Legal Question in Criminal Law in Michigan

The term is "Truth in Sentencing". It is a law that went into effect 12/15/1998 requiring felon offenders to serve their entire minimum prison sentence without reduction for good behavior. These prisoners may also have their minimum sentence extended for "bad behavior" while in prison. The 'goal' that you asked about is to allow crime victims and the general public to have assurances of (and the peace of mind from knowing) the absolute minimum time the defendant will be in prison on a felony charge. A victim can sleep soundly knowing that -- but-for a prison escape -- their felon offender will not be on the streets before a red-letter day on the calendar. Before "T.I.S." became law, the judge set a minimum prison term (for example, 60 months, or 5 years), but the Department of Corrections would use its own rules to grant good time credits (and sometimes credits-upon-credits) so the defendant might be out of prison well before that 5 year minimum expired. Some of these early-releasers committed crimes before that early release date on the calendar. A notorious case in my county involved Ron Brown (http://mdocweb.state.mi.us/OTIS2/otis2profile.aspx?mdocNumber=150582), who got a 20-40 YEAR sentence for Second Degree Murder in July 1977, but MDOC let him out very early and he committed an armed robbery about 8-1/2 years after that sentencing, and then got a 3-15 yr sentence in July 1986 on the new robbery crime ... and MDOC released him again in time for him to commit a home invasion and murder in Eaton County in October 1993 (the victim was an elderly lady out in the country, home baking cookies when the break-in happened). So, before Brown had finished serving the original murder's initial 20 year sentence, he'd been let out early twice because of MDOC's policies and committed two more high-severity felonies, including another murder!

The first job of government is to protect society. Clearly, our public was not being protected. So, "Truth in Sentencing" is a response to that kind of travesty of justice. Nowadays, whatever minimum prison term a judge sets on felony prison sentences, you serve every single day. After that, MDOC gets the power to release the person on parole, But not a day earlier than the TIS minimum.

Of course, MDOC and others who want to save money by closing prisons do not like T.I.S. and blame it for our budget crunch. Don't believe them. TIS is a common sense community safety law that keeps sentencing / punishment authority in the hands of judges, not a department that has a vested interest in cutting people loose to balance its books.

As noted, T.I.S. does not apply to misdemeanors or felonies where a county jail term is imposed.

Wow. Mr. O'Brien said it all!