Just lock them up

A big item in Michigan news is how to reduce the cost of prisons. One option being considered is to allow the maximum security prison in Standish house the prisoners currently in Gitmo, which would bring in federal dollars.

Michigan isn't the only one with prison problem. Here is a map of expenses, as percent of state budget, being spent on prisons (no idea why there is no data for Mich.). Oregon spends more than 10% and Michigan is one of several that spends more on prisons than on education.

It gets worse. America, with a population of 300 million has a prison population of 2.2 million. The next 36 highest prison populations are in countries with a combined populations of 900 million and they have only 1.8 million in prison.

NPR did a story about the fading glory of California's Folsom Prison, made famous by Johnny Cash. Back in the last 60s, when Cash sang there, Folsom was the model for the rest of the country on how to rehabilitate inmates and keep them out of prison after release. No more. The Calif. system is so broke and has so many inmates that it can't afford efforts at rehabilitation.

The cause of the collapse? A series of get-tough-on-crime laws that boosted the prison population, mostly with drug offenders. And the power behind getting those laws passed? The prison warden union, whose membership increased by 17 times in the last 30 years and whose salaries have jumped.