It doesn’t take a mathematician to figure out where the greatest savings would be to the state.