LSJ Blogs: Just Asking

Be back in a bit

The Just Asking blog will return July 13.

Michigan's smaller future

It's getting hard to stay upbeat: "University of Michigan economists say the state's hard times will stick around for the rest of the year and into 2010. Economic forecaster George Fulton says he and colleague Joan Crary 'see some improvement, but it will continue to be slow and difficult.' They predict unemployment will average 15.8 percent in 2010, the highest rate since the current counting system began in 1970."

If these numbers hold, Michigan will run a jobless rate about 50 percent higher than the national average. At some point, though, a natural economic process should occur: People will leave where the jobs aren't and go to where the jobs are. Based on the economic trends, I'm convinced that Michigan cannot sustain 10 million people. Could the state be prosperous at 8 million is the real question for policy-makers. Being smaller is not automatically a bad thing.

Michigan's partisan infatuation

From Gongwer today: “Eleven non-partisan employees of the House will receive notification at the end of next week that they are losing their jobs as part of the chamber’s effort to cut costs.”

Wouldn’t it be better to keep nonpartisan staff — presumably the holders of objective expertise — as opposed to the partisan staffs?

Prisoner release mistake costly

State Rep. Rick Jones called today to make sure I saw his e-mail reporting “at least 44 sex offenders were released by mistake.”

“After being contacted by a mother who was upset that her son had been released from prison and then returned within 3 days, Rep. Jones investigated the situation. He learned that the State of Michigan Department of Corrections contracts with two psychologists to analyze sex offenders before parole.  The MDOC has 3 classifications that the psychologists are asked to make: keep the inmate in prison for more in house treatment, put the inmate in special treatment on the outside of prison, or release the inmate on parole because he has a low chance of recidivism. Over 200 hundred inmates were put into a 4th category which does not exist.  Many of these sex offenders need more treatment before release. At least 44 were released into Michigan communities by mistake. The inmates have now been recovered within 3 or 4 days,” reads the press release from Jones.

My thoughts:
1. Mistakes are bad. 2. This will complicate efforts to re-size Michigan’s prison population. 3. It’s still important to focus on what’s the best policy.

Do a little research and you’ll find that recidivism rates among sex offenders isn’t that different from any other offender. Are there incorrigibles? Of course. But that doesn’t mean every sex offender is, by definition, incorrigible and must be imprisoned forever.

But, again, Jones’ point will resonate because of the basic fact -- a released prisoner is in a better position to commit a crime than an incarcerated one.

If the state can imprison 50,000 or so people, while saving, say, $400 million or $500 million from the DOC budget — money Michigan must have in coming years to invest in other needs like roads  great. But I haven’t seen such a plan yet.

It's not full-fledged flight from Lansing

“Lansing has 4.5% decline in residents” — the headline may have some thinking that an exodus is under way out of the Capital City. I’m going to quibble, though, and say the latest census projections aren’t evidence of too much.

Lansing is shrinking, but there’s no exodus in the stats ... yet.

For example, the 4.5 percent figure is the decline between the 2000 census total of 119,128 and the 2008  estimate of 113,808. But, if you go back to the 2006 census estimate, Lansing was at 114,276. Lansing is smaller than it was in 2000, but it’s only lost 468 people between July 1, 2006, and July 1, 2008. That’s not even 1 percent of the population.

No doubt the numbers would be different if the census folks could show the most recent 12 months, when the local unemployment rate really took off.

But the real headline here is that the city continues to see a slow decline in its population, not any huge drops.

Pure Michigan earns praise

Courtesy of the governor's office: "The award-winning Pure Michigan tourism campaign has received another accolade, this one from Forbes, naming it among the 10 all-time best travel campaigns. ... Forbes ranked the Pure Michigan campaign sixth best, saying, 'this campaign sells with its simple and universal message: that sometimes we all need to get away from life’s stresses and relax a bit.'  Clearly, the three judges agreed.  Ranking the campaigns were Peter Greenberg, travel journalist; Rudy Maxa, contributing editor with National Geographic Traveler magazine; and Tom Parsons, publisher of BestFares.com."

Congrats all around. And on the the most important point for state government: "For each dollar Michigan spent on out-of-state advertising from 2004 through 2008, new visits to Michigan stimulated by that advertising created more than $40 of spending at Michigan businesses and generated $2.86 in new state tax collections."

A prisoner list, of sorts, is on the horizon

A voice mail came in late Monday from corrections spokesman Russ Marlan, updating the situation with the Oakland County prosecutor’s lawsuit.

Marlan reported the Department of Corrections will be responding to Oakland Prosecutor Jessica Cooper’s second FOIA request for information on a list of potential prisoner releases. He said that the problem is that the Parole Board does not schedule out its interviews for an entire year, so DOC can’t provide such a list to Cooper.

That's a relief

State Rep. Mark Meadows' always-helpful newsletter let's us know that the people of Michigan are being protected from dire threats in 2009:

Prohibit Brass Knuckles

House Bill 4828 (POLIDORI), Passed:  109-1

Next: Sent to the Senate for Consideration

House Bill 4828 prohibits 'brass knuckles' and expands the definition of that term to include any device worn over the fist with the purpose of increasing the impact of a blow with the fist.  The devices are prohibited regardless of what they are made of.  Current law only prohibits metallic devices and not plastic ones."

Really? We have to worry about plastic brass knuckles? One presumes that anyone using such a device, brass or plastic, has committed other crimes such as assault. Can't we rely on an assault charge to lock up a goon?

Move along, nothing to see here

In recent weeks, I have seen plenty of school buses parked on Walnut Street west of the Capitol, waiting to pick up their little riders who were fresh from a tour of how state government works.

At least, that’s what some want you to believe ... that policies are made in legislative chambers after due deliberation and uplifting debate and all.

The reality is much less ... photogenic: “Michigan comes in last among the states for personal financial disclosure by public officials, according to a new report from the Center for Public Integrity. Michigan is one of only three states that has no law requiring public officials to file a statement of their personal financial interests. The Michigan House of Representatives passed HB 4381, which would mandate personal financial disclosure for State officials, earlier this legislative session but the Senate has not acted on the bill,” reports the Michigan Campaign Finance Network.

See the full report here, then ask yourself: What does Michigan know that so many other states do not about trusting to the good intentions of its state lawmakers?

Taking their time

Is it just me, or is the construction work on Allegan Street downtown taken an inordinate amount of time? The latest CSO construction newsletter says the underground work between Washington and Grand is done, but now the intersection of Allegan and Washington is going down.

I know, I know ... patience is the order of the day.