The Michigan prison population grew by nearly 2 percent last year, continuing an ongoing trend that many legal experts say won't slow down anytime soon.
The Michigan Department of Corrections report shows that Michigan's prison population of about 49,000 increased by 820 inmates — which is actually below the 10-year average before 2003 of 1,400 more prisoners each year.
The increase cost taxpayers more than $24 million extra last year, with about $30,000 allocated for every prisoner.
Greg Bird, a spokesman for the state's budget office, said while $24 million may seem like a lot of money, it is a small percentage of the total cost of running prisons in Michigan.
"The correction department's budget is around $2 billion," he said.
Bird said that every year, the state's budget and corrections departments try to estimate the next year's growth and budget funds accordingly.
There are a number of ways to find additional funds, if they are needed, he said.
"The two major ways we find money are either make cuts to find the funds or find additional ways to gain revenues," Bird said.
It is important to find this money because the state needs the means to make sure all prisons have the room to take on more prisoners, he said.
One example of cutting funds is to decrease average prison terms, he said.
Some of the funds are used to find additional space for prisoners.
According to some prison officials, that additional space is needed.
"In simple terms, prisons in the state are filled," said Karen Whalen, an administrative assistant to the warden of the Huron Valley Complex-Women prison in Ypsilanti.
"From this prison's point of view, there is not a lot of extra space available."
Bird said additional space might be available soon.
A 2007 fiscal year projection report shows that there may not be a prison population increase next year.
While Bird is hopeful for a population decrease, other officials said the change won't come soon.
"For the foreseeable future, it does not look hopeful for this number to decrease," said Ingham County Circuit Court Judge James Giddings.
Giddings said the problem with rising prison populations won't be solved until a focus is put on the source of the problem — the factors that lead to crime.
The national prison population increased by 1.6 percent to a total equaling about 1.4 million in 2005, according to the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics.
"One problem is a lot of the time they don't get support from their family or community, so they end up falling into things like drugs and alcohol," Giddings said.
"If we begin to address these fundamental issues and try to fix them, then these certain demographics might go down, and when these go down, the prison population numbers will go down as well."
Better education might chip away at the prison population, but MSU criminal justice Professor Homer Hawkins said the problem is not at the top of the public's to-do list.
"It's all about priorities and where we spend the money," Hawkins said.
"As of right now, it is more of a priority to spend money on locking people up than to spend that money on educating people so that they stay out of prison."
