Michigan Votes Forum

Introduced in the Senate on June 27, 2007, to repeal a prohibition on the Department of Corrections contracting with third parties to privatize mental health services for prisoners. Under current law the department may only “contract” with the Department of Community Health (the successor agency to the Department of Mental Health, which is the one cited in statute)

The vote was 21 in favor, 17 opposed and 0 not voting

(Senate Roll Call 340 at Senate Journal 92)

Click here to view bill details.

Senator Brater's statement is as follows: I rise to oppose this bill. This is an ill-considered and irresponsible approach to dealing with people with mental illness in our prisons. If we wanted real reform in dealing with the problem of mental illness in our prisons, we would be having mental health reform legislation that I have introduced before us tonight. But what this bill does is allow us to pass the buck on a system, which admittedly needs work, to a private system whose only goal is to make the bottom line connect. It is not focused on the delivery of quality of services. This is not focused on trying to address the problems of mental illness of prisoners in our prison system. Many of these people are in our prison system for no other reason than that they are mentally ill. As a result of cuts in our mental health system and closure of our mental hospitals, too many people with mental illness have ended up in our criminal justice system and in prison. We owe it to them, our most vulnerable citizens, to take a more deliberate approach when making such a radical change to the delivery of care in the prison system. I strongly urge you, colleagues, to oppose this bill.

Senator Gleason's statement is as follows: This decision that we're about to make is dealing with the fate of the most vulnerable Michigan citizens. It's no secret to any of us that too many of our mentally-impaired citizens are incarcerated today, and yet, tonight we would contemplate a money-venturing effort to privatize the lives and the fortunes of our Michigan citizens who are in these dire straits. There are typically two obligations that a private interest must make that a public interest doesn't. One is that they must pay taxes, and the other is that they have an obligation to make a profit to stay in business. This discussion that we're having tonight is whether we are going to offer privatizing opportunities to private ventures over our struggling Michigan citizens--those most vulnerable; those whom we have left behind for far too long, the mentally impaired. When you check the population of any facility that incarcerates our citizens, they're ranging 15 percent to 25 percent of those incarcerated suffer mental illness. And yet, we would put that responsibility on a private company to privatize the lives and the fates of these Michigan citizens. I know we're a much better state than saying that we will put profits over those citizens with mental illnesses, and that's what this bill is about. That's why I'm saying vote "no." Don't make profiteering part of our mentally-impaired citizens' future.

Senator Jacobs' statement is as follows: I rise in opposition to Senate Bill No.622. I think that while we're trying to find savings in the mental health area that we should be looking at reducing the number of CMHs; setting up increased uniformity of standards. We need to lower our administrative costs, and I think that there are ways we can do it by sort of reducing all of that government out there. So I would ask my colleagues to let's look for savings in a different way, but not this way which I believe will be harmful to the most vulnerable citizens in our state.

Private enterprise does everything better cheaper and more efficiently than any government operation could ever dream of. Lets keep the ball rolling with the state police crime lab (then do away with the state police since it is just a redundant unnecessary revenue force) the schools, licensing departments, and friend of the court. The giant black hole of government is going to swallow this state whole.

privatization of ALL prison services??

Thank you Senators Gleason and Brater. "Most vulnerable citizens" is absolutely right. We used to keep mentally ill patients in nice hospitals. Now we let them wander the streets and sleep under overpasses in the winter until they become disoriented or paranoid enough to commit a crime. Then they end up in a special section of our state prisons. There are some people who work there who do their best to keep some of them alive. Psychiatric drugs raise temperatures and there's no air conditioning. Yes, they just lost one that way. Many others don't get so see a doctor about physical problems fast enough and die from drug allergy, bleeding, undiagnosed cancer, or you name it. The physical aspects of their medical treatment is handled by, you guessed it, a private service who puts its bottom line above lives. More psychiatrists would help, but the state doesn't pay enough to attract them, and the administration doesn't respect their authority enough to keep them when they become afraid of the liability from their overridden orders. The problems with corrections is an administration that has a stink very near the top and perpetrates itself by often hiring, not the most experienced and qualified for supervisory positions, but rather those individuals they can totally control. Yes it needs a good housecleaning, but not from the mental health aspects. If you aren't aware of the pending cases against the state after loved ones die in our prisons, you should be. They tend to get hushed up though. These are not hardened criminals. They are mostly young people with mental health problems. A society should be harshly judged by how it treats its "vulnerable" citizens, especially a society like ours running around in SUVs and paying $75 for concert tickets. Shame on those of you who would condemn more of them to an incarcerated death.

tax and spend liberals like the ones currently in office would allow that to go on for over four years. i'm totally 'BLOWN AWAY' by that.

both are unpalatible to those who don't support them. privatization is unpalatible to the liberal, who fears the loss of control, the loss of an opportunity to tax, and the loss of an opportunity to turn 'disenfranchised citizens' to their cause. 'good time', and the loss of 'truth in sentencing' is unpalatible to the conservative who fears crime in the streets, and the 'early reliease' of criminals, invalidating the 'true sentence'. both initiatives are put forward to 'save the state money'. if liberals support 'good time', the early release of inmates to save the state money, why don't they support the privatization of mental health care, in effect 'releasing' those inmates 'early' from jail, to save the state money? is it perhaps they don't want to give up control of the 'purse strings'?