Michigan Department of Corrections Tries to Correct its Costly Conduct

 A recent Detroit Free Press article claims the Corrections Department wants to learn from its mistakes that have cost them roughly $200 million in lawsuit payouts since 2010. Forgive me if I'm skeptical. 

While I have no doubt that the department feels the pain of losing an average of nearly $17 million per year in lawsuit payouts, I have seen little in the way of cultural change within the department in my twelve-plus years in prison. Sure, the department has made some positive changes after political and social pressure mandated it. For example, solitary confinement is now used more sparingly than in the past, but it is still used, and sometimes unnecessarily. Additionally, use of force incidents are down, largely because many prisons now have video cameras that capture these incidents and make it more difficult for the department and staff to lie about what occurred. 

Other "mistakes" that have cost the department millions of dollars continue to occur with regularity. For example, prisoner property is still routinely mishandled, and medical incidents of deliberate indifference happen with frightening frequency. 

Perhaps it is applaudable that Director Washington has issued a memo directing staff to critique mistakes so as to learn from them. But in a culture where these "mistakes" are not seen as a problem because prisoners are not assumed to have inherent dignity, it's unlikely that much will change. Issuing memos will not give much force to change when staff members routinely ignore written policies that already lay out how these "mistakes" should be avoided in the first place.

It also strikes me as grossly hypocritical and ironic that the department defines its violations of civil rights and other problems as temporary "mistakes" while marking prisoners who have made "mistakes" as permanently criminal. The cultural attitude towards prisoners among staff is "once a criminal always a criminal." Most corrections department staff are not convinced, despite clear evidence of change, that prisoners can change. So, why should we be convinced that a department can change when it has a deeply entrenched culture that sees prisoners as unworthy of dignity?

I have met Director Washington personally, and I genuinely believe that she wants positive changes to occur in the department of corrections she oversees. I've seen evidence to that end. But I also believe that as an administrator of a highly bureaucratic, highly entrenched department, she faces a nearly impossible task to affect change among her staff. 

I hope I'm wrong. I hope that the wheels of change simply move slowly, but they still move in the right direction. I certainly have hope that many prisoners can change, so I do believe in change. If I'm right, though, and true change is highly unlikely to occur in the corrections department, Michigan taxpayers better get used to shelling out millions of dollars unnecessarily for decades to come.

Seven Results of Owning One's Regret Redemptively

 I recently read some Yale University lectures from renowned theologian Nicholas Woltersdorff about the subject of "Living with Grief." Woltersdorff's son died young in a tragic mountain climbing accident, and his theological focus has consequently become centered on grief. 

As I read these lectures, I was struck by the parallels between grief and regret. I read his theological reflections about grief through the lens of my own life experiences. Coming to prison, and all the losses within that experience, is replete with grief. It is also full of regret.

I have written before that regret is not a bad thing, for it can be used as a catalyst for dramatic, life-altering change. But for regret to yield positive change, it must be used properly. Woltersdorff highlights seven results of owning one's grief redemptively, and I list them here, altered slightly, to draw a parallel between grief and regret when both are owned redemptively. For my purposes here, regret, when owned redemptively, produces:

1. Reordered loves--we love things that are more accurately worth loving.
Regretting the harm one causes others makes one re-evaluate what he loves and why he loves it. It alters priorities so that one's aspired values become one's espoused values. One learns to love the right things.

2. A savoring, with gratitude, of the good things in life.
Losing access to so much in life makes one savor, with gratitude, even the small things. Good things, like a word of praise, a child's laughter, a firey sunrise, a small piece of chocolate, a shower with adjustable heat, become precious.

3. A deepened and expanded empathy.
Regret owned redemptively causes one to feel for the hurt others experience. When one hurts for the harm he's caused, he can't help but hurt for others who have been harmed in some way.

4. A strengthening of one's cry against injustice.
When one hurts for others, the natural response is to cry out against injustice. One takes up the cause of calling out that which harms others.

5. A strengthening of one's energy to alleviate the causes of suffering.
It is not enough to voice one's objection to injustice. One who has owned his regret redemptively also joins the fight against the causes of injustice and suffering in its various forms.

6. A provoking to more deeply reflect on how we understand and cope with regret.
Regret can be a burden, but it can also, when owned redemptively, be used for positive, life-altering change. For this change to occur though, one has to be able to reflect deeply on how one understands and copes with regret.

7. An enabling of one to enter more deeply into the heart of God. 
Regret drives one to seek grace, which is at the very heart of Who God is. As one enters the place of grace, it also forms him to become a grace-giving person, because he understands more fully the depth of grace he has received from God. 

Regret is not the same as grief, but it *is* a form of grief. Like grief, it too can lead to new motivations, new ways of constructing one's story. But for regret to be transformative, it must first be embraced, owned, redemptively.

(Thank you to Nicholas Woltersdorff's lecture notes from The Fuller Symposium on the Integration of Faith and Psychology, January 1993, on which I relied for this post.)

Michigan Department of Corrections Wastes Untapped Resource

The Michigan Department of Corrections (MDOC) uses more than 2.2 billion dollars of Michigan's annual budget. It's budget has even risen 17% despite a 44% decrease in prisoner population in the same period. But even given its wasteful spending, the department wastes non-monetary assets as well. 

Michigan's prison is filled with many men who have "turned the corner" in their thinking and behavior. Many of these men are eager to give back to their peers, to mentor and encourage them to change their thinking and behavior. Many of these men, in fact, do just that, in an informal way. Nevertheless, despite this abundant resource, the MDOC often fails to use it. Prisoners are used, sometimes, as facilitators for classes like Chance for Life, but many more opportunities are ignored or actively opposed. 

For example, when I was housed in Coldwater, Michigan, a group of us prisoners started a college prep program. We created and facilitated study skills, math, algebra, English grammar and punctuation, psychology, and other classes. We had the support of a key administrator. These classes gave us opportunities to be creative (creating classes), practice management (writing proposals, following guidelines given to us, managing student requests, etc.), and develop our leadership skills (facilitating classes). At it's zenith, we had hundreds of prisoner students busy studying, learning key skills they could use to further their education. And then it was all cancelled. 

For reasons unknown, even now, the prison administration decided to cancel a program that had proven effective, had kept prisoners out of trouble, had led prisoners to invest in their own education. But after cancelling the program and sending the creators and facilitators to other prisons, the warden still claimed it was running, bragging to another warden about how great the program was. I heard this with my own ears! She didn't know one of those she had "cancelled" was standing behind her. 

This story, as outrageous as it is, happens all the time. At the prison where I am currently housed, a group of us prisoners created and facilitated several classes we called "Life Skills." It focused on employment readiness, since this prison has a vocational trades program. Companies interviewing prisoners who'd gone through our program were very impressed, and the State gave the administrator overseeing our program an award, and a promotion. After his promotion, his replacement shuttered the program. It was "too much work," although prisoners did nearly all the work. Nevertheless, the warden here (now retired) bragged for at least the next two years about the program, even though it'd been shuttered already. 

Like any bureaucratic wasteland, I suppose, MDOC administrators are keen on the credit they get when prisoners, their greatest resource, make them look good; however, actually supporting such programs after the administrators get their initial recognition is too much to ask.

In the end, it's the prisoners who suffer when administrators ignore their greatest asset. Well, prisoners, the communities they return to, and the taxpayers who continue funding a wasteful, and failing system. 

Call to Action: Please Support New Good Time Legislation Introduced in Michigan

 Twenty-twenty-one has been a highly unusual year, in many regards. Covid-19, and its destructive effects on our society, continues to complicate many people's lives. But this year has been unique in other ways too. For the first time in decades, the Michigan legislature is considering several bills that would change the lives of thousands of Michiganders affected by the criminal justice system. 

Two House bills have been introduced, but are still sitting in committee, to give prisoners an opportunity to earn time off their sentences. One, HB 4489, would afford prisoners the opportunity to earn disciplinary credits for good behavior. If this bill passed, prisoners could earn time off using a graduated scale. The longer term they serve in prison, the more time per year they could earn off their sentence. 

Another House bill, HB 4670, would give prisoners the opportunity to earn time off their sentences by pursuing education. Commonly referred to as the "Productivity Credits Bill," this bill would limit the amount of time a prisoner could earn off, up to two years maximum. It would also restrict the credit to low-level crimes (ironically, those with the highest recidivism rates), and it would not be retroactive to people already in prison. 

On September 22, another "Good Time" bill was introduced, this time in the Senate. After months of consulting, advocacy, meetings with legislators, and drafting and re-drafting, SB 649 (along with its companion bills) was introduced to the Senate. This good time bill would allow prisoners to earn day-for-day time off their sentences for good behavior. In other words, if prisoners go 30 days without a misconduct, they would earn 30 days off their sentences. It's an aggressive bill, but it also considers that Michigan's average sentences are longer than other surrounding states, including many in Michigan prisons who are serving very long indeterminate sentences. 

Michigan Justice Advocacy (MJA) has spearheaded the work on this bill, and they are serious about advocating for its passage. They are asking, and I am too, that you support the passage of SB 649 by urging your legislator to support it. Contacting your legislator is easy--it only takes a phone call or email--but MJA has made it even easier. You can visit their website to send your legislator a support email, which you can customize as you'd like. Please do so now, by visiting www.mijustice.org/sign

Victims of crime deserve justice, and an offender's prison sentence is part of that justice. Yet, lengthy sentences, with no incentive for reformed behavior, like Michigan's current system ought to change. It's time Michigan joins the rest of the other 49 states in the Union and offers prisoners an opportunity to reduce their sentences through productive, positive use of their time in prison. Reformed lives, not unnecessarily long sentences ought to be the goal of justice.

Please support bringing Good Time to Michigan at www.mijustice.org/sign

THANK YOU!