Michigan needs more police officers patrolling our streets. The Governor is pushing full steam ahead with her plan to release over 3,000 prisoners this fall. These moves follow a report from the Council of State Government's Justice Center claiming that the Department of Corrections could save $260 million by 2015 through an ongoing reduction in prison population.

As Governor, Mike Cox would use a portion of "the corrections dividend" from the reduced prisoner savings to hire more police officers. Cox wants to use some of the savings from the Department of Corrections to hire more police to guarantee public safety when thousands of inmates are released in cities and towns throughout Michigan.

Mike Cox wants to put more cops on the streets and in cities in Michigan, just like President Bill Clinton's Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) Program in 1994. COPS awarded more than $11 billion in grants, funding an additional 118,000 police officers. As the number of officers increased, the rate of crime decreased.

In Michigan, the COPS Program funded more than 3,300 additional police officers and sheriff's deputies. Between 1994 and 2000, violent crime in Michigan dropped 14%. In Saginaw, crime fell by 24%, while Flint's crime rate decreased by 53%. Unfortunately, the reverse is also true -- as police presence decreases, crime increases. When the police force in Saginaw was cut, violent crime increased by 37% between 2000 and 2005. When Flint's police force was cut, violent crime increased by 48%. The more officers who are put into a community, the more the crime rate drops.

All government programs are not equal. Protecting the public is the first duty of government. There's no doubt Michigan needs to make tough decisions to reduce the size of government. But reducing police officers should be one of the last places to cut, not one of the first. Increasing the number of police, projecting a stronger presence in high-crime areas and providing greater oversight of parolees and probationers will lower crime rates and result in a safer, more prosperous Michigan.

Each year approximately 75,000 felony cases are filed in a Michigan courts. Defendants waive their right to a preliminary exam in 75% of these cases because in the overwhelming majority of these cases, the exam isn't substantially significant nor is it in the defendant's best interest. Additionally, prosecutors, defense attorneys, police, sheriffs and others have to spend hours preparing for exams and attending a process that is more unlikely to not occur than the process is likely to occur.

As Governor, Mike Cox will reform the preliminary exam structure by pushing the "More Cops on the Street" legislation. This is a program Cox first proposed in 2005 and supported by bipartisan groups of sheriffs, prosecutors, legislators, judges and community leaders statewide. The "More Cops on the Street" proposal would follow the procedure in most states and the federal system by eliminating exams for defendants charged with less serious felonies, while keeping exams for those cases most likely to involve prison time. This proposal would continue to safeguard every defendant's constitutional rights including the right to counsel and right to jury trial. And police would spend their time in neighborhoods protecting citizens and attorneys would spend their time preparing for more substantive proceedings like trials.

"More Cops on the Street" does more than protect a defendant's rights, it enhances them by focusing resources on the most important proceeding, the trial, and on the important cases, those where a defendant's liberty is at stake. Additionally the proposal streamlines the process for defendants who choose to plea instead of going to trial and who will receive probation instead of jail time. County jails current spend $193,000 per day to house defendants awaiting the preliminary exams and sentencing.

"More Cops on the Street" put more police officers, prosecutors, and sheriffs into Michigan neighborhoods to protect our communities while protecting the rights of defendants and victims. Reforming the preliminary exam system would save taxpayers and communities money and modernize our criminal justice system.

In response to a severe increase in shootings in the first six months of 2004, Attorney General Cox created the Joshua Project (Project), a Detroit-based criminal justice program. The Joshua Project was a pilot program established at the City of Detroit's request to address the long-standing issue of gun violence. Named after the biblical hero who broke down walls, this program established a first-of-its-kind partnership between state and local departments that focused exclusively on dismantling criminal groups responsible for gun violence. Partners in this innovative program were the Michigan Department of Attorney General (AG), the Detroit Police Department (DPD) and the Michigan Department of Corrections (Corrections).

The Project was based from successful programs in Boston, Minneapolis, Indianapolis, and several other cities that controlled gun violence by putting pressure on groups, sometimes traditional "gangs," but more often, loose affiliations of criminally active people identified as being at the highest risk of committing or being the victims of gun violence. A review of shootings in Detroit revealed what these other cities learned: Most gun violence was committed by high-risk youthful offenders, frequently under state supervision (probation or parole). The Project was unique because, unlike traditional law enforcement efforts, it targeted and aggressively intervened with these groups before a gun was used. The Project was also innovative in its reliance on a cooperative effort by the three chief agencies of law enforcement -- the prosecution, the police and probation -- to stop the crime before it occurred.

The Joshua Project had immediate success in the former 3rd and 4th precincts of Detroit. In the first year it was implemented, the homicide rate decreased by 38% and the non-fatal shooting rate decreased by 29%, while the overall murder and shooting rate in the City of Detroit only dropped 2%.

The results of the Joshua Project speak for themselves -- 38% overall reduction in homicide and 32% reduction in non-fatal shootings. While it was intended as a pilot project, the success of the Joshua Project surely calls for it to be replicated. As Governor, Mike Cox will implement the Joshua Project in targeted areas to ensure agency cooperation to reduce the crime rate in Michigan's most dangerous communities.