Change is the only constant in prison world

You could say Heidi Washington is “mayor” of a widely dispersed Michigan community slightly larger than Muskegon.

Her population is shrinking, and she’s glad about that. After all, it costs state taxpayers about $35,000 for each of her residents.

She also has far more power over her people than any mayor, and while she has to look after their welfare, she also has to protect us from them. She is the director of the Michigan Department of Corrections, the state’s network of 30 prison facilities.

“Change is the only thing that is constant,” she said during an interview in her office, looking up with a faint smile from a pile of reports about various aspects of a system that held, as of last month 40,317 convicted felons. Some will be released soon; others there for life, and many others are in between. “I always say, ‘Don’t look back – we aren’t going that way.’”

Today, prison spending, at about US$1.9 billion a year, is the largest single component of the state’s general fund budget, and there is tremendous pressure to reduce that.

Ironically, that pressure also sometimes comes from the same politicians who oppose reducing sentences, because they want to brag they are tough on crime.

Washington is acutely conscious of the need to protect public safety. She has worked for corrections since 1998, along the way serving in a variety of jobs, including as warden in two state prisons. “Originally this was just going to be until I finished my law degree,” said Washington, now 47. She had intended to become a prosecutor, but found corrections work so compelling she stayed.

Two years ago, she was appointed to the prison system’s top job in the wake of the Aramark food services scandal. While she is doing her best to work with the company that replaced it, one gets the clear impression she would rather have not privatized food service.

She also vigorously opposes the concept of private prisons; corrections, she said, “is a core function of state government.”

Politically, her conservative credentials aren’t in question. She is the daughter of Tom Washington, Michigan’s legendary — and controversial — hunting enthusiast, and is herself on the national NRA board. But she thinks being conservative also means not wasting taxpayers’ money, and she would like more inmates safely paroled.

Back in the early 1970s, prisons were a relatively small part of the budget; there were only 7,900 state inmates in 1973.

But then lawmakers got the idea that the way to fight the drug epidemic was to impose long sentences. This both proved a policy failure and caused the state’s prison population to explode, until it reached 51,000 a decade ago.

Since then, drug sentencing guidelines have been modified, there’s been a decline in some types of crime, and the inmate population has begun to shrink fairly dramatically.

Prison officials in recent years have worked hard to reduce the recidivism rate, meaning the percentage of those released who find themselves back in prison within three years.

“That was once close to 50 per cent,” said Chris Gautz, the department of corrections’ spokesperson. Today, that has fallen to 29.8 per cent, he said, in large part because of efforts to prepare prisoners for life on the outside.

That’s not always easy. There was national publicity surrounding the case of Richard “White Boy Rick” Wershe, who was granted parole after serving 29 years in prison. Those who have served that much time are, in a sense, time-travellers, who have never used the internet or a cellphone. Prison officials now try to give them a crash course in adjusting to modern life.

Making sure her prisoners don’t come back is a top priority. She is especially proud of Vocational Village, a first-of-its kind skilled trades program at the prison in Ionia for those soon to be released.

There are other, serious challenges ahead; the percentage of mentally ill and geriatric prisoners is steadily increasing.

Those inmates are by far the most expensive. Some cost the state as much as $300,000 each year for their medication alone.

Whether it makes sense not to commute their sentences is not an issue Heidi Washington can do anything about.

She may, indeed, have the most challenging job in state government. My impression: she wouldn’t have it any other way.