Michigan set to overhaul criminal justice system

The Michigan Legislature approved 20 bills this week that would overhaul the state’s criminal justice system.

Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette praised the legislation, which enjoyed near-unanimous support in the Senate and passed with bipartisan support in the House as well. Schuette said the reforms “offers an opportunity to break the cycle of recidivism, promote public safety and protect our communities.”

The change has been a long time coming.

The legislative debate about criminal justice reform coalesced in 2014 around a set of bills introduced by then-Rep. Joe Haveman, R-Holland. These changes were based on the findings of a Council of State Governments survey of Michigan’s criminal justice system the year before.

Disagreement over a proposal to enact presumptive parole – a policy that automatically grants parole to some inmates who have served their minimum sentence – ultimately killed this original attempt, with the bills dying in the Senate.

House Republicans reintroduced reforms, including presumptive parole, in early 2015. Again, however, presumptive parole met with staunch opposition and the year ended with no further progress.

{mosads}In 2016, both the House and the Senate introduced separate criminal justice reform packages. The Senate passed a 21-bill package that is the basis for the bills that Gov. Snyder will likely sign next week. The House passed four more targeted proposals, including presumptive parole. Although one important reform — the removal of the “successor judge veto” — was passed into law, the remaining proposals failed again.

But the Senate wasted no time in getting its bills back on the table in early 2017 and, under the leadership of Speaker Tom Leonard, the House finally approved the Senate’s proposed reforms this week. The Senate concurred with the amendments the House made to many of the bills, which are now en route to the governor for his signature.

The pending legislation is wide-ranging — it includes everything from creating a new type of problem-solving specialty court to changing the name of the Michigan Department of Corrections. But one of its primary goals is to inject some common sense into the way the state administers criminal justice.

This mindset is reflected in many bills. One would only allow state funding to flow to probation and parole programs that operate using evidence-based best practices. Another would eliminate a rule that results in imprisoning people for technicalities rather than crimes.

A third critically important measure would require better data collection. One of its companion bills would codify an official definition of “recidivism,” which refers to an offender’s relapse into crime, and a fundamental measure of the success of Michigan’s corrections system.

The package also includes reforms that require the corrections department to develop special rehabilitation plans for inmates who are 18 to 22 years old. They also call for cutting off welfare benefits to people who abscond from parole.

Another promising bill makes it possible for nonprofit organizations to provide reentry services to inmates while they are still in prison.

These laws represent big strides in the direction of effective administration of criminal justice in Michigan. The data-driven and outcome-focused mindset that has begun to prevail in Lansing on these issues is a welcome development embraced by stakeholders on both sides of the political aisle. If all goes well, Michigan may join the ranks of states that have successfully reinvented their criminal justice systems into modern, effective models for the rest of the nation to follow.

Kahryn Riley is a policy analyst at the Mackinac Center for Public Policy in Midland, Mich. She directs its criminal justice policy initiative.

The views expressed by contributors are their own and are not the views of The Hill.