Understaffed Prisons Lead to Overstressed Officers

 The United States has a long and storied history of pouring money into failed institutions. America has long funded Amtrak, despite its failure to sustain enough income to fund its operations, let alone to be profitable. America also continues to pour money into the public school system, despite its epic failure (generally speaking) to provide a quality education over the last century. 

Like these two examples, government officials also believe that throwing more money at prisons will make them more effective, despite clear evidence of a failure to achieve this aim. Prisons don't make communities safer, and nationally they have a 66% failure rate at rehabilitating its charges (measured by its 5-year recidivism rate). It's clear that more money will not make prisons more effective at reducing crime rates. 

Right now, Michigan's prison system is, like many industries in America, struggling to find enough employees. Many people do not want to work in a prison environment, and I can't say that I blame them. Prison environments are toxic, and it's not even mostly because of the prisoners. 

We prisoners hear talk among staff, and we have learned to be very observant. We hear about new recruits (and not so new recruits) quitting, about mandatory overtime that is preventing staff from having a life outside of work, about sexual harassment in the workplace, about staff corruption going unchecked--or even worse defended. I'm sure many of these problems exist in other places too, but with the job market as hot as it is, who wants to work in a place like the Department of Corrections? I wouldn't wish that on my worst enemy. 

As a result of severe staff shortages, Michigan is spending ridiculous amounts of money on overtime, just to keep a required minimum number of staff at each prison. It's a tragic waste of taxpayer dollars, dollars that could be better spent on demonstrable improvements to people's lives. Michigan shouldn't have to decide whether we should be spending more money on overtime pay for prisons or to fix roads and bridges, to provide high speed internet access to rural areas, to address addiction epidemics, and to improve our education system so we can be competitive in world markets.

Lawmakers have an opportunity to make meaningful changes, first by bringing Michigan's sentencing in line with other midwestern states. Since Michigan has significantly higher average sentences AND has no good time, Michigan prisoners spend much more time in prison on average than prisoners in surrounding states. The legislature can change that by eliminating mandatory minimums, reducing average minimum sentences, and passing good time legislation. But they haven't taken action on these important measures thus far. 

If the legislature moves to make these important changes, Michigan could further reduce its prison population, resulting in closing unnecessary prisons and more funding to improve programs and education in prison. Such improvements may actually lead to lower recidivism rates, as studies have shown. It will also reduce the number of new staff members the department must find to become prison guards. 

Prison is a stressful place to live, but it is also a stressful place to work. I'm sure the potential dangers of working in a prison are stressful, but officers should not have to have their lives dictated by forced overtime and other policies that add unreasonable stress to their lives. The longer the Michigan legislature fails to take action that meaningfully reduces the prison population, the more stressed out officers will be and the more understaffed prisons will be. And that's just not good for any of us.