Senator Eliot Shapleigh - El Paso, Texas

Skyrocketing health care costs, the aging of the prison population and overzealous zero tolerance policies for occasional drug users are all causing prison spending to soar, crowding out money needed for investments to help the United States compete with China, India and other emerging economic competitors. (photo courtesy www.oregon.gov)

Michigan is just one of four states to spend more money on prisons than higher education -- a pattern that must end to expedite the state's transition to the knowledge economy.

The state spent $1.19 on corrections for every $1 spent on public universities and community colleges last fiscal year. Only Vermont's ratio was higher, according to a new report released by the Pew Center on the States, the Washington, D.C.-based think tank.

In comparison, Minnesota had the lowest ratio, spending 17 cents on prisons for every $1 for higher education.

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Gov. Jennifer Granholm and key lawmakers are working with the Council of State Governments to craft sentencing reforms that can maintain safety while trimming costs. Michigan Corrections Department spokesman Russ Marlan noted that Pew is providing funding for the Council on State Governments project.

Other states, such as Texas and Kansas, are proving that effective cost-saving reforms are possible. Among their strategies: imposing sanctions other than prison for probation and parole violators whose infractions are considered "technical," such as missing a counseling session. Michigan shouldn't be spending thousands of dollars on such minor offenses.

Kansas and Texas also make greater use of community supervision for low-risk offenders, ensuring they have enough prison beds for violent convicts while helping less dangerous lawbreakers become more productive, taxpaying citizens.

Texas, in particular, provides lessons for Michigan. Rather than spend $523 million on more prison cells, in 2007 state legislators from both parties authorized an overhaul of the correctional system.

They dramatically expanded drug courts, drug treatment and diversion beds, many of them in secure facilities. They also passed broad changes in parole practices.

In total, the state anticipates saving $210 million during the next two years -- plus an additional $233 million if recidivism rates drops and Texas can avoid contingency plans to build three new prisons.

"It's always been safer politically to build the next prison, rather than stop and see whether that's really the smartest thing to do," Texas state Sen. John Whitmire of Houston, chairman of the Senate's criminal justice committee, told the Pew researchers. "But we're at a point where I don't think we can afford to do that anymore."

Michigan is at that point, too. In the new global economy, research universities are the new engines of economic growth -- and state is starving those engines. This is self-defeating policy-making. While other states are investing more in higher education, Michigan is among the worst in the country for keeping up its budget funding for universities and colleges, resulting in tuition spikes for families.

Skyrocketing health care costs, the aging of the prison population and overzealous zero tolerance policies for occasional drug users are all causing prison spending to soar, crowding out money needed for investments to help the United States compete with China, India and other emerging economic competitors.

Michigan legislators need to pass sensible corrections reforms that can keep the state safe while investing more in universities, spurring the state's economic comeback.