#SmartJustice Matters

Governor Whitmer signing Executive Order No. 2019-10. (Behind Gov. Whitmer, l to r): D.J. Hilson, Muskegon County Prosecutor and President, Prosecuting Attorneys Association of Michigan; Stephan Currie, Executive Director, Michigan Association of Counties; State Rep. Lee Chatfield, Speaker of the House; Lt. Gov. Garlin Gilchrist II; Chief Justice Bridget McCormack; and Attorney General Dana Nessel​.

By Melissa Walsh

While covering city beats with the Grosse Pointe News, I learned how vulnerable many can become to arrest and incarceration, especially those with low income. For instance, many of the police reports I read as part of my reporting detailed arrests of drivers pulled over after their license plate had been scanned by a public safety officer while driving along Lake Shore Drive.

I recall the report of a young mother being pulled over for expired auto insurance. She had not been speeding. She hadn’t run a red light or made an illegal turn. The officer had simply discovered by running her plate that her insurance coverage had expired just days earlier.

The officer arrested her. She had her two toddler-aged children in the car and told the officer she was on her way to drop them off at day care before heading to her job in Grosse Pointe. The officer allowed her to call her husband. When he arrived, he was arrested for the same offense — driving with expired auto insurance.

A relative picked up the kids at the police station while the two were in custody.

Of course, a law enforcement officer who discovers the infraction and releases the offender is potentially liable if they were to cause an accident following the release. I get that. Yet the couple I mentioned above did not demonstrate being a threat to society. And yet, for missing a premium payment, they were facing the financial quicksand of court fines and fees, in addition to missing work and the trauma of their children witnessing their arrest. ​

I read about many arrests like this one, which, from the perspective of common sense, seem unreasonable. Is jail being used to protect society? Or are the lives of too many arrestees upset with job loss and financial hardship caused by a justice system that counters a smart approach to justice?

​The problem of the accelerated rates of arrest and incarceration over the past few decades, especially among low-income populations, caught the scrutiny of the ACLU, which launched its national Campaign for Smart Justice in 2018. With volunteers investigating the arrest and incarceration systems and statistics in each of the nation’s 50 states, the ACLU aims to examine the issues and promote criminal justice reform.

In early 2019, Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer issued Executive Order 2019-10, which created the Michigan Joint Task Force on Jail and Pretrial Incarceration, which went to work from April to November 2019 to investigate Michigan's justice system and determine its failures and best practices, including alternatives to plunging an individual into a whirlwind of court fines and fees (ie. tether and drug-test fees) and probation and incarceration that only the wealthy can avoid. Their findings were released on January 14, 2020.

Is jail being used to protect society? Or are the lives of too many arrestees upset with job loss and financial hardship caused by a justice system that counters a smart approach to justice?

From the Executive Summary of the Michigan Joint Task Force on Jail and Pretrial Incarceration, January 2020.

I attended the task force’s fourth meeting on October 18, held in the auditorium of the Wayne State University Law School. The morning session included statements by task force members from the perspectives of law enforcement, prosecution, public defense, and judiciary. These statements were followed by data-analysis presentations from PEW Charitable Trust researchers on arrest, incarceration, probation, and re-incarceration statistics in Michigan.

I learned that Michigan's courts are incarcerating three times as many people today than 35 years ago. The detainments are mostly due to a conviction of driving under the influence and the resulting loss of a driver's license.

Half of Michigan’s criminal court cases in 2018 were traffic offenses. The third most common reason for incarceration in Michigan was driving without a valid license.

I also learned more about how law enforcement officers often find themselves in situations where they have no other option but to arrest an offender who would clearly benefit more from mental health services than jail time.

The inability to meet rigid drug-testing requirements — often for offenses not related to drug use — is the number-one factor in probation violations leading to re-incarceration.

During the October meeting, the task force cited reasons for arrest as to: 1) prevent imminent harm; 2) secure a crime scene; and 3) prevent the destruction of evidence.

It cited reasons to apply arrest alternatives as to: 1) preserve law enforcement time and resources; 2) relieve pre-trial docket pressure; and 3) redirect individuals with behavioral health needs.

In its final report, released January 14, 2010, the task force concluded that while “incarceration in a jail can prevent an immediately dangerous situation from escalating,” “even short periods of jail incarceration can increase future criminal behavior.”

It acknowledged that many “detained in jails were not getting meaningful due-process hearings, and that poor people were being denied equal protection of the laws when access to money was the deciding factor between those released and those detained.”

It cited estimates that roughly one-quarter (23 percent according to PEW) of those incarcerated suffer mental illness and that, “while taxpayers spend nearly half a billion dollars annually on jails, alternatives to jail and services for crime victims are relatively underfunded and in high demand across the state.”

As a news reporter, I’ve seen in police reports and courtrooms many lives turned upside down over minor offenses. I’ve come to understand how a person can get sucked into a vicious cycle of fines and license suspension and incarceration and re-incarceration due to a petty probation violation.

Within my own family, I’ve come to know what’s broken in the system and how the system can break a person with proven potential for contributing well in society. But as a Michigan resident, where the prison population has exploded, I’m only one among hundreds of thousands who’ve seen up close the disfunction in the system in its treatment of low-income non-violent offenders. When it negatively impacts a loved one, it's heartrending.

I urge you to read the task force’s full report here. Within it, you’ll find links to public testimony, each putting a face on an issue of disfunction that the task force seeks to resolve.

Share your story in a comment below.

Contact Pure Heart at (586) 690-1431 and info@pureheartcares.org. For volunteer and family registration, call (313) 655-6385.

​Among several who offered public testimony during the October 18 meeting of the Michigan Joint Task Force on Jail and Pretrial Incarceration was Shirelle Hogan, Founder of Pure Heart Foundation.

Hogan’s mother was in prison when she was 6 years old, while her father was concurrently serving a term of three and a half years in the county jail. Two months after her father's release, when Hogan was 7 years old, he was killed.

Hogan grew into a woman whose heart cried for children of the incarcerated. And she moved on that passion by founding Pure Heart.

​“Our mission is to break the cycle of generational involvement in the criminal justice system,” Hogan told task force members.

In her allotted two minutes, she touched on the effects of children of incarcerated parents, currently 228,000 in Michigan — 1 in 10 in Michigan and 1 in 4 in Wayne County.

“76 percent of children of incarcerated parents end up in the cycle of incarceration due to lack of support,” she said. “Can there be some type of system in place that, once a child is separated from their parent due to jail or prison, there is an initial, immediate prevention for these children, because ultimately 56 percent of children of incarcerated parents are in foster care and face homelessness.”

With Hogan were a young man and young woman whose parents also were incarcerated. They testified to how the Pure Heart Foundation supported them and urged the task force to consider in their investigation the children of the incarcerated and the benefits of programs to assist them.

​— Melissa Walsh

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​© 2020 Melissa Walsh