Tag: Prison Reform

Whitewashed

There are at least two kinds of prison neglect in America. The first is visible: leaking ceilings, blackened grout, rusted pipes, brown water, air vents caked with dust and fungus, showers that smell rotten, cells that never fully dry out. The second is administrative: the memo that says conditions are “within expected parameters,” the grievance rejected as untimely, the inspection narrowed to avoid the worst areas, the spokesperson who insists that what people can see with their own eyes is not really there. That second form of neglect: the bureaucratic whitewashing of danger, is what makes the first so durable. And nowhere is that pattern more vividly exposed than in Michigan, where incarcerated women at the Women’s Huron Valley Correctional Facility have spent years describing black mold, failing ventilation, medical neglect, and retaliation, while jail and prison officials elsewhere in the state have faced scrutiny over unsafe drinking water and environmental contamination.[1][2][3]

This is not merely a story about old buildings. It is a story about power. Incarcerated people cannot move away from contamination, open a different tap, hire their own environmental assessor, or take their children elsewhere for the night. They are captive to the state not only in the legal sense, but in the most literal physical sense: captive to its walls, air, plumbing, and maintenance decisions. When correctional systems minimize mold, suppress water concerns, or bury evidence of environmental exposure behind procedure, they are not just failing to maintain buildings. They are converting confinement itself into a public-health hazard.[4][5]

The national template: Deny, Delay, Deflect

Across the United States, reports of toxic mold, contaminated water, sewage leaks, vermin, failing ventilation, and dangerous heat are often framed by correctional agencies as isolated maintenance issues rather than structural failures. Yet the pattern is remarkably consistent. The Marshall Project, Prison Legal News, and the Equal Justice Initiative have all documented how understaffing, deferred maintenance, overcrowding, and weak oversight create conditions where environmental hazards are not accidental side effects but recurring features of incarceration.[6][7][8]

When those conditions are challenged, institutions tend to respond with a familiar playbook. First comes denial: officials characterize mold as dirt, mildew, staining, or mere discoloration; they describe foul water as temporary discoloration after plumbing work; they insist that air-quality complaints are exaggerated. Then comes procedural deflection: incarcerated people are told to file grievances, only to have those grievances rejected, delayed, lost, or declared defective. Finally comes reputational management: public statements are carefully worded to acknowledge “concerns” while denying systemic danger. The result is that prison officials minimize the severity of the situation and a bureaucratic coat of paint is applied over rot.[2][6][7]

The legal structure of incarceration helps sustain this dynamic. The Prison Litigation Reform Act requires incarcerated people to exhaust internal grievance procedures before bringing many federal claims, which means prison administrators often control the gateway to outside review. Courts can and do intervene, but only after years of filings, dismissal motions, evidentiary disputes, and appeals. In the meantime, people keep breathing the air, drinking the water, and sleeping under the leaks.[3][9]

Michigan’s mold crisis: the Women’s Huron Valley Correctional Facility

MDOC Women’s Huron Valley Correctional Facility

If the national story provides the template, Michigan supplies one of its starkest case studies. The Women’s Huron Valley Correctional Facility in Ypsilanti is the state’s only women’s prison and has become a symbol of how environmental danger can be normalized inside a correctional institution, even while evidence accumulates in plain sight. For years, incarcerated women, family members, whistleblowers, advocates, and journalists have described a facility with leaking roof, excessive moisture, failing ventilation, and widespread black mold in showers, vents, ceilings, and other living areas. Those reports eventually coalesced into the long-running federal litigation known as Bailey v. Washington, which alleges that prison officials knew of dangerous conditions and failed to remedy them.[1][3][10]

The allegations are not vague. Court filings and reporting describe mold falling from air vents, spreading across shower seams, eating through painted surfaces, and flourishing in an environment of chronic dampness. In 2025, federal rulings allowed substantial portions of the case to move forward, rejecting key defenses by the Michigan Department of Corrections and concluding that plaintiffs had plausibly alleged unconstitutional conditions and deliberate indifference. In another significant ruling, the court faulted the grievance process itself, finding that the system had serious flaws and that plaintiffs had not simply failed to complain, they had been functionally blocked from meaningful relief.[9][10][11]

What makes Huron Valley especially revealing is the gap between internal reality and public posture. Reporting in 2025 and 2026 described lawmakers visiting the prison and being shown areas where obvious mold or black staining was brushed off as harmless residue, paint, or ordinary wear. At the same time, internal assessments and litigation records pointed to persistent infrastructure failures and ventilation problems. This is what “whitewashed” means in practice: not just literal paint over damage, but the official reclassification of danger as something benign, expected, or not worth urgent action.[2][11][12]

The human cost has been devastating. One of the best-known women associated with the case, Krystal Clark, has publicly described years of respiratory distress, swelling, and worsening illness that she and her advocates link to mold exposure inside the prison. In 2025 and 2026, local and statewide reporting amplified concerns that mold and inadequate medical care were part of a broader crisis at Huron Valley, especially after multiple deaths at the facility heightened public scrutiny. No responsible account should collapse all illness at the prison into a single environmental cause; prisons are complex places, and causation can be medically and legally contested. But it is equally irresponsible to ignore the pattern: repeated reports of mold, repeated denials, repeated claims that women were not being heard until judges and public pressure forced the issue into the open.[1][10][12][13]

How the coverup works

The concealment of environmental hazards in prisons rarely looks like a single dramatic conspiracy. More often, it operates through ordinary administrative habits. A warden reframes mold as cosmetic discoloration. A facility applies patchwork maintenance rather than replacing the failing system producing the moisture. A grievance is rejected on a technicality. A spokesperson emphasizes that findings are typical for a “large institutional setting.” A court deadline stretches months into years. Each act may appear minor in isolation; together, they create a machine for institutional disbelief.[2][9][11]

In Michigan, that machine has been visible in both the mold litigation and public oversight hearings. Critics have described a double standard in which officials reassure the public while staff and insiders privately acknowledge serious problems. The essence of whitewashing is not that nothing is known; it is that too much is known, and the system’s first reflex is to manage perception rather than eliminate the hazard.[11][12]

Contaminated drinking water: Michigan’s other prison health scandal

Central Michigan Correctional Facility- Level I 
St. Louis Correctional- Level IV

      

Black mold is only one half of Michigan’s prison environmental story. The other is water: unsafe, discolored, chemically tainted, or otherwise distrusted water in jails and prisons where those confined have no meaningful ability to refuse it. Michigan has seen multiple flashpoints. Some are historic, like the water contamination associated with correctional facilities in St. Louis near the Velsicol Chemical Superfund site. Others are immediate, like the 2026 revelations about copper and lead concerns at the Kalamazoo County Jail. Taken together, they show that the same logic of minimization extends from air and buildings to the most basic necessity of all.[4][14][15]

An aerial photo of the former Velsicol Chemical Co. factory along the Pine River in St. Louis, Mich. The company made chemicals like DDT and PBB. The property is now a Superfund site.

The St. Louis prison water story is especially haunting because it ties correctional exposure to one of Michigan’s most notorious industrial contamination legacies. Scholars and advocates have pointed to the Central Michigan and St. Louis correctional facilities’ proximity to the former Velsicol site and to contamination involving p-CBSA, a byproduct associated with DDT manufacturing. Reports and litigation have alleged that incarcerated people were forced to drink and bathe in contaminated water for years while staff members avoided it by relying on bottled water or other alternatives. Whether every claim has been adjudicated in the way plaintiffs hoped is beside the point for this broader pattern: once again, captive people described environmental danger while institutions insisted that the situation remained acceptable.[4][14]

The situation in St. Louis hits close to home for me.  I was there in 2013 when the water was brown and had a strong solvent smell.  I would boil water that came from the tap to try and make it drinkable. Brand new white t shirts turned brown in the wash.  We had to bathe in it, brush our teeth with it, and our food was prepared with it. It was the only prison in the state where you could buy bottled water in the commissary.  Originally water had been donated to the prison for the prisoner’s consumption, but the MDOC decided to profit from it.  Prison staff didn’t drink the tap water they were given bottled drinking water by the administration. When the city of St. Louis was connected to another water system and no longer used the ground water, the water in the prison got better.  If I come down with cancer I will be filling a lawsuit too.

The same structure appears in local jails. In Kalamazoo County in 2026, officials acknowledged that bottled water was necessary after testing revealed elevated copper levels and some lead exceedances in parts of the jail’s water system following plumbing failures. Yet the administration’s public statements remained hedged and shifting saying bottled water was supplied “out of an abundance of caution,” the jail remained safe to occupy, cooking and showering could continue, further testing was underway, and filtration measures would be installed. Those statements may all be true within the narrow language of public health guidance. But from the perspective of incarcerated people who reported brown water, nausea, headaches, or fear about what they were consuming, the effect was familiar: partial acknowledgment without full transparency, and reassurance before clarity.[15][16][17]

Flint, Genesee County Jail, and the carceral version of environmental abandonment

Michigan also offers a brutal example of what water neglect looks like when a community-wide catastrophe enters a jail. During the Flint water crisis, lawsuits by former Genesee County Jail detainees alleged that incarcerated people were forced to continue drinking contaminated tap water even after the dangers of Flint’s water system were becoming widely known. According to reporting on the litigation, bottled water brought by families or donors was sometimes rejected or restricted, while detainees—who could not leave, install filters, or seek a safer source—were left to bear the exposure. If Flint demonstrated how governments can fail whole cities, the jail lawsuits demonstrated how incarceration intensifies that failure: it traps people at the point of exposure and removes the ordinary survival options everyone else still has.[18][19]

That is the through line connecting mold at Huron Valley, contaminated prison water near St. Louis, and the recent concerns in Kalamazoo. Carceral institutions do not merely contain the consequences of broader environmental neglect; they concentrate them. The people inside are politically weak, geographically fixed, and administratively silenced. They can be made to live with exposures that no school, hospital, office building, or suburban neighborhood would tolerate for long. And because the suffering occurs behind secure perimeters, the public often encounters it only after a lawsuit, a whistleblower, a death, or a spectacular equipment failure.[4][6][15]

What accountability would actually require

The single argument that I am trying to make is that environmental hazards in prisons and jails are not side issues. They are core civil-rights issues. Mold is not simply a maintenance problem when people are forced to inhale it for years. Contaminated water is not simply an infrastructure problem when people cannot choose a different source. And official denial is not simply bad messaging when it delays medical care, blocks legal relief, and normalizes dangerous conditions. The law already recognizes that incarceration does not erase the state’s duty to provide humane conditions. The problem is that enforcement often arrives late, after exposure has become routine.[3][8][9]

Real accountability would require more than promises of renovation or improved communication. It would mean independent environmental testing that is not controlled solely by corrections departments; public release of air- and water-quality data in forms families and advocates can actually use; stronger protections for incarcerated whistleblowers and staff who report unsafe conditions; medical review that treats environmental exposure as a serious risk rather than an inconvenience; and oversight bodies willing to regard chronic mold, contaminated water, and failing ventilation as constitutional emergencies rather than public-relations nuisances. It would also require a cultural shift: away from the reflexive assumption that incarcerated people exaggerate, and toward the recognition that they are often the earliest and most accurate witnesses to the conditions around them.[6][8][15]

For Michigan, the lesson is already written. Women at Huron Valley said the mold was real. Prisoners in St. Louis said the water was dangerous. People in Kalamazoo reported brown water and fear long before the issue settled into official language about mitigation and sampling. Former detainees in Flint said captivity turned a public utility disaster into something even more coercive. Again and again, the state’s first instinct was not to remove the hazard but to manage the story. That is the real whitewash: the attempt to paint over evidence until the public looks away. The burden of proof then falls on the people with the least power to carry it.[1][4][15][18]

But the record is no longer hidden. It is in court rulings, local journalism, advocacy reporting, medical complaints, and the testimonies of the people who lived through it. The question now is not whether these hazards exist. The question is how long the public will accept a correctional system that responds to black mold, contaminated drinking water, and preventable exposure with the same old institutional shrug and another coat of paint.

Endnotes

  1. Michigan Public, “Inmates at Michigan’s only women’s prison sue state over black mold exposure” (Aug. 14, 2025).
  2. Detroit Metro Times, “New push for accountability at Michigan women’s prison” (Feb. 23, 2026).
  3. Civil Rights Litigation Clearinghouse, Bailey v. Michigan Department of Corrections case materials.
  4. Environmental Justice at Western, “Prisons: Environmental Injustice, Toxic Exposure, and a Lack of Humanitarianism” (May 23, 2023).
  5. Equal Justice Initiative, materials on prison conditions and environmental dangers in prisons.
  6. The Marshall Project, reporting and analysis on prison mold and unsanitary jail conditions.
  7. Prison Legal News, “It Smelled Like Death: Reports of Mold Contamination in Prisons and Jails” (Apr. 2, 2019).
  8. Equal Justice Initiative, “Prison Conditions.”
  9. Michigan Advance, “Federal judge dings Corrections director in new ruling as toxic mold lawsuit continues” (May 30, 2025).
  10. Michigan Advance, “Federal judge: MDOC not entitled to qualified immunity in women’s prison toxic mold case” (July 7, 2025).
  11. Bridge Michigan, Metro Times, and related 2026 reporting on legislative visits, internal assessments, and conditions at Women’s Huron Valley Correctional Facility.
  12. WEMU, “Michigan Department of Corrections director visits Women’s Huron Valley Correctional Facility amidst calls for her resignation” (May 26, 2026).
  13. Local and statewide 2025–2026 reporting on deaths, medical concerns, and mold-related allegations at Women’s Huron Valley Correctional Facility.
  14. Reporting and commentary regarding contamination concerns linked to St. Louis and Central Michigan correctional facilities near the Velsicol site.

GPS Monitoring and Parole: Safety Tool or Lifetime Burden?

I have previously written about my experience wearing a GPS Tether while on parole in an article called Tether Ball and Chain that was published back in December of 2018. Since then, as part of my ministry, I have spoken with other people who have had to wear a GPS tether as a condition of parole and a surprising number of them who must wear it for life.  I thought it was time to revisit the topic with up-to-date information regarding electronic monitoring as used by the State of Michigan, with context about how this practice is used in other states and by the federal government.

Electronic monitoring has expanded significantly across the country, with an estimated 564,000 Americans currently monitored on an active electronic tracking program at any given time. This footprint is heavily driven by federal surveillance programs: including Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), which tracks roughly 180,000 individuals through its Alternatives to Detention programs, alongside state and local criminal justice systems. The impact of this technology is particularly visible in the Midwest, which holds the nation’s highest concentration of state-level community surveillance. In Michigan alone, the Department of Corrections monitors 5,700 parolees and probationers daily, a statistic that expands even further when accounting for county-level pretrial programs and roughly 400 individuals sentenced to the state’s strict lifetime GPS monitoring laws. As there is no centralized reporting system for electronic monitoring for pretrial programs it is not possible to determine the total number of individuals on tether in Michigan.  A report from 2020 specifically focused on 2018-19 FY data from the Wayne County jail listed the number of individuals on pretrial electronic monitoring on a daily basis at 416 and a total of 1991 for the year. It is therefore likely that the total number of pretrial individuals on tethers in Michigan is very high for people who are under electronic supervision having only been charged with misdemeanors or lower-level felonies and are considered legally innocent.[28][29][30][31][33]

Michigan has used electronic tethering for decades, and today the Michigan Department of Corrections relies on GPS monitoring as one of several community-supervision tools for parolees and some other supervised individuals. Supporters describe GPS as a way to track movements, enforce exclusion zones, and respond quickly to violations without sending every high-risk person back to prison. Critics argue that the same technology can become a costly and punitive form of perpetual surveillance, especially when it is imposed for life. The real question is not whether GPS monitoring sounds tough, but whether it actually improves public safety enough to justify its financial cost, privacy intrusions, and long-term human consequences.

How Michigan’s GPS Tether Program Developed

Michigan’s electronic monitoring program did not begin with today’s always-on GPS anklets. Earlier community-supervision systems relied on curfew monitoring and radio-frequency technology, which could confirm whether a person was at home during required hours but could not map their movements throughout the day. Over time, the state expanded its approach. Michigan Department of Corrections policy now identifies several forms of electronic monitoring, including curfew monitoring, alcohol monitoring, and GPS monitoring.

Legislative and policy materials from the early 2010s show the Department had moved away from passive GPS and was using active GPS that continuously monitored offender movement and generated alerts for boundary violations. Those same materials described GPS as a routine supervision tool for some parolees, while a separate statutory framework created lifetime electronic monitoring for certain criminal sexual conduct convictions committed on or after August 28, 2006. [1][2][3][4]

How The Technology Works

In practical terms, GPS monitoring uses an ankle-worn device that communicates with satellites to estimate location and with cellular networks to send data back to a monitoring center. Michigan policy describes GPS as one approved electronic monitoring technology, and state materials about tether alerts show how the system can flag low battery conditions, loss of GPS signal, strap tampering, communication failures, and geographic rule violations. In other words, the system does not merely record where someone has been; it can also create alerts when a person enters an exclusion zone, leaves an approved area, breaks curfew, removes the strap, or fails to keep the device charged. For lifetime monitoring, Michigan law requires the program to track movement and location from release until death, both in real time and recorded time, with information retrievable by courts or law enforcement. That makes GPS tethering both a supervision tool and a long-term data-collection system. [1][3][5][6]

Why Place Matters in GPS Monitoring

Location accuracy problems do not look the same everywhere. In dense urban areas, tall buildings, narrow streets, parking structures, and reflective surfaces can create an “urban canyon” effect in which satellite signals are blocked or bounce before reaching the device, producing location drift or jumpy tracking. A person may appear on the wrong side of a street, just outside a building, or briefly inside an exclusion zone when the problem is really signal reflection or weak satellite visibility. Indoor settings can make this worse, especially in apartment buildings, basements, factories, hospitals, and courthouses, where both GPS reception and cellular transmission may be impaired. Rural areas present a different set of problems. They usually have better open-sky satellite visibility, but they may have weaker cellular coverage, longer dead zones between towers, and more rugged terrain, all of which can delay uploads or create communication-loss alerts even when the device is still attached and the wearer is where they are supposed to be. In short, cities tend to create accuracy problems, while rural areas more often create connectivity problems, and both can generate misleading alerts if agencies treat every signal anomaly as deliberate misconduct. [15][18][19][20]

This urban-rural divide matters in Michigan because the state spans very different supervision environments. Metro Detroit and other built-up areas can produce the urban canyon, indoor, and multi-story housing problems that make exclusion-zone alerts harder to interpret with confidence. At the same time, northern and western rural counties can present sparse carrier coverage, long travel distances, and weather-related or terrain-related communication problems that slow transmission and complicate response. A GPS system that seems highly precise in policy language may therefore behave very differently depending on where a person lives, works, receives treatment, or travels. That inconsistency is important when violations can lead to jail, prison, or new supervision sanctions. The practical lesson is that a statewide tether program should not assume that one device setting, one alert threshold, or one response protocol works equally well in downtown Detroit, a suburban warehouse corridor, and a remote rural area of the Upper or northern Lower Peninsula. [15][18][19][20]

The Claimed Benefits and the Real Drawbacks

The strongest argument for GPS monitoring is that it gives parole agents more information than ordinary supervision. It can help enforce victim-related exclusion zones, document curfew compliance, and provide a record when someone absconds or tampers with a device. Research outside Michigan suggests electronic monitoring can reduce some forms of recidivism for some groups, particularly when it is paired with structured supervision and support rather than used as a stand-alone punishment. But the drawbacks are substantial. GPS is not a form of prevention itself; it mostly detects movement and rule violations. It cannot stop a new crime in real time unless staff are actively watching, capable of responding immediately, and focused on the right alerts. It also produces false or low-value alerts caused by dead batteries, weak cellular service, signal gaps, or device malfunctions, which can burden both staff and monitored individuals. More broadly, critics argue that tethering can widen the net of punishment by turning technical missteps such as charging failures, late arrivals, or ambiguous zone entries into violations that trigger incarceration, even when there is no new victim and no new crime. It can also interfere with work, housing, medical care, family life, and mental well-being, especially when the device is visible and stigmatizing. [5][7][8][9][10]

What It Costs and Who Profits

The cost question is harder to answer with precision than the rhetoric around GPS monitoring might suggest. Michigan law is clear on one point: a person on lifetime electronic monitoring must reimburse the Department or its agent, and after discharge from parole the statute sets the rate at $60 per month. Department policy also states that offenders are required to pay electronic monitoring fees under the supervision-fee policy, and Michigan’s supervision-fee framework sets a higher monthly rate for people supervised with an electronic monitoring device than for those without one. What is less transparent in public-facing sources is the full cost structure borne by the state, including equipment procurement, monitoring-center staffing, maintenance, data services, and vendor contracts. That opacity matters, because GPS monitoring generates revenue for private equipment makers, monitoring contractors, telecommunications providers, and any state or local systems funded partly through user fees. Public Michigan materials tied tether alerts to 3M electronic monitoring equipment, showing at least one major corporate player in the technology chain. More broadly, the profit model is straightforward: the longer a person remains on a device, the longer equipment, monitoring, service, and fee streams continue. Even if GPS is cheaper than incarceration, that does not mean it is cheap, fair, or free from financial incentives that reward prolonged surveillance. [1][3][5][6][11]

While the amount spent on GPS monitoring is not readily accessible, industry sources project eyepopping revenue growth world-wide. The market value is staggering. In 2024 the market value was pegged at 2.95 Billion US Dollars globally. By 2032 the projection is a market value of 6.5 Billion USD. There is a tremendous financial incentive to grow the use of this technology even in the face or ethical, moral, social or technical critiques.[32]

How Michigan Compares with Other State and Federal Tether Programs

Michigan sits in the more punitive wing of state tether policy because it combines ordinary discretionary electronic monitoring for some parolees with a separate mandatory lifetime electronic monitoring scheme for certain criminal sexual conduct convictions. That is not how every state operates. Across the country, electronic monitoring is a patchwork: some states use GPS mainly as a short-term supervision tool for pretrial release, probation, or parole; some authorize it broadly but leave most decisions to judges, parole boards, or supervising agencies; and some, like California and Florida, built especially aggressive sex-offender GPS systems after high-profile legislation in the mid-2000s. In that broader landscape, Michigan is not alone in imposing very long monitoring terms on some sex offenders, but it is distinct in the rigidity of its statutory lifetime model and in the way the requirement attaches automatically to certain convictions rather than turning primarily on an individualized finding of current risk. That makes Michigan less flexible than states that allow periodic review, narrower tailoring, or greater judicial discretion. [3][4][12][13][14]

The federal system offers an especially useful contrast. Federal courts generally refer to this as location monitoring rather than tethering, and they treat it as a court-imposed supervision tool that can include radio-frequency monitoring, GPS, or other technologies. But the federal model is more individualized and, at least on paper, more restrained. Judges impose it case by case as a condition of pretrial release, probation, home detention, or supervised release, guided by risk and supervision goals rather than by a broad, offense-based lifetime mandate. Federal guidance also expressly states that location monitoring is not a guarantee against new crime and is not a substitute for supervision, and federal materials indicate officers are not watching every movement in real time around the clock. Recent federal oversight reports emphasize alert fatigue, staffing burdens, connection failures, and employment obstacles for monitored individuals. Compared with that framework, Michigan’s lifetime tether regime looks more categorical, more permanent, and less tied to ongoing reassessment of whether the person still needs round-the-clock tracking years or decades after release. [12][15][16][17]

State and Federal Regulatory and Judicial Activity

Michigan is currently experiencing more judicial and adjacent legislative movement than direct statutory reform of the tether program itself. On the legislative side, Senate Bill 424 of 2025 would revise parts of the Sex Offenders Registration Act, including review procedures and treatment of some out-of-state convictions. That bill does not directly rewrite the lifetime electronic monitoring statutes, but it reflects ongoing pressure to make Michigan’s broader sex-offense supervision system more reviewable and more legally durable. On the judicial side, litigation has continued to test whether lifetime electronic monitoring can survive modern constitutional scrutiny when it is imposed automatically, without individualized risk findings and without a meaningful mechanism for removal. Earlier Michigan cases treated lifetime monitoring as a required part of the sentence, but more recent constitutional litigation has pressed the questions of proportionality, punishment, and unreasonable search with greater force. [3][4][21][22][23]

At the federal level, the picture is different because SORNA is primarily a registration and notification framework, not a national GPS tether mandate. Federal law, regulations, and SMART Office guidance create minimum national standards for who must register, what information must be reported, how often people must appear, and how jurisdictions share and disclose information. But those standards do not establish a uniform federal lifetime ankle-monitoring program for all covered offenders. Instead, federal location monitoring remains largely a supervision tool used case by case in pretrial services, probation, and supervised release. Recent federal activity has therefore focused less on expanding tethering and more on administering SORNA, tracking implementation across jurisdictions, and improving the management of federal location monitoring programs. Oversight materials from the Government Accountability Office have emphasized staffing strain, alert management, and data quality, while proposed supervised-release reforms would move the federal system further toward individualized assessment and earlier termination when continued supervision is not necessary. [12][15][16][24][25][26]

The gap between Michigan’s lifetime tether regime and the federal model is, at least for now, growing rather than shrinking. Michigan still relies on offense-based lifetime monitoring rules that can operate automatically and indefinitely, while the federal system is moving rhetorically and institutionally toward individualized supervision, workload triage, and periodic reassessment. At the same time, the gap between states remains wide because SORNA standardizes registration far more than it standardizes tethering. That leaves a major policy vacuum: two people with similar histories may face radically different GPS burdens depending on the state in which they live. There is a strong argument for more uniform baseline regulations regarding tethering, especially if electronic monitoring is going to be justified as a public-safety measure rather than simply an add-on punishment. Those baseline rules should include clear accuracy and alert standards, transparency about fees and vendor contracts, due-process protections for technical violations, periodic individualized review, and a meaningful path off lifetime monitoring when risk demonstrably declines. A uniform framework would not require every state to impose the same level of surveillance, but it could prevent the current patchwork in which the federal SORNA system promotes national consistency in registration while leaving electronic monitoring to fragment into dramatically different and sometimes constitutionally vulnerable state regimes. [3][4][15][21][24][25][26]

Does It Make Anyone Safer? And Does Lifetime Tether Cause More Harm Than Good?

The most defensible answer to whether GPS monitoring makes anyone safer is: sometimes, but only under limited conditions. It can improve supervision by making some kinds of noncompliance visible, helping agents enforce boundaries, and possibly deterring some people from violating rules or approaching prohibited locations. In that narrow sense, it may improve safety for some victims and communities. But the evidence does not support treating GPS as a magic shield. A bracelet does not create housing, treatment, employment, accountability, or meaningful rehabilitation. Safety improves most when monitoring is targeted, temporary, proportionate, and combined with human support and careful judgment rather than used as a substitute for them. [1][7][8][10]

As for lifetime tethering, the case against it is stronger. A sanction that follows a person until death, without an individualized off-ramp tied to demonstrated rehabilitation and actual risk, can easily become more punitive than protective. Lifetime monitoring may create ongoing stigma, recurring fees, technical violations, employment barriers, and psychological strain long after the period of highest risk has passed. It can consume public resources indefinitely while offering diminishing returns. For a small number of people in narrow circumstances, long-term GPS may still be defended as a precaution. But as a blanket or near-automatic policy, tether for life risks confusing surveillance with safety. If Michigan wants a system that truly protects the public, it should ask harder questions about proportionality, reviewability, transparency, cost, and whether permanent tracking is solving a real danger or simply extending punishment by electronic means. [3][4][8][9][10][11]

References

  1. Michigan Department of Corrections, Policy Directive 06.03.105, Electronic Monitoring of Offenders.
  2. Michigan Department of Corrections, Policy Directive 06.04.100, Lifetime Electronic Monitoring of Sex Offenders.
  3. Michigan Compiled Laws 791.285, Lifetime Electronic Monitoring Program.
  4. Michigan Compiled Laws 750.520n, Lifetime Electronic Monitoring.
  5. State of Michigan, GPS Tether Violation Alert Definitions, including alert and zone categories for GPS monitoring equipment.
  6. Michigan Department of Corrections, Policy Directive 06.02.110, Supervision Fees; see also MCL 791.236a regarding parole supervision fees with and without electronic monitoring devices.
  7. National Institute of Justice, Electronic Monitoring Reduces Recidivism (2011).
  8. Bales, Mann, Blomberg, Gaes, Barrick, Dhungana, and McManus, A Quantitative and Qualitative Assessment of Electronic Monitoring, National Institute of Justice final report (2010).
  9. Pew Charitable Trusts, Policy Reforms Can Strengthen Community Supervision (2020).
  10. George Washington University Law research summarized in Electronic Prisons: The Operation of Ankle Monitoring in the Criminal Legal System (2021), as reported by GW Today.
  11. Fines and Fees Justice Center, Electronic Monitoring Fees: A 50-State Survey of the Costs Assessed to People on E-Supervision (2022).
  12. United States Courts, Federal Location Monitoring, and Location Monitoring Reference Guide.
  13. Vera Institute of Justice, People on Electronic Monitoring (2024).
  14. International Association of Chiefs of Police, Tracking Sex Offenders with Electronic Monitoring Technology: Implications and Practical Uses for Law Enforcement (2008).
  15. U.S. Government Accountability Office, Pretrial Supervision: Actions Needed to Enhance Management of the Location Monitoring Program, GAO-23-105873 (2023).
  16. California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, Division of Adult Parole Operations, Electronic Monitoring and related sex-offender parole materials.
  17. California Office of the Inspector General, Assessment of Electronic Monitoring of Sex Offenders on Parole and the Impact of Residency Restrictions (2014).
  18. Heaton, Harold I., GPS Monitoring Practices in Community Supervision and the Potential Impact of Advanced Analytics, National Institute of Justice (2016).
  19. Brown, McCabe, and Wellford, Global Positioning System (GPS) Technology for Community Supervision: Lessons Learned, National Institute of Justice / Noblis (2007).
  20. Research on GNSS performance in urban canyon environments, including signal blockage, multipath, and reduced satellite visibility in dense city settings.
  21. Michigan Senate Bill 424 of 2025 and related Senate Fiscal Agency analysis.
  22. Michigan Supreme Court and Court of Appeals materials concerning lifetime electronic monitoring, including People v. Kardasz, People v. Martin, and People v. Hallak.
  23. Michigan Courts benchbook materials on lifetime electronic monitoring, including statutory scope and sentencing treatment.
  24. SMART Office, SORNA; U.S. Department of Justice, Criminal Division, Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act (SORNA).
  25. 28 C.F.R. Part 72, Sex Offender Registration and Notification.
  26. SMART Office, Case Law Summary and implementation materials concerning legal challenges, federal standards, and jurisdictional compliance.
  27. Federal supervised-release reform proposals, including the Safer Supervision Act of 2025.
  28. Reference 1: National Electronic Monitoring Figures from Berg Insite, Electronic Offender Monitoring Solutions (4th Edition), 2026.
  29. Reference 2: Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Surveillance, Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC) ICE Alternatives to Detention: Latest Data Tracking, 2024
  30. Reference 3: Regional Density and Monitoring Impacts, Electronic Frontier Foundation, : Street Level Surveillance: Electronic Monitoring, 2023
  31. Reference 4: Michigan State Tracking Statistics, Michigan Department of Corrections,  Electronic Monitoring Center Program Operations Overview, 2022
  32. https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/reports/electronic-offender-monitoring-solution-market-35874
  33. https://www.vera.org/jail-incarceration-in-wayne-county-michigan/reducing-the-use-of-pretrial-electronic-monitoring

Reform Solitary Confinement Practices in Michigan Prisons Now!

May is Unlock the Box Mental Health Awareness Month.  The Unlock the Box Campaign is a coalition of organizations and movement leaders who partner with state and local campaigns across the United States with the common goal of ending the use of solitary confinement for all people. Currently active in 22 states and the District of Columbia, including Michigan.  Open MI Door is the organization leading the fight in Michigan.  OMD is seeking to affect policies and practices in all Michigan prisons, jails, and juvenile facilities.  Current focus is on ensuring transparency, accountability, and independent oversight in the use of isolation and in conditions of confinement in general.

The statistics regarding the effects of solitary confinement are alarming.  Right now, there are at least 122,000 people being held in solitary confinement in the United States.  Over a third of people subjected to solitary confinement become psychotic and/or suicidal within the first 15 days.  Individuals who have been in solitary confinement are 78% more likely to commit suicide within a year of their release from prison.

The Michigan Department of Corrections, or MDOC, does not usually use the phrase “solitary confinement” in its internal rules. Instead, it describes the practice as “segregation” or “restrictive housing.” That language matters, because bureaucratic terms can make an extreme practice sound routine. But the reality described in the department’s own policy materials and in the references collected here is unmistakable: segregation means isolating people from the general prison population, often for 23 to 24 hours a day, with sharply restricted movement, limited human contact, and minimal access to ordinary programming. MDOC policy presents segregation as a management tool used for discipline, control, and protection, while critics argue that it functions as a deeply harmful form of isolation that causes lasting psychological damage and undermines rehabilitation.

Michigan’s system illustrates the central contradiction in the national debate over solitary confinement. Prison administrators defend segregation as necessary in some cases to manage violence, serious misconduct, escape risk, or threats to vulnerable prisoners. At the same time, decades of reporting, advocacy, and international human-rights standards have increasingly challenged prolonged isolation as unsafe, inequitable, and incompatible with basic human dignity. Even MDOC’s own reporting shows that the department has sharply reduced administrative segregation over time, suggesting that the state itself recognizes that heavy reliance on this practice is neither inevitable nor desirable. The question is no longer whether segregation is severe. The question is whether Michigan should continue to rely on it in its current form. The strongest answer, based on the material in this document and the cited sources, is no: prolonged segregation should be discontinued and replaced with tightly limited, reviewable, therapeutic, and safety-focused alternatives.

What Segregation Means in the MDOC

According to MDOC policy, segregation is not a single category but a system with several forms. Temporary segregation is short-term isolation used while staff investigate alleged misconduct or await a hearing. Punitive segregation is imposed as a disciplinary sanction after a person is found guilty of a major misconduct violation. Administrative segregation is the most troubling category because it can become long-term. It is reserved for people that the department considers serious threats to institutional safety, major escape risks, unmanageable in general population, or in need of protective separation. On paper, each category has a different purpose. In practice, all three involve versions of extreme separation from ordinary prison life.

The living conditions are severe. People in long-term segregation may spend nearly the entire day alone in a cell of roughly 70 to 80 square feet. Human interaction is drastically limited. When they leave the cell, they may be shackled. Exercise is restricted and often takes place in enclosed spaces rather than meaningful recreation areas. Meals are delivered through a slot in the door. Showers and other basic activities are tightly controlled. These are not incidental inconveniences. They are the core features of an environment built around deprivation, surveillance, and social isolation.

What a typical solitary confinement cell looks like.
What an exercise cage looks like.

MDOC also emphasizes that segregation is regulated through reviews. Placement decisions are supposed to be examined by a housing unit team, the Security Classification Committee, wardens, and in longer cases higher-level administrators. Those review requirements are important, but they do not erase the underlying harm of isolation. The system can be procedurally structured and still be substantively damaging. If the practical result is that a person spends months or years in near-total isolation, repeated reviews do not change the nature of the confinement. They only document it.

Why MDOC Uses Segregation

MDOC’s own policy language makes its rationale clear. Segregation is used, in the department’s words, to achieve effective administrative management, maximum disciplinary control, and individual prisoner protection. That means the practice is justified on three main grounds. First, it is used as punishment for major misconduct. Second, it is used as a security tool when officials believe someone presents a danger to staff or other incarcerated people. Third, it is used, at least sometimes, to separate people who may themselves be at risk of harm in the general population.

Those reasons are not frivolous. Prisons are coercive environments, and correctional administrators are responsible for preventing violence and responding to emergencies. There are situations in which immediate separation is necessary. A person who has just committed a serious assault, threatened staff, or faces a credible risk of being attacked may need to be removed quickly from the general population. Any honest analysis should acknowledge that reality. The problem is that a short-term emergency separation tool is not the same thing as a long-term isolation regime. What may be justified for hours or days becomes far harder to justify when it stretches into weeks, months, or years.

Michigan’s own recent policy developments suggest that the state understands this distinction. The department has reported large reductions in segregation since 2008 and has developed Structured Alternative to Administrative Segregation (START) units as alternatives for some prisoners with serious mental illness. Those reforms implicitly recognize that segregation has often been overused and that at least some of the people once held there can be managed differently. If safer alternatives exist for many cases, then prolonged segregation is less a necessity than a policy choice.

What the Outcomes Show

One of the clearest outcomes in the record is that Michigan has reduced its use of administrative segregation substantially. The data table shows a decline from 479,791 total segregation days and a daily average population of 1,314 in fiscal year 2007–2008 to 102,395 days and a daily average of 281 in 2024–2025. That is a dramatic drop. It undermines any claim that Michigan must rely on segregation at the levels it once did. If the prison system can function with far fewer people in administrative segregation than it held there in 2008, then the older level of use was not an unavoidable feature of prison management. It was an institutional practice that could be changed.

At the same time, a reduction in volume does not resolve the moral and practical concerns. Hundreds of people are still held in administrative segregation, and some remain there for periods exceeding 3, 6, or 12 months. That matters because the harms of segregation are not measured only by how many people are isolated, but also by how long the isolation lasts. The United Nations Nelson Mandela Rules define solitary confinement as confinement for 22 hours or more a day without meaningful human contact, define prolonged solitary confinement as anything beyond 15 consecutive days, and prohibit indefinite and prolonged solitary confinement as inconsistent with minimum standards for humane treatment. Michigan’s own reports showing people in segregation for months or longer place the state in direct tension with those standards.

The human outcomes described in the references are equally serious. Advocates, family reports, legal analyses, and broader research on solitary confinement consistently associate prolonged isolation with anxiety, depression, cognitive deterioration, self-harm risk, hopelessness, and worsening symptoms for people with mental illness or developmental disabilities. Even when corrections officials present segregation as a safety measure, the evidence suggests that isolation can destabilize the very people the institution is trying to manage. That creates a damaging cycle: distress leads to misconduct, misconduct leads to more isolation, and more isolation deepens distress.

There are also broader institutional outcomes. Segregation can make reentry into the general prison population harder by eroding social functioning and increasing distrust. It can also make release into the community more dangerous when people leave prison directly from highly isolating conditions without adequate step-down support. And the practice appears to fall unevenly across the prison population. The materials in this document point to racial disparities in segregation use, with Black men overrepresented in segregated housing compared with their share of the overall prison population. That raises an additional reform concern: segregation is not only severe but may also be administered inequitably.

Additional support for ending prolonged segregation comes from the Unlock the Box campaign, a national coalition focused on abolishing solitary confinement in the United States. The campaign argues that solitary is not only harmful but also counterproductive. Its public materials describe solitary confinement as extreme isolation for 22 or more hours a day, note that an estimated 85 percent of people in solitary are there for nonviolent disciplinary reasons, and report that as many as one-half of those in solitary live with mental illness that isolation can worsen. Unlock the Box also emphasizes that prolonged solitary confinement does not make prisons or communities safer, and that people of color are disproportionately subjected to it beyond their already disproportionate representation in prison populations. Those points reinforce the case that prolonged segregation in Michigan should not be treated as an unfortunate but necessary norm; it should be understood as a policy choice with predictable harms and unequal effects that demand correction.

Segregation and Human Rights

The international human-rights case against prolonged segregation is powerful and increasingly specific. The United Nations Nelson Mandela Rules do not treat isolation as a neutral administrative option. They treat it as a practice requiring strict limits because of its potential to become cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment. Under those rules, prolonged solitary confinement means more than 15 consecutive days, and indefinite solitary confinement is prohibited. The rules also emphasize that solitary confinement should be used only in exceptional cases, as a last resort, for the shortest possible time, and subject to independent review. They further state that it should not be used when a prisoner’s mental or physical disability would be exacerbated by the measure.

Measured against that standard, Michigan’s regime raises serious concerns. The state may call the practice administrative segregation, temporary segregation, or punitive segregation, but a change in terminology does not change the lived reality of isolation. If a person is locked down for 22 to 24 hours a day with little meaningful human contact, then the practice falls within the human-rights framework developed by the United Nations. And if that confinement continues for months, as Michigan’s own reports show happens in some cases, then the state is operating beyond the threshold the Mandela Rules identify as prolonged solitary confinement.

Some defenders of the current system argue that prison safety justifies these departures. Safety is important, but human-rights standards already account for that argument. The Mandela Rules do not forbid every temporary emergency separation. They forbid turning isolation into a routine or open-ended instrument of prison governance. That distinction is crucial. A correctional system can protect staff and prisoners while still rejecting prolonged solitary confinement. In fact, Michigan’s own reduction in segregation usage suggests that reform is compatible with institutional order. The human-rights issue is therefore not whether prison officials ever need tools for emergency separation. It is whether the state should keep using prolonged isolation after it knows the damage it causes and after alternatives have already been shown to exist.

Should Michigan Discontinue Segregation?

If the question means whether Michigan should eliminate every form of temporary emergency separation, the answer is probably no. Prisons need a narrow capacity to separate people immediately after violence, during investigations, or when a person faces an imminent threat. But if the question is whether Michigan should discontinue prolonged segregation as a standing correctional practice, the answer should be yes. Long-term isolation should end.

There are several reasons for that conclusion. First, the harms are too severe. Segregation can intensify mental distress, undermine stability, and damage the social capacities people need both inside prison and after release. Second, the practice is inconsistent with modern human-rights standards once it extends beyond very short periods. Third, the state’s own declining segregation numbers show that Michigan can reduce its use substantially without abandoning prison administration altogether. Fourth, indefinite or months-long isolation invites arbitrary and unequal outcomes, especially where racial disparities and mental health concerns are already present.

Discontinuing prolonged segregation does not mean ignoring violence or misconduct. It means replacing a blunt and damaging tool with more precise responses: short emergency separation, intensive mental-health intervention, structured step-down units, restorative or behavior-based programming, and individualized safety planning for those who need protection. A prison system committed to safety should prefer methods that reduce future harm rather than deepen it.

What Reform Should Look Like

Real reform in Michigan should begin with a clear legal time limit that brings state practice closer to the Mandela Rules. The legislature should prohibit prolonged solitary confinement, ban indefinite segregation, and require meaningful out-of-cell time, programming, and regular independent review for anyone held apart from the general population. People with serious mental illness, developmental disabilities, and other especially vulnerable conditions should not be placed in isolating units that predictably worsen their condition.

Reform should also require transparency. Michigan already reports some segregation data, but durable accountability needs more than aggregate totals. Public reporting should include duration, facility-level usage, demographic patterns, mental-health status, reasons for placement, and release pathways from segregation. The point of transparency is not only to monitor numbers; it is to expose whether the system is relying on isolation as a substitute for staffing, treatment, training, or conflict resolution.

Finally, reform must include culture change. Segregation survives not only because policies authorize it, but because institutions become accustomed to treating isolation as normal. That habit is hard to break. Michigan should invest in staff training, behavioral de-escalation, therapeutic housing, and transition units that prepare people to return safely to prison programming and eventually to the community. If the state is serious about rehabilitation, it cannot continue to rely on a practice that strips people of meaningful human contact and then expects them to emerge healthier, safer, or more prepared for life after incarceration.

Unlock the Box also helps clarify what reform can look like in practice. Its campaign materials highlight legislative approaches that prohibit solitary confinement beyond 15 days in line with the Mandela Rules, create independent oversight, protect vulnerable groups, and in some proposals reduce isolation for emergency de-escalation to only a few hours while requiring safe and humane alternatives. That framework supports a practical reform agenda for Michigan: narrow the grounds for separation, impose strict time caps, expand therapeutic and program-rich alternatives, increase meaningful out-of-cell time, and ensure that any temporary separation is genuinely brief and tied to a clear transition plan back to less restrictive conditions.

Segregation in the Michigan Department of Corrections was built on the idea that isolation can produce order. The evidence suggests something more complicated and more troubling: isolation may sometimes create temporary control, but it does so at high human cost and with serious legal and moral consequences. Michigan has already shown that it can reduce segregation. The next step is to go further by ending prolonged isolation, preserving only tightly limited emergency separation, and building a correctional system centered on safety, treatment, accountability, and human dignity.

Open MI Door is fighting for the passage of bill SB493, which seeks to expand the powers and duties of the Legislative Corrective Ombudsperson’s Office as a meaningful step forward in bringing our state into full compliance with the UN’s Mandela Rules.  If you know someone in prison or who has been in prison check out the mental health resources available on the OMD website.

References

Michigan Department of Corrections. Policy Directive 04.05.120: Segregation Standards. Effective June 1, 2019.

Michigan Department of Corrections. Report to the Legislature: Administrative Segregation Report. March 30, 2026.

United Nations General Assembly. United Nations Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners (the Nelson Mandela Rules), A/RES/70/175. January 8, 2016.

U.S. Department of Justice. Report and Recommendations Concerning the Use of Restrictive Housing. January 2016.

Luigi, M., Dellazizzo, L., Giguère, C.-É., Goulet, M.-H., & Dumais, A. “Shedding Light on ‘the Hole’: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis on Adverse Psychological Effects and Mortality Following Solitary Confinement in Correctional Settings.” Frontiers in Psychiatry, 11 (2020).

Vera Institute of Justice. The Impacts of Solitary Confinement. April 2021.

Unlock the Box Campaign. About Us; Resources: Solitary by the Numbers; and Experience. Accessed May 16, 2026.

https://unlocktheboxcampaign.org

https://openmidoor.org/

Sunshine Laws and the Black Box of American Prisons

In theory, the United States has long embraced the idea that democracy depends on public access to government information. At the federal level, the Freedom of Information Act created a formal pathway for requesting records. In every state, some version of a public records law, open meetings law, or “sunshine law” is supposed to let the public see how government power is exercised. But prisons expose the limits of that promise. Few state institutions exercise more power over daily human life than prisons and jails, yet few are more difficult to examine from the outside. Families, journalists, researchers, lawyers, and advocates often find that the closer they get to questions about medical neglect, solitary confinement, use of force, staffing failures, or deaths in custody, the more the system closes ranks.

This tension sits at the center of any serious discussion about prison conditions in the United States. Sunshine laws are designed to make government visible. Prisons are often structured to remain opaque. The result is a constant struggle over records, inspections, grievance data, disciplinary reports, surveillance footage, contracts, and even basic statistics. The public may assume that if abuse is serious enough, the facts will eventually come out. In practice, information about prison conditions is often delayed, redacted, fragmented, prohibitively expensive to obtain, or withheld outright under broad claims of security, privacy, or administrative burden. Even when records are released, they may arrive months or years too late to prevent harm. That gap between the ideal of transparency and the reality of incarceration is one of the defining accountability problems in American public life.

What Sunshine Laws Are Supposed to Do

“Sunshine laws” is a broad label for the rules that require government openness. They usually include two related ideas: the right to access government records and the right to observe certain government meetings. At the federal level, FOIA applies to federal agencies. At the state level, public records laws differ sharply from one jurisdiction to another. Some states have relatively strong disclosure requirements, short deadlines, and meaningful appeal mechanisms. Others have broad exemptions, weak enforcement, and long delays. Recent reporting and transparency guidance continue to emphasize that all 50 states have some form of open records law, but the strength of those laws varies dramatically, creating a patchwork rather than a uniform national standard [1][2]. In ordinary civic life, sunshine laws help citizens inspect budgets, contracts, policy memos, emails, meeting minutes, and enforcement records. They are meant to deter misconduct by making secrecy harder. But in the prison context, open records requests often collide with agencies that are institutionally resistant to outside scrutiny. Corrections departments routinely argue that disclosure could compromise safety, reveal security procedures, invade privacy, or burden staff. Some of those concerns are legitimate in limited circumstances. Many are also used expansively, turning narrow exemptions into broad shields against public oversight. That is why prison transparency often depends not only on the text of a sunshine law, but on whether requesters have the time, money, and legal support to fight denials.

Why Prisons Are So Hard to See Clearly

Prisons are closed institutions by design. They are physically isolated, highly bureaucratic, and controlled by agencies that manage movement, communication, and information at every level. The people with the most direct knowledge of conditions inside are incarcerated people and correctional staff, but each faces pressures’ that can suppress what becomes public. Incarcerated people may fear retaliation for filing grievances or speaking to reporters. Staff may be constrained by institutional loyalty, labor concerns, or fear of discipline. Families are often dependent on sporadic phone calls, letters, or visits. Journalists usually cannot enter freely, and researchers may face lengthy approval processes or be denied access entirely. When an institution is both coercive and insulated, independent fact-finding becomes unusually difficult.

The problem is compounded by fragmentation. Information about prison conditions is rarely stored in one clean, public archive. Medical records may be held by a private contractor, Staffing data by the corrections department, Death investigations may involve internal affairs units, county coroners, state inspectors general, or local prosecutors. Video footage may be retained under separate policies with short deletion windows. Use-of-force incidents may generate incident reports, witness statements, body camera or fixed camera files, disciplinary findings, and lawsuit records, all governed by different rules. By the time a requester figures out who has what, some of the most important evidence may already be gone.

A Patchwork of Laws, Exemptions, and Delay

One of the biggest barriers to understanding prison conditions is that there is no single transparency regime. Federal prisons are subject to federal law, while state prisons and local jails are governed primarily by state and local rules. That means nearly identical requests can produce completely different outcomes depending on where a facility is located and how aggressively an agency interprets its exemptions. Recent analyses of detention-related records requests have shown that the same kinds of documents may be released in one jurisdiction and withheld in another, not because the public interest differs, but because the legal framework does [3][4].

Agencies often rely on a familiar set of justifications: security exemptions, law-enforcement exemptions, ongoing investigation exemptions, personal privacy protections, and vague claims that records do not exist in the form requested. Some departments demand high copying or processing fees. Others delay so long that the requester is forced to sue or abandon the effort. The Marshall Project recently described public records battles in which agencies stalled for years or quoted costs of thousands of dollars before handing over information, underscoring how formal access rights can be undermined in practice [5].

Delays are especially damaging in the prison context because conditions can change quickly and evidence can disappear. If a family is trying to understand a relative’s death, if a reporter is investigating an outbreak, or if advocates are tracking lockdowns and medical neglect, information delivered a year later is not the same as meaningful transparency. Records may also be incomplete or inaccurate. Missing pages, heavy redactions, inconsistent coding, and contradictory incident descriptions can make it nearly impossible to reconstruct what actually happened. In that sense, opacity is not just about outright refusal. It is also about producing information in forms that are technically compliant but substantively unhelpful.

The Information the Public Most Needs Is Often the Hardest to Get

Some of the most important records concern death, illness, injury, and grievance systems. How many people died in custody last year? How many suicides were preceded by warning signs? How long were people waiting for specialist care? How many grievances alleged staff assault, denial of medication, exposure to extreme heat, or retaliation? These are not abstract management questions. They are core indicators of whether a government institution is meeting minimal constitutional and human obligations. Yet these data are often difficult to access in timely, usable form. Recent state legislative trends have focused on requiring more public reporting about deaths in custody and creating new oversight structures precisely because this information has historically been so hard to obtain [6][7].

Other categories are equally revealing and equally contested: the use of solitary confinement, frequency of lockdowns, staff vacancy rates, incidents involving chemical agents, and allegations of sexual abuse or excessive force. These records tell the public whether harsh conditions are exceptional or routine. But corrections agencies often resist publishing them in standardized formats. A recent resource from The Remedy Project, drawing on nearly 25 years of federal grievance data obtained through FOIA, demonstrates both the scale of public interest and the extraordinary effort required to make such information visible. According to that project, the data includes 1.78 million grievance-related records from the federal administrative remedy system, a reminder that crucial insight into prison conditions may exist for years before the public can actually see it [8][9].

Why Transparency Matters Beyond Curiosity

Transparency about prison conditions is not a niche concern for criminal justice specialists. Prisons are publicly funded institutions that exercise state power in its most coercive form. Taxpayers fund them. Legislators regulate them. Courts review them. Communities absorb the consequences when people are released from facilities marked by violence, neglect, untreated illness, or chronic isolation. Without reliable information, oversight becomes performative. Public debate shrinks to slogans. Agencies can claim that conditions are improving without producing evidence, and lawmakers can avoid difficult reforms by pleading ignorance.

Transparency also matters because the alternatives are weak. Litigation can expose abusive conditions, but lawsuits are slow, expensive, and narrow. Courts usually address specific claims after harm has already occurred. Scholars and advocates have long argued that the United States relies too heavily on litigation as a substitute for ordinary, independent oversight of prisons. Recent commentary on prison oversight has emphasized how unusual that is compared with other public institutions and how many states still lack external, independent prison oversight bodies altogether [10].

Signs of Progress, but Not Yet a Culture of Openness

There are signs of movement. At the federal level, the Brennan Center for Justice has explained that the 2024 Federal Prison Oversight Act created new mechanisms for regular inspections and public reporting in the federal system. The law responds to years of reporting and official findings about preventable deaths, sexual abuse, staffing failures, and deteriorating facilities. The U.S. Department of Justice Office of the Inspector General has likewise continued to identify chronic problems in the Federal Bureau of Prisons, including staffing shortages, infrastructure failures, healthcare deficiencies, contraband, and sexual abuse by staff. These developments matter because they recognize a basic truth: Conditions inside prisons do not improve reliably when agencies are left to monitor themselves [11][12][13].

At the state level, lawmakers in several jurisdictions have begun requiring more disclosure around deaths in custody, inspections, and ombudsman oversight. But the broader picture remains uneven. New reporting mandates in one state do nothing for families in another. A dashboard created by an advocacy group may illuminate federal grievance trends, while a neighboring county jail still provides almost no public information beyond population counts. Reform is happening, but it is additive and piecemeal, not systemic. The culture of corrections administration in much of the country still treats outside scrutiny as a threat rather than a public obligation.

What Meaningful Transparency Would Actually Require

If the United States is serious about transparency in corrections, it cannot rely exclusively on individual records requests. Meaningful openness requires proactive disclosure: routine publication of deaths in custody, serious injury reports, staffing levels, lockdown frequency, grievance categories, inspection findings, contracts with private vendors, and outcomes of substantiated misconduct investigations. It also requires standard definitions and machine-readable formats so that the public can compare facilities over time. Data that exists only in scattered PDFs, delayed spreadsheets, or heavily redacted narrative files does not create real accountability.

Just as important, sunshine laws alone are not enough without independent oversight bodies that can inspect facilities, interview incarcerated people confidentially, review records without agency permission, and publish findings publicly. Open-records rights help after the fact. Oversight bodies can identify problems while they are ongoing. The two approaches should reinforce each other. One gives the public tools to ask questions; the other creates institutions with the authority and expertise to keep asking them even when the public is not watching closely.

The American Correctional Association’s Potential Role

The American Correctional Association plays a significant role in this discussion because it is one of the best-known accrediting bodies in corrections. Through its Commission on Accreditation for Corrections, the association sets standards for prisons, jails, community corrections, and related services, and it describes accreditation as a process for verifying compliance with national correctional standards. According to the association, those standards are intended to improve safety, sanitation, staff training, record maintenance, data management, and the overall operation of correctional facilities [14][15][16]. In theory, that makes ACA accreditation relevant to many of the very deficiencies that drive public demands for sunshine laws in the first place.

If used rigorously, accreditation could help address some of the structural weaknesses identified in this article before they become scandals or litigation. Standards that require better recordkeeping, clearer policies, staff training, health and safety procedures, sanitation practices, incident review, and quality assurance can create a more disciplined internal compliance culture. In that sense, an accrediting body could serve as a preventive mechanism rather than merely a symbolic one. It could push facilities to document deaths, use-of-force incidents, medical practices, grievance handling, and environmental conditions more consistently, making it harder for serious failures to remain invisible. Strong accreditation could also complement sunshine laws by improving the quality, consistency, and retention of the records that outside requesters later seek.

At the same time, accreditation is not the same thing as transparency, and it is not a substitute for independent public oversight. That distinction matters. Critics have argued for years that ACA accreditation can become too deferential to the institutions it evaluates, especially when accreditation is treated as evidence that a facility is operating well despite persistent reports of abuse or neglect. Recent reporting and public criticism have highlighted allegations that the process can function more like a compliance exercise than a searching external review, particularly when agencies have advance notice, pay accreditation fees, and remain deeply involved in the production of the very materials being assessed [17][18]. If accreditation is to reduce the need for sunshine-law battles, it must be credible, probing, and willing to identify deficiencies publicly rather than merely certify formal compliance.

In the best case, the American Correctional Association could help narrow the gap between internal management and public accountability. It could do that by strengthening standards related to documentation, medical quality, grievance systems, use-of-force review, staffing, and humane conditions of confinement, while also making accreditation findings more transparent and easier for the public to understand. But unless accreditation is paired with genuine independence and public visibility, it will only partially address the underlying problem. Sunshine laws are still necessary because the public needs a way to test official claims, not simply rely on them.  The ACA acts as both an industry trade association and accrediting body.  Its history is an important part of American corrections for both good and bad. In terms of our discussion regarding transparency about the ACAs role in the corrections industry I would refer you the Wikipedia entry about the American Correctional Association for more information.

Conclusion

Sunshine laws are rooted in a simple democratic premise: government should not be allowed to operate in darkness. But when it comes to prisons in the United States, darkness is not an accident. It is often built into the institution through physical isolation, legal fragmentation, bureaucratic delay, and a longstanding culture of secrecy. That is why obtaining reliable information about prison conditions remains so difficult even when public records laws formally exist. The question is not only whether the law allows a request to be filed. The real question is whether the public can get timely, usable, comparable information before harm is buried by process.

For journalists, researchers, advocates, lawmakers, and families, the struggle for prison transparency is ultimately a struggle over whether incarceration will remain a black box. A society that claims to value the rule of law cannot treat its most coercive institutions as exempt from ordinary public scrutiny. Stronger sunshine laws, narrower exemptions, lower costs, faster response times, proactive publication, and independent correctional oversight will not solve every abuse behind bars. But without them, the public will continue to learn about prison conditions only after scandal, tragedy, or litigation forces a narrow beam of light through a door that was never meant to open.

References

  1. National Conference of State Legislatures. “Public Records Law and State Legislatures.” Updated April 16, 2025.
  2. National Freedom of Information Coalition. “State Freedom of Information Laws.” Accessed May 12, 2026.
  3. Prison Policy Initiative. “A Guide to Public Records Requests for Advocates Seeking Reform of the Criminal Legal System.” Accessed May 12, 2026.
  4. National Immigrant Justice Center. “State & Local Records Requests.” 2022.
  5. The Marshall Project. “Public Records Shed Light on the Justice System — But It Can Be a Battle to Get Them.” March 12, 2026.
  6. National Conference of State Legislatures. “Trends in Corrections Data and Transparency.” Updated July 22, 2025.
  7. Project On Government Oversight. “How States Are (and Aren’t) Collecting Death-In-Custody Data.” November 19, 2024.
  8. The Remedy Project. “The Remedy Project Launches Data Dashboard Tracking Conditions and Complaints in Federal Prisons.” April 29, 2025.
  9. Data Liberation Project. “Federal Inmate Complaints.” First published July 9, 2024.
  10. Prison Policy Initiative. “Research Spotlight: PrisonOversight.org Equips the Fight for Accountability in Jails and Prisons.” March 25, 2024.
  11. Brennan Center for Justice. “The Federal Prison Oversight Act, Explained.” September 9, 2025.
  12. Congress.gov. “Federal Prison Oversight Act,” Public Law 118–71, July 25, 2024.
  13. U.S. Department of Justice Office of the Inspector General. “Reports – Federal Bureau of Prisons.” Accessed May 12, 2026.
  14. American Correctional Association. “Standards.” Accessed May 12, 2026.
  15. American Correctional Association. “Frequently Asked Questions.” Accessed May 12, 2026.
  16. American Correctional Association. “Commission on Accreditation for Corrections.” Accessed May 12, 2026.
  17. The Appeal. “Nonprofit Prison Accreditor Perpetuates Abuse and Neglect, Senators Say.” February 29, 2024.
  18. Prison Legal News. “Federal Watchdog Slams BOP for Sham Accreditations.” July 1, 2024.

Locked Down: How Prison Lockdowns Undermine Mental Health and Rehabilitation in U.S. Prisons

Lockdowns are supposed to keep prisons safe. Too often, they function as mass isolation: damaging mental health, stalling rehabilitation, and deepening a humanitarian crisis.

During my 8 years of incarceration, I experienced numerous lockdown events.  It could be due to a fight in the yard or chow hall, an outbreak of an infectious disease like Norovirus, or a security sweep for weapons and contraband.  It might last for a few hours to a few days.  A security sweep might result in my property being tossed like a fruit salad onto my bed and my body strip searched, but that was the extent of my inconvenience. My few delayed meals or a sack lunch, a few missed shifts as a school tutor, canceled medical or library callouts, even a few missed visits do not begin to compare to what is happening now across the country.  Lockdowns were just part of the prison experience, but that all changed with Covid-19.

My wife is a Medical Assistant and was hired during Covid to work in the state prison near our house.  During the pandemic everything changed.  Just like out in the world, prisons went into complete lockdown.  No prisoner movement.  What necessary minimal services like medical came to the housing units.  All offsite prisoner transport stopped. No visits, no school or programing, no yard, weight pit of gym callouts, no church services or outside volunteers.  Prisoners were not allowed to interact with other people from outside their housing units. The routine upon which prison is built was stopped completely.  In most prisons this condition lasted not for a couple of months, but for over a year.  In a previous blog post entitled Anti-Social Distancing I wrote about the devastating effects that the pandemic had on prisoners.  The ripple effects of that time still reverberate in prisons.

In many U.S. prisons, “lockdown” no longer describes a rare emergency response to a riot or a narrowly targeted security incident. It has become a recurring operational mode: housing units sealed, movement halted, yard and dayroom time canceled, phones restricted, visits suspended, and education, treatment, and job assignments paused—sometimes for days, weeks, or even months. Reporting in recent years has documented extended lockdowns tied not only to violence but also to chronic understaffing and overcrowding, raising a stark question: When a prison can’t run its basic schedule safely, are we still operating a rehabilitative institution or merely warehousing human beings behind steel doors? [1]

What a Prison Lockdown Actually Means

Lockdowns vary by facility, custody level, and the event that triggered them. But in practice, a lockdown is a temporary suspension of normal movement and routines—often applied to an entire housing unit or whole prison—so staff can regain control, search for contraband, respond to violence, manage a shortage of officers, or contain disease outbreaks. Some lockdowns allow limited “controlled movement” (brief showers, medication lines, or staggered recreation). Others are near-total confinement to cell, with meals delivered to doors, minimal human contact, and sharply reduced access to healthcare, law library, religious services, and family contact.

Even when it is not formally “solitary confinement,” a prolonged lockdown can replicate many of the same risk factors: sensory deprivation, social isolation, loss of autonomy, and the collapse of predictable routines that help people regulate stress. That overlap matters because research on restrictive housing and solitary confinement consistently links extreme isolation to psychological deterioration, self-harm, and elevated suicide risk.

Mental Health: Why Lockdowns Hurt So Much

People enter prisons with high rates of mental illness and trauma histories, and many facilities already struggle to meet their clinical needs. The Prison Policy Initiative’s research library summarizes how common mental health diagnoses are in custody and how gaps in treatment persist. In that environment, lockdowns act like gasoline on a smoldering fire: they intensify stressors while simultaneously cutting off the very support: structured activity, social contact, counseling, movement, sunlight, and exercise that can keep symptoms from spiraling. [10]

  • Loss of routine and control: Predictability is a core mental-health stabilizer. Lockdowns replace schedules with uncertainty—When will the door open? Will medication be on time? Will family calls work today?
  • Isolation and conflict: Confinement increases loneliness and rumination, but it can also increase tension with cellmates in cramped spaces, producing hypervigilance and sleep disruption.
  • Reduced physical activity: Yard closures and canceled recreation remove one of the most accessible mood regulators.
  • Disrupted healthcare access: Even brief interruptions in psychiatric care, counseling, and medication continuity can trigger withdrawal, relapse, or acute crises.
  • Family separation: Suspended visitation and restricted phone access remove a major buffer against despair—especially for parents.

We should be careful with language: lockdowns and solitary confinement are not identical. Still, a large body of evidence on solitary confinement provides a warning label for prolonged, near-total lockdown conditions. A major systematic review and meta-analysis in Frontiers in Psychiatry found solitary confinement was associated with adverse psychological effects and higher risks of self-harm and mortality, especially suicide. When whole housing units are kept in conditions that approximate isolation, it is reasonable to expect similar patterns—particularly among people with preexisting mental illness. [3]

Lockdowns also leave residue. After weeks of enforced inactivity, people may emerge dysregulated—more irritable, less trusting, and more prone to impulsive behavior. That dysregulation can feed a vicious loop: tension increases, violence increases, administrators respond with more lockdown, and the psychological and social environment degrades further. Meanwhile, the skills needed for successful reentry: emotion regulation, conflict resolution, consistent participation in treatment—are precisely the skills lockdowns erode.

Rehabilitation: Lockdowns Don’t Just Pause Programs—They Break Them

Education classes, vocational training, substance use treatment groups, cognitive behavioral programs, faith-based services, work assignments, and reentry planning often depend on predictable movement and staff availability. Lockdowns disrupt all of it. Even “temporary” cancellations can have outsized effects because correctional programming is built on momentum: attendance requirements, sequential curricula, waitlists, and limited seats. Miss enough sessions, and a person can lose their spot—then wait months to re-enroll, if they can at all.

This isn’t a minor inconvenience. Research syntheses and policy reviews consistently find that prison programming, especially education and job training, can reduce recidivism and improve post-release employment. RAND’s work on correctional education summarizes evidence that educating incarcerated people improves post-release outcomes, and federal reviews describe programming as a key lever for reducing reoffending. When lockdowns suspend programming, they effectively suspend one of the few tools’ prisons have to make future communities safer. [8] [9]

Lockdowns also damage the human infrastructure of rehabilitation: relationships. Family visitation is often suspended, and calls may be limited or unreliable. Staff may interact with incarcerated people primarily through orders and door slots. Over time, this can shift the culture from “managed community” toward “permanent crisis mode.” Recent accounts describe facilities held in extended lockdown conditions because agencies lack enough staff to safely run normal schedules—an operational failure with deep human costs.

Are Lockdowns Increasing? What U.S. Data Shows—and What It Doesn’t

If you’re looking for a single national dataset that tracks the frequency and duration of prison lockdowns across all U.S. state and federal facilities over decades, you’ll quickly hit a wall: lockdowns are not consistently defined, measured, or publicly reported across jurisdictions. National statistical agencies such as the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) produce detailed annual reports on prison and jail populations, admissions, staffing, and mortality, but “lockdown-days per facility per year” is not a standard published metric. The Prison Policy Initiative even maintains resources explaining that many commonly requested criminal-justice datasets simply don’t exist in unified form—lockdowns being a prime example. [10] Here is one of the few examples from the Illinois Department of Corrections.

Example of lockdown data from the Illinois Department of Corrections for FY2020 to FY2025 showing the marked recent increase in lockdowns.

Still, we can responsibly analyze lockdown trends by triangulating from: (1) periods when lockdowns were system-wide (notably the COVID-19 era), (2) staffing and overcrowding indicators that predict operational lockdowns, and (3) investigative reporting and oversight findings documenting prolonged, non-emergency lockdown use. Note that throughout this article I have specifically included a series of images related to two state prisons in Wisconsin that made the news due to public protests regarding prolonged lockdowns and prison conditions.

1) The COVID-19 Shock: Lockdown as Public-Health Control

From March 2020 through early 2021, many prisons entered “modified operations” that resembled extended lockdowns: movement restrictions, suspended visitation, reduced programming, and quarantine/isolation practices. BJS documented the broader system impacts of the pandemic in prisons—including testing, infections, deaths, and major shifts in admissions and releases—showing how deeply COVID-19 altered daily operations behind bars. [4] Refer to my post Speech-less to read about the devastating effect that Covid-19 had on those incarcerated at that time.

Federal oversight also highlighted the mental-health danger of pandemic isolation. In a capstone review of the Federal Bureau of Prisons’ COVID-19 response, the DOJ Office of the Inspector General reported that the BOP told investigators that seven incarcerated people died by suicide from March 2020 through April 2021 while housed in single-cell confinement in quarantine units related to COVID-19—an alarming signal of how extreme isolation can interact with crisis stress. The OIG also described staffing shortages and morale challenges during the pandemic. [5]

At the time the BOP published facility-level COVID-19 statistics, which helped document disease burden and operational strain. That reporting was quickly ended even before the pandemic was declared over and the information was never translated into a standardized national ledger of lockdown frequency and duration.

2) The Staffing Squeeze: Lockdown as a Substitute for Adequate Operations

Outside of pandemic emergencies, one of the most commonly cited drivers of extended lockdowns is understaffing. When there aren’t enough officers to safely escort people to chow, yard, school, or the clinic, prisons cut movement. In its analysis of the national staffing crisis, the Prison Policy Initiative argues that understaffing becomes a self-reinforcing loop: fewer staff leads to more restrictive conditions and fewer services; conditions worsen; violence rises; staff burnout increases; recruitment becomes harder; and lockdown becomes routine. [2]

Data-driven reporting has underscored how severe the staffing decline has been. The Marshall Project reported that state correctional workforces dropped sharply after 2019, reaching the lowest mark in more than two decades in 2022, while many state prison populations began rebounding—creating a mismatch between staffing capacity and operational demands. In that context, lockdown becomes a predictable management response rather than an exceptional security measure. [6]

Stateline’s national reporting similarly describes prolonged lockdowns, sometimes lasting weeks or months—linked to understaffing and overcrowding, not disciplinary need. The key trend described is not necessarily “more lockdown events,” but longer lockdowns and more frequent reliance on lockdown-like restrictions as a default operating posture. [1]

Talib Akbar speaks during an Oct. 10, 2023, protest at the Wisconsin State Capitol in Madison, Wis. WISDOM, a statewide faith-based social justice organization, organized the protest. Akbar was incarcerated for 20 years before his release in 2013 and spent at least 10 stints in solitary confinement, including a stretch lasting nearly a year. WISDOM and partner organizations called on the short-staffed Wisconsin Department of Corrections to lift restrictions on prisoner movement, reduce the prison population and invest in community-based programs that aid prisoner rehabilitation. (Meryl Hubbard / Wisconsin Watch)

3) Security Threats: Contraband, Drugs, Phones, and Violence

Lockdowns are also frequently used after violent incidents, when administrators suspect weapons, or when contraband flows overwhelm routine searches. A National Institute of Justice summary of a RAND-facilitated workshop on correctional security threats ranked insufficient staffing as the top concern among experts, with contraband (drugs, weapons, cellphones) generating the largest number of priority needs. Each of these threats can precipitate facility-wide shakedowns and movement freezes, especially when an agency lacks the personnel and technology to target responses precisely. [7]

So, are lockdowns increasing? We cannot prove a clean nationwide time-series increase in lockdown frequency and duration because the U.S. lacks standardized, publicly reported lockdown metrics across prisons. But multiple converging indicators suggest a real shift toward more extended lockdown conditions since 2020: pandemic-era modified operations, followed by persistent staffing shortages and overcrowding pressures that make normal programming schedules difficult to sustain. The lived reality described by oversight bodies and national reporting is consistent with longer and more routine restrictions—even if the number of discrete “lockdown events” is not measured uniformly.

Underlying Causes: Why Lockdowns Keep Spreading

  • Chronic understaffing and burnout: When posts go unfilled and overtime becomes constant, prisons cannot safely move large groups. Lockdown becomes the operational workaround. [1] [2] [6]
  • Overcrowding and facility design: Crowded units, dorm settings, and aging infrastructure make it harder to separate conflicts, quarantine illness, or run staggered movement without enormous staffing. [1]
  • Contraband markets and violence cycles: Illicit phones, drugs (including opioids), and weapons drive shakedowns and retaliatory violence, often followed by facility-wide lockdown. [7]
  • Policy incentives that favor control over care: It is administratively easier to cancel activities than to build staffing, training, clinical capacity, and targeted security approaches.
  • Unmet mental health and substance use needs: When treatment access is thin, crises escalate; crises prompt lockdowns; lockdowns worsen mental health; and the cycle continues. [3] [10]
Protesters call on the short-staffed Wisconsin Department of Corrections to improve prisoner conditions and lift restrictions on prisoners’ movement during a protest at the Wisconsin State Capitol on Oct. 10, 2023, in Madison, Wis. Meryl Hubbard/Wisconsin Watch

What Can Be Done: A Humane, Evidence-Based Path Out of the Lockdown Spiral

Calling this a “humanitarian crisis” is not hyperbole: prolonged, population-wide confinement in stressful environments predictably harms mental health and sabotages rehabilitation. The good news is that the solutions are not mysterious. They require political will, operational discipline, and transparency.

  1. Measure lockdowns—then publish the numbers. States and the federal system should track at minimum: lockdown start/end times, scope (unit vs. facility), reason codes, services suspended, and out-of-cell hours provided. Without data, the public can’t distinguish emergency necessity from routine deprivation. (The current lack of standardized lockdown metrics is a central barrier to trend analysis.) [10]
  2. Set enforceable limits and minimum conditions. Even during lockdowns, people should receive daily out-of-cell time, access to showers, medical and mental health care, and meaningful communication with counsel and family, with clear exceptions only for immediate, documented threats.
  3. Stabilize staffing—but don’t pretend hiring alone can solve mass incarceration. The staffing crisis is real, but it is tightly linked to the scale of incarceration. Breaking the cycle means improving working conditions (training, safety, schedules, pay) while also reducing the incarcerated population so staffing ratios are feasible. [2] [6]
  4. Protect program continuity as a public-safety priority. If education and treatment reduce recidivism, then suspending them for long periods should be treated as a risk to community safety. Build “lockdown-resilient” programming: cell-front coursework, tablet-based learning (where feasible), small-group controlled movement, and make-up sessions that prevent people from losing their place in sequenced programs. [8] [9]
  5. Expand mental health support during and after lockdown periods. Lockdowns are predictable stress spikes. Facilities should implement surge mental-health checks, peer-support access, and rapid referral pathways during restrictions, especially for people with known risk factors for self-harm. The evidence linking extreme isolation to self-harm and suicide risk makes this essential. [3] [5]
  6. Modernize contraband control without collective punishment. Targeted searches, intelligence-led investigations, and technologies aimed at drones and illicit phones can reduce the perceived need for sweeping lockdowns—while still addressing the very real threats highlighted by correctional security experts. [7]
  7. Strengthen independent oversight. Prolonged lockdowns should trigger automatic external review: documentation of necessity, timeline for restoration of normal operations, and a plan for services. Oversight findings during COVID-19 show why independent scrutiny matters. [4] [5]

Conclusion: Safety Without Humanity Isn’t Safety

Lockdowns will always exist in some form; prisons are volatile places, and emergencies happen. The crisis is the normalization of lockdown as routine management, whether driven by pandemic protocols, staffing collapse, overcrowding, contraband economies, or a deeper policy choice to prioritize control over care. The mental-health consequences are predictable, and the rehabilitation costs are measurable in missed education, stalled treatment, and weakened family ties.

Because the United States does not systematically publish lockdown frequency and duration data across jurisdictions, we can’t chart a definitive national curve the way we can for incarceration rates or admissions. But the available evidence strongly suggests the experience of lockdown has intensified since 2020; first through widespread pandemic restrictions documented by BJS and federal oversight, then through persistent staffing and capacity failures that keep prisons from operating normally. Treating this as a humanitarian crisis starts with telling the truth in numbers: track lockdown-days, publish them, and make “days of life” behind bars a metric of accountability alongside safety. [4] [5] [1] [2] [10]

Endnotes

  1. Stateline. Amanda Hernández (December 3, 2024). “State prisons turn to extended lockdowns amid staffing shortages, overcrowding.”
  2. Prison Policy Initiative. Brian Nam-Sonenstein & Emmett Sanders (December 9, 2024). “Why jails and prisons can’t recruit their way out of the understaffing crisis.”
  3. Luigi, M., Dellazizzo, L., Giguère, C.-É., Goulet, M.-H., & Dumais, A. (2020). “Shedding Light on ‘the Hole’: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis on Adverse Psychological Effects and Mortality Following Solitary Confinement in Correctional Settings.” Frontiers in Psychiatry, 11:840.
  4. U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics. Carson, E. Ann; Nadel, Melissa; & Gaes, Gerry (August 2022; published August 25, 2022). Impact of COVID-19 on State and Federal Prisons, March 2020–February 2021 (NCJ 304500).
  5. U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the Inspector General (March 2023). Capstone Review of the Federal Bureau of Prisons’ Response to the Coronavirus Disease 2019 Pandemic (Report 23-054).
  6. The Marshall Project. Shannon Heffernan & Weihua Li (January 10, 2024). “New Data Shows How Dire the Prison Staffing Shortage Really Is.”
  7. National Institute of Justice (April 6, 2020). “Experts Identify Priority Needs for Addressing Correctional Agency Security Threats.”
  8. RAND Corporation. Davis, L. M., Bozick, R., Steele, J. L., Saunders, J., & Miles, J. N. V. (2013). Evaluating the Effectiveness of Correctional Education: A Meta-Analysis of Programs That Provide Education to Incarcerated Adults (RR-266).
  9. Office of Justice Programs / Federal Probation. Byrne, J. M. (2020/2022). “The Effectiveness of Prison Programming: A Review of the Research Literature Examining the Impact of Federal, State, and Local Inmate Programming on Post-Release Recidivism.”
  10. Prison Policy Initiative. “Data toolbox” (includes guidance and a list of commonly requested data that doesn’t exist in unified form).

April Is Second Chance Month: Why It Matters More Than Ever

Every April, communities across the United States pause to recognize a powerful truth: No one should be defined forever by their worst mistake. April is Second Chance Month, a nationwide effort to raise awareness of the barriers facing people with criminal records and to promote policies and practices that support successful reentry, restoration, and community safety.

A Movement Rooted in Dignity and Opportunity

Second Chance Month was founded in 2017 by Prison Fellowship, the nation’s largest Christian nonprofit serving currently and formerly incarcerated people and their families. The initiative highlights a sobering reality: nearly 1 in 3 American adults has a criminal record, and many face lifelong obstacles long after completing their sentence. These barriers now numbering close to 44,000 legal restrictions nationwide, can limit access to employment, housing, education, and even basic civic participation.

Over the years, Second Chance Month has grown into a broad, bipartisan movement. Presidential proclamations have been issued consistently since 2018, and the United States Senate has repeatedly passed resolutions recognizing April as Second Chance Month. By 2025, 27 states joined more than 1,100 Churches, Employers, and Community partners in formally recognizing the month and calling attention to the need for meaningful second chances.

Why Second Chances Are a Public Safety Issue

Reentry is often framed as charity or social service, but research and experience show it is a core public safety strategy. Nearly 95% of incarcerated people will eventually return home, with approximately 600,000 people released from state and federal prisons each year, along with millions more from local jails.

The period immediately following release is especially critical. When individuals lack stable housing, health care, employment, or community support, the risk of recidivism increases—not just harming individuals and families, but entire communities.

Organizations like the Crime and Justice Institute (CJI) emphasize that the most effective reentry efforts align multiple systems from day one:

  • Housing and employment
  • Behavioral health care
  • Community supervision
  • Family and community supports

When these systems work together, beginning before and continuing through the early months after release; public safety improves, costs decrease, and people have a genuine opportunity to rebuild their lives.

A Personal Story Behind the Statistics

While the numbers are compelling, the heart of Second Chance Month lies in individual lives.

In a powerful reflection shared during Second Chance Month, Michelle Cirocco, a nonprofit executive and formerly incarcerated woman, describes the reaction she often receives when she shares her past: surprise. Despite her professional success, people struggle to reconcile her accomplishments with her history of incarceration.

Her message is clear: she is not the exception. She represents what happens when opportunity meets accountability, support, and belief in human potential. Millions of others, she reminds us, are still waiting for that same chance—not to be extraordinary, but simply to be seen as human.

Second Chance Month challenges the damaging assumption that people behind bars are a permanent “other.” Instead, it calls us to recognize what has always been true: People are more than the worst thing they have done.

Faith, Forgiveness, and Restoration

For many faith communities, Second Chance Month is deeply rooted in spiritual principles of Redemption, Mercy, and Reconciliation. Churches across the country observe Second Chance Sunday in April, offering prayer and support for people impacted by crime and incarceration.

Moving From Awareness to Action

As leaders from across Christian traditions have emphasized, there is no theological basis for stripping someone of dignity after they have paid their debt. Restoration of Individuals, Families, and Communities is both a moral calling and a practical necessity.

Second Chance Month is about more than recognition—it is a call to action.

Policymakers are encouraged to:

  • Sustain funding for evidence-based reentry programs
  • Promote cross-agency coordination

Practitioners are urged to:

  • Focus resources on the critical early months after release
  • Use data-informed, individualized approaches

Funders and partners are called to:

  • Invest in systemwide solutions, not isolated programs
  • Support scaling what works

And Communities including employers, churches, and civic leaders can play a transformative role by offering opportunity instead of judgment.

Michigan’s Success Story

In 2018 Michigan governor Rick Snyder declared April 2018 to be Second Chance Month.  Since that time Michigan has made progress and is addressing the needs of returning citizens in statistically meaningful and tangible ways. Recidivism rates have been reduced significantly as the Michigan Department of Corrections has increased its focus on Housing and Employment, Behavioral health care, Community supervision, and Family and Community support through its Offender Success Reentry Services program. Offender Success, formerly known as the Michigan Prisoner Re-Entry Initiative, is a public-private partnership that relies on unprecedented collaboration and teamwork between state agencies, human service providers, the faith-based community and private companies who share a vested interest in safer communities and opportunities for all.

Offender Success is a public safety program based on 20 years of research on what works to help returning citizens succeed. By providing needed support, resources and tools, we create safer communities, a better economy and increased quality of life for returning citizens and their families. Offender Success is a hand-up, not a hand-out.

Evidence-Based Programs

Research has shown that evidence-based cognitive programming helps reduce future risk. Programs include Violence Prevention Programming and Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. OS Staff develop and monitor these programs, while also ensuring that prisoners are properly placed in these programs based on their parole board jurisdiction date. OS also works with counties throughout the state to provide evidence-based support to probationers through Community Corrections

The Offender Success Administration is housed within the MDOC’s Executive Office and has staff at prisons throughout the state.  Staff members include educators, school staff, institutional parole agents, specialists, and analysts who oversee various programs within the prisons and contracted services in the community.  The goal of this diverse group of professionals is to foster change and success for those in prison, as well as those on parole or probation.

There are four Major Areas of Focus: Evidence-based Programs, Education, In-Reach, and Community Supports for Parolees.

Education

Michigan is a national leader in correctional education and operates a school at each prison. Schools teach academic (high school equivalency), special education, and career and technical education programs. The MDOC also operates three Vocational Villages, which are the most immersive prison vocational programs in the nation, training students in high-demand trades. The MDOC also partners with a variety of colleges and universities that provide post-secondary classes and degrees to those in prison. 

In-Reach

Serving as the bridge between incarceration and the community, In-Reach is utilized by the parole board to provide a more focused opportunity to plan for reentry with the support of dedicated staff.

Community Supports for Parolees

Part of ensuring public safety and personal success is providing necessary supports, such as stable housing, basic supplies, or assistance finding or maintaining a job. The MDOC contracts with 10 regional administrative agencies that provide this assistance and more to eligible parolees throughout the state. Offender Success also oversees a mentoring program for those who are on parole, connecting them with those that have successfully gone through the criminal justice system as a positive peer support.

A Chapter, Not the Whole Book

Second Chance Month reminds us that a past mistake should be a chapter in someone’s story, not the end of it. When we remove unnecessary barriers, align systems, and choose dignity over stigma, we don’t just help individuals succeed. We build safer, stronger, and more compassionate communities for everyone. Let’s commit to seeing the person behind the record and to unlocking second chances that truly last.

Disquieting Solitude

While I was in prison, I dreamed of having a room to myself.  Having a single room in housing units that had grown to contain twice as many people as they were originally designed for was just that a dream.  Except for a very limited number of cells in Level II and IV did I see single man cells, and these contained mainly lifers that needed wheelchairs due to health issues.  During the seven months I spent in Level IV there was a total of six weeks where I did not have a roommate.  Those were the last days I would be alone for the next seven years.  Even in Level IV I was able to get two hours of day of yard time, three trips to the chow hall, weekly trips to the library and religious service.  These provided plenty of time to exercise, socialize, and relieve the monotony of being locked down 20 hours a day.  I had a TV and a radio, so I never lacked for input. 

How very different for those in solitary confinement.  While I spent a week in protective custody, it was a two-man cell located in the same housing unit as solitary where people were sent for violating the rules.  In solitary meals are served in the cells through a slot in the door and the only way to leave the cell was in hand cuffs, even to go to the shower every other day.  No personal property, no TV or radio.  No commissary, no phone calls or email.  It was not a nice place and one that I didn’t want to visit.

While out walking the track in the big yard I would hear guys in solitary shouting to each other out the tiny window vents to talk to someone in another cell.  I would also walk past the cages behind the building where guys in solitary got yard time.  The cages were just big enough to pace a couple of steps or drop down and do pushups.  Even in wintertime you would see guys in cages that would be shoveled clear of snow by a unit porter.  Signs posted on the fences separating the yards strictly warned that we were not to communicate with those in the cages.  The signs might as well have said, “Don’t feed the animals.”

This form of punishment inside of prison has been gaining more and more attention in the United States as activists seek to bring this barbaric and discredited practice that is used widely in both federal and state correctional facilities to an end. Articles and videos about the gruesome reality of solitary confinement have been published by many news organizations and prison reform activists including The New York Times, The LA Times, The Guardian, Huffington Post, Scientific America, Psychology Today, The Atlantic, GQ, ABC, NBC, CBS, PBS, CBC, BBC, YouTube, and Facebook to name a few. Those who defend the practice point to the idea that the psychological effects of isolation from the general population serve as a tool to break strong willed inmates who are difficult to handle-The Wall Street Journal. The reality is that there is no evidence that this works in the way it is intended and instead simply breaks the person making them less controllable in prison and unrehabilitatable.

I recently read an article in Rolling Stone entitled ‘Right Before I Hung Myself’: Prisoners Share Tales of Solitary Confinement in Michigan by Tana Ganeva.  First, I would highly recommend that you take the time to read the article because it is professionally well written and brings a national spotlight onto the dark underbelly of the Michigan Department of Corrections.  Secondly it uses firsthand information obtained from correspondence directly with those who have experience serving time in solitary confinement.  Like my blog the author is providing a voice for those who otherwise couldn’t speak for themselves.  But it doesn’t stop with the article there is an excellent website that contains the words and artwork of those whose lives have been forever changed by a practice that is internationally recognized as inhumane and by many to constitute torture.  Please check out ‘Silenced: Voices from Solitary in Michigan’ a website where prisoners tell harrowing experiences in their own words.

If You Can’t Stand the Heat

The expression was popularized by US President Harry S Truman to tell someone that if they cannot deal with a difficult situation, they should leave that situation.  Somewhat insulting, it implies that the person addressed cannot tolerate pressure and that they should leave others to deal with it rather than complaining.

While on parole I worked in a commercial kitchen.  I started out as a dishwasher and moved up to be a prep cook.  I can tell you that the kitchen is an extremely hot place to work, especially in the summer.  Hot stoves, ovens, deep fryers, and dishwashers coupled with limited staffing, space & time, and combined with high output workloads during meal service creates an incredibly stressful situation that few people can thrive in.  At times it felt like it was an episode of Hell’s Kitchen with Gordon Ramsay berating young inexperienced cooks competing for an opportunity to work in one of his restaurants.  High pressure and high stakes, no room for error and no tolerance for the smallest infraction of the rules.  Either you learn the most efficient and food-safe method of completing your tasks or risk falling behind and poisoning someone.  There were days when I didn’t think I was going to make it, but every day I kept showing up and gradually I got stronger, smarter, and wiser.  Unfortunately, working in a commercial kitchen doesn’t pay very well, the hours can be somewhat erratic, and holidays tend to be worked and not celebrate.  I look back on my time in the kitchen and appreciate the things I learned that made me a better cook at home.  I miss some of my coworkers and how well I ate.  I don’t miss the heat, the stress, or the hours.

As I write this article, we are amid a week of 90-degree days and I’m thankful for air conditioning, ice cubes and shade that keeps me calm, cool, and collected.  However, most prison housing units in America don’t have air conditioning or even adequate ventilation.  The driving factor in prison design is control, not comfort.  In some places millage’s to build new jails specifically stated that air conditioning was not included as a way of gaining votes from people who think that inmates don’t deserve it.  There is a mentality that says that if some people in the general public can’t afford air conditioning then prisoners don’t deserve this luxury. 

True the electrical expense associated with cooling large buildings can be expensive, but this way of thinking fails to see the whole picture.  To prevent being an easy means of escape many windows in correctional facilities don’t open and the ones that do are either too small to allow an average sized inmate from climbing thru or have some type of grated cover on the outside.  This significantly limits the access to fresh air inside or the ability to create cross ventilation or breezes.  Some places compensate by adding commercial sized exhaust fans, ceiling fans, or personal fans to create any air movement.  But by and large these in my experience had little effect in hot weather.  In the Level I pole barns where I stayed the exhaust fans created such a significant amount of negative pressure that it required a lot of effort to open the exit door, even when all the windows in the unit were open.

Iowa inmates endure summer heat as lawmakers put off prison repairs

Headline of a July 2020 Iowa Capital Dispatch article by Linh Ta

The primary construction materials for prisons are brick and steel.  These tend to absorb and retain heat in the summer adding to the building heat load.  Many prison buildings are over 35 years old, have poor insulation and lack thermal pane windows.  I have written previously about how cold it got in my county jail cell with not just frost but ice forming on the inside of the window.  Given their inability to heat the cells in the winter in the medical wing, how could they possibly cool them in the summer?  Quarantine in the MDOC utilizes part of the old walled Jackson prison complex.  Those housing units have 4 galleries of cells facing large windows many with broken or missing panes that let in plenty of light, bugs, weather, etc.  They also do little to regulate the heat or cold since they are made of individually glazed divided light single pane glass which comprise roughly 50 percent of the exterior wall.

Windows in the old walled prison in Jackson, MI

In many parts of the country including Michigan, climate change has resulted in longer hotter summers that were not a consideration when many prison buildings were designed.  I recently read the account of a man who spent nearly 35 years in a north Texas prison.  He recalls how during the winter there was occasionally snow on the surrounding fields and that summer had relatively few days where the temperatures went above 90 degrees.  However, over time the winters got warmer and the summer heat lasted much longer.  The change in weather resulting in unbearable living conditions.  In fact, there have been several lawsuits brought against various states and the federal prison system claiming that the lack of air conditioning is cruel and unusual punishment. 

Inmates who are elderly, have medical conditions or take medication that place them at elevated risk for heat related illness are particularly likely to have serious and sometimes fatal reactions to building temperatures that can remain 10-15 degrees higher than the nighttime low.  The thermometer in one of my housing units would still be in the upper 80s at 11PM on summer nights after the daytime temperature soared into the 90s.  It could stay like this for several weeks at a time during July and August.    Like most lawsuits brought by inmates they have a difficult time prevailing in the courts and when they do the gains are either short lived when overturned on appeal or simply ignored by the prison administrators without some form of judicial oversight.  An aging prison population with a disproportionate number of inmates with chronic health conditions was also never factored into the building design.

How Global Warming Makes Overcrowded Prisons Even More Dangerous

Headline of a Bloomberg City Lab article written by Brentin Mock in September 2015.

Even as evidence of climate change mounts, little is done to address the problem except when the corrections officer’s union gets involved because it’s not just the inmates that contend with the heat but anyone who has to work in buildings without the benefit of air conditioning.  In Michigan prisons the administration, school, medical buildings, and the chow hall generally had air conditioning.  It was the housing units that were unconditioned, except for the housing unit counselor’s office.  One of the perks of my job as a tutor was spending seven hours a day in the school, where it was relatively cool.  I dreaded going back to the housing unit to endure the stifling hot air that left the aftertaste of BO in your mouth.

In 2008 Lakeland and Florence Crane correctional facilities partnered with Refurbished Pets of Southern Michigan (RPSM) to form a prisoner/dog foster care and training program.

It was difficult to imagine that due to the efforts of the Humane Society, dog pounds and many livestock barns are air conditioned while prisons are not.  I’m all for treating animals humanely but the very term involves the concept of treating other species in ways that we would treat people.  Yet the concept of humane treatment for prisoners doesn’t rise to that same level.  I wonder if the Humane Society realizes that all the Leader Dog for the Blind and Service Dog training programs that are being run in prisons expose the dogs to inhumane living conditions.  Also, there is irony in that prisons are a great place to socialize dogs but do little to socialize the inmates.

In many communities there are cooling centers set up to accommodate people who don’t have access to air conditioning during heat waves.  Libraries and community centers welcome people to come in and cool off.  In prisons there are also cooling centers of a sort.  Places like the chow hall are opened to those who have a potential to suffer from heat related illness to go and cool off.  This is only during times when the chow hall isn’t serving food and the inmates aren’t allowed to bring anything with them to occupy their time.  No playing cards or books, they can only sit quietly at the tables.  They are not free to come and go but must remain there until dismissed back to their housing units.  During the current Covid-19 pandemic many prisons aren’t running regular chow hall schedules to accommodate a limited form of social distancing, so using them as cooling centers may not be an option this year.  I’m not certain but using the visiting room might be an option at some facilities since visits are currently banned.

I have written previously about the relationship between the hot summer months and the increase in violence and suicides.  Hot weather brings out the worst in people and when the worst of the worst are forced to live in hot cramped living conditions things only get ugly.  You’d think from a security perspective the administration would want to keep the violence to a minimum and reduce the number of suicide attempts, however it doesn’t appear that this type of rational thinking applies. 

Hot and bothered: Experts say violent crime rises with the heat

Headline of a July 2012 CBS News article by Julia Dahl

It ultimately boils down to how inmates are viewed by not just corrections staff, but by the governor, legislature, and the general public.  Are inmates to be considered as people with certain human rights that the rest of society takes for granted or are, they somehow disqualified by virtue of their behavior which was deemed as inappropriate?  There seems be a dichotomy where inmates are expected to rehabilitate themselves, yet they are treated as being unredeemable.  We sentence people to serve time for their crimes in places that are as dystopian as Mad Max’s Thunderdome and then expect them to reintegrate back into society after their release. 

Summer Heat Kills Inmates in Prisons, and That Needs to Change

Headline of a Huffington Post August 2014 article written by Ariel Dulitzky, Director of the Human Rights Clinic at The University of Texas School of Law

When inmates who are not serving life sentences die in prison, it is common to say that they weren’t given life sentences and shouldn’t have had to die there, which is ridiculously obvious.  But the system as it is currently operated doesn’t allow for different standards for inmate care based on their sentences.  Medical care is like that of third world countries where there are many needless deaths and pointless suffering.  In Michigan for example there is no early release program to reward prisoners for good behavior due to the Truth in Sentencing provisions of the Michigan constitution.  Compassionate release programs also don’t have much compassion since most who apply are denied or the considerations are so deliberately slow that the petitioner dies while waiting for an answer.  Much of this boils down to a lack of political will, indifference, and outright animosity toward those assigned to their care.  So why should something like air conditioning receive any consideration?  Because when you can’t get out of the kitchen there isn’t another option.

I first started to write this post in late June/early July when the summer heat was at its worst and the USA was just starting to venture outdoors after a prolonged period of quarantine.  My job had just called me back to work and I went from having too much time on my hands to working seven days a week.  In fact, my company had placed me into a machine shop where the indoor temperature was routinely in the mid to upper 90s.  While it was hot and uncomfortable at work, when I got into my car to go home, I could turn on the air conditioning.  It reminded me of how hot and uncomfortable it can get in prison and that for those incarcerated there is no break from the heat.  Now that it’s almost spring it may seem out of place, but it is still truth and is something worth blogging about since it will repeat itself in a few months.

This blog is an example of how I could feel that what I had to say might not be all that important at the time that I was writing it.  The first outbreaks of Coronavirus that triggered lockdowns in the spring seemed to be easing but by the time I was ready to post this essay cases were on the rise and only accelerated into the fall and winter.  I was stunned as I watched infection rates and deaths spiral out of control.  Prisons and jails were locked down and conditions only got worse for those trapped inside.  It felt trivial and insignificant to write about the heat, but I am certain in the context of the pandemic that the summer heat did add to the misery index.

“Like Being in Jail”

During the Corona virus pandemic many states, including my home state of Michigan, have issued some form of Stay Home order for the general public and specifically request that people with Covid-19 or think they may have been exposed to it, to self-quarantine for some period of time.  When this first started, the news was full of dire warnings and bleak statistics as the virus spread far and wide throughout the world.  Over time as the news started to become more hopeful sounding with signs of flattening the curve and progress toward a vaccine and effective treatments the natives, as they say, are becoming restless. 

The federal and state governments have been working, sometimes together and sometimes at odds to manage the crisis.  Everything from trying to ensure that there is enough PPE for first responders to sufficient hospital beds and ventilators for the critically ill to emergency economic funds to help out individuals and business are being organized, implemented and communicated to the people to ensure the wellbeing of our nation.  Not everything has gone smoothly.  Mistakes have been made.  With this novel coronavirus much is still to be learned about methods of transmission, who is at greatest risk and how best to protect them.  Information, opinion and fake news has come from many sources to cloud the issues, second guess the experts and mislead the public about every aspect of this situation.  People following the verbal ramblings of the president and other charlatans have tried unproven and dangerous treatments, which have resulted in numerous injuries and deaths.

Every day there is more bad news about the economy, job losses, and the effect that the shutdown is having on businesses and individuals.  The difficulties of finding basic supplies like toilet paper, hand sanitizer, and cleaning supplies coupled with social distancing requirements have made shopping a chore.  Add to this the boredom that comes from running out of projects to work on and having caught up on sleep and your favorite television programs.  The insanity of trying to work from home while home schooling the kids and worrying about friends and loved ones.  These difficulties combined with the improving weather of spring and the social tendencies of our species have turned the occasional grumble regarding the inconvenience of the whole situation into a growing chorus of displeasure.  Often the focus of this complaining is the very government which was elected to handle these types of situations if/when they occur.

Protests have been organized across the country by those who think that government has overstepped its authority by temporarily closing businesses, banning public/private gatherings, and limiting freedoms that the protesters hold near and dear.  Social media outlets have been asked to police themselves regarding event notices that might be encouraging activities that are illegal during this period of declared state and national emergency.  Protesters waving flags of various origins, toting assault rifles, and flaunting the social distancing advisories march in the streets exercising their rights of assembly, free-speech, and to bear arms.  As the SNL skit about Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer’s response to the protests in Lansing said, “It’s live free or die, not live free and die.”  What does open carry of assault rifles have to do with Covid-19?  As one pundit said, “You can’t shoot the virus.”  Any display of force is by its very nature coercive and there is no place for it in a democracy.

Protesters carry rifles near the steps of the Michigan State Capitol building in Lansing, Mich., Wednesday, April 15, 2020. Flag-waving, honking protesters drove past the Michigan Capitol on Wednesday to show their displeasure with Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s orders to keep people at home and businesses locked during the new coronavirus COVID-19 outbreak. (AP Photo/Paul Sancya)

As with any crisis there are people trying to take advantage of the situation.  While the number of major crimes decreased during the initial weeks of the pandemic those numbers are increasing again, especially as thieves target closed stores.  Police departments like most first responders have been hit hard by the virus and many officers are either sick or in quarantine.  This puts a strain on the police to maintain patrols in areas of high crime and respond to calls for aid by those experiencing the life-threatening symptoms of Covid-19.  Police chiefs from the across the country are seen nightly on the news pleading for people to stay home, obey traffic laws, and behave themselves, sometimes to no avail.

On television the trend for talk shows is for the personalities to do their shows from home.  The late-night comedians spend their time lampooning the president, life in quarantine, and the idiots who have earned their 60 seconds of infamy.  The daytime shows continue to pander to celebrity, as if those who can most afford not to work can really relate to those who can’t even file for unemployment due to the overwhelming number of people applying.  The poster child for this may be Ellen DeGeneres.  She made a joke on her first show back after 3 weeks off that those of us who have been there found to be in unbelievably bad taste.  She compared coronavirus self-isolation to being in jail.  “It’s mostly because I’ve been wearing the same clothes for 10 days, and everyone here is gay.”  She has a beautiful, spacious mansion in sunny southern California, with her own green space.  Social distancing is not a problem, she hosts her show from her comfy chair and her guests are all virtual. 

The real situation in jails and prisons across America is slowly being revealed by investigative journalists following up on first and secondhand accounts of what life behinds bars is currently like.  Every day I read at least a half a dozen articles from the Marshall Project, the New York Times, Huffington Post, USA Today, Detroit News and Free Press, The Atlantic, and the LA Times just to name a few, that clearly show that neither Ellen nor any other person not currently incarcerated live under conditions even remotely similar to those found in even the best jail.  The picture that these articles paint is very bleak.  Our correctional institutions were not prepared for coronavirus.  Not only that but the system which they are a part of has failed to respond in a timely manner to things like the implementation of CDC guidelines on the control of infectious disease, governmental and court ordered population reduction strategies, and  conducting sufficient testing to determine the true scope of infection. 

Infection rates in some facilities now exceed 50% of the inmate population.  In some regions, the jail or prison is the hot spot responsible for the spread of Covid-19 throughout the community at large, because of the infection rates among correction officers and staff.  Prisons are typically not located in large metropolitan areas with access to hospitals capable of handling more than a few intensive care patients. The result is that inmates are filling up the ICU so that people from the community must go elsewhere.  The notorious prison medical system has exacerbated the situation through callus and unsympathetic care that has resulted in the deaths of prisoners in their cells, which they claim never reported any symptoms to staff.  Inmates report that medical staff do not change gloves between patients; sick inmates are not segregated from the general population immediately; and inmates with mild to moderate symptoms are told to suck it up and sent back to their cells without medications to ease their discomfort.

Attempts by the MDOC to quarantine sick/recovering inmates by setting up quarantine units in several prisons to isolate them from the general population has resulted in the spreading of Covid-19 from one prison to another which had previously been virus free.  The only staff overlap between the quarantine units and the rest of the compound was the medical staff.  There have also been reports that inmates working as cleaning porters have been forced to clean up after infected inmates without any PPE.  The spokes person for the MDOC has repeatedly denied allegations regarding conditions inside of prisons, the same as they have for every other inmate’s complain.  The response as always is that the inmates are lying and that the MDOC has everything under control.  This time he will have a harder time explaining the body count.

Ohio is the only state so far that claims to be testing all its prisoners at all its facilities.  Michigan to date has completed testing at one facility and is now conducting comprehensive testing at a second facility.  This however does not include the correction officers or staff.  At other facilities only those inmates who meet certain criteria are tested.  Since this virus presents itself with such a wide range of symptoms and levels of severity, including asymptomatic infections; only complete testing of inmates and staff can identify the true number of cases.  Given the scarcity of test kits available, it is not surprising that more testing has not been conducted.  Unfortunately, prisoners comprise one of the most vulnerable populations alongside nursing homes and should be a priority.

Compared to the “real world” prison is a place where reality: including things like common sense, empathy, manners, personal hygiene, health care, personal space, and access to PPE is extremely limited or non-existent.  ICE detainees have gone on hunger strikes for more soap and toilet paper.  The federal Bureau of Prisons failed to follow the Justice Departments mandate to reduce prison populations by sending thousands of eligible prisoners home to serve out the remainder of their sentences under house arrest.  Juvenile detention facilities likewise have been slow to release minors who have been deemed to pose no threat to society.  Advocacy groups have been bailing out people who couldn’t afford bail and have been in jails awaiting trials, which have been postponed because the courts have significantly reduced case loads while conducting hearings remotely.  In some states, even after prisons and jails went into quarantine mode, inmates were sent out on work assignments where they risked either catching the virus or spreading the virus into the community.  For example, until just a few days ago inmates from the Rikers Island jail in New York were used to dig graves in a cemetery for the city’s poor.

COVID-19 quotes set to prevent the spread of coronavirus. Quarantine and self-isolation. Stay Home Stay Safe. Limit contact to others. Prevention the spread of Coronavirus. Stock vector illustration.

Directions to inmates from the MDOC regarding how to protect themselves from the coronavirus have been described as confusing, contradictory, inadequate and/or misleading.  The MDOC instructed MSI, its prison factory service to begin producing cloth face masks for staff and inmates.  It then began to issue 3 masks each to inmates with directions to wear them whenever they leave their cells, but only at facilities which have had a positive case diagnosed.  Even after the pandemic was known to be circulating in prisons, inmates are still being released on parole or probation without being tested to see if they are infected or being instructed to self-isolate for 14 days.  Inmates being paroled can’t find access to critical services that are usually provided by governmental or non-profit agencies to get started in their community placement.

In March when the first signs of community spread of the virus were reported, the MDOC like most other jails and prison systems closed their visiting rooms and banned outside volunteers and program instructors from entering the facility.  Internal programs like GED or mandatory programing continue with fewer inmates allowed to attend each class.  Fewer inmates where allowed to go to chow at one time to promote social distancing.  In the level 1 facility where I was housed, in the chow hall we had 4-man tables which barely had enough room for 4 trays.  Even cutting the seating in half leaves you eating face to face with another person.  In some places where the infection rates are highest the chow halls have now been closed and the food is delivered to the inmates in their cells.

To allow inmates to communicate with their family and friends prison phone companies like Global Tel Link are providing weekly free 5-minute calls to inmates.  Email services like JPay have given inmates free electronic stamps to allow them to write home using the kiosk located in the housing units.  This sounds like a nice gesture from companies who have made millions of dollars from selling overpriced services to inmates for years.  The reality is that phones and kiosks are used by dozens of inmates daily and the limitation on the types of cleaning/disinfectant products allowed means that inmates who uses these devices put themselves at risk.  Sanitizers and cleaning products containing 60% ethanol, or 70% isopropyl alcohol have been shown to be the most effective against the coronavirus however, only dilute bleach is allowed.  The old technique of putting a sock over the phone may not protect you from contracting the coronavirus when you put the handset to your face. 

Approximately 95% of all inmates in the US will be released back into society when they complete their sentence.  Unfortunately, Covid-19 does not discriminate in who it infects.  There have been numerous tragic stories reported in the news of inmates within days, weeks or months of being released who have contracted the virus and died.  One of the saddest was the case of a women in jail who gave birth while on a ventilator and later died without ever getting to know her child.  Another involved a man who had been incarcerated 44 years.  He was convicted of murder at age 16.  He had turned down parole earlier in the year, intending to ‘max out’ his sentence and leave prison a free man.  Having reconsidered that decision after the pandemic started, he was scheduled to be paroled in a matter of weeks when he passed away from the virus.  Technical parole violators who have been sent to jail or returned to prison have gotten sick and died. 

Jails and prisons are like petri dishes which culture microorganisms.  Even in the best of times they are unsanitary places full of unhygienic people.  When I was in jail awaiting my court hearings there was no warm/hot water available in my cell, only cold water from the sink and shower.  The soap provided was so poor that it did not foam or suds making it difficult to wash after using the bathroom or before meals.  Very few people are incarcerated in single-man cells, most are crowded into dormitories with a hundred other people.  Social distancing is just not an option so when one gets sick, many get sick.  Getting a cold or the flu in prison is miserable, getting Covid-19 for many could be a death sentence.  Knowing this, the level of fear among inmates is running extremely high. 

Incarceration is a stressful situation in the best of times, now it is nearly at panic levels.  Around the world and even in the US there have been prison riots over fears about Covid-19 and what it could do inside the walls.  Video from a cell phone that had been smuggled into the Wayne County jail in Detroit showed inmates with their tee-shirts pulled up like masks over their faces pleading for help.  Pictures of the Cook County jail showed a window with a message spelled out in toilet paper calling for help.  In addition to the non-profit organizations that were bailing people out of jail, others have begun to supply soap free of charge to inmates that were not getting it otherwise.  While gestures like this are appreciated, they do not address the underlying issues that are putting so many people at risk.

Prisoners hung signs pleading for help in a window of the Cook County jail on Tuesday.
Credit…Jim Vondruska/Reuters

Since the early 2000s prison populations in many, but not all states, have been slowly but steadily decreasing.  Violent crime rates with a few exceptions have also been decreasing during this time according to FBI statistics.  According to a recent report from the MDOC the prisoner population in 2019 was at 96.9% of capacity.  There was also a reduction of 445 beds due to prison closings that resulted from the decrease in population.  What they are not telling you is that the current prison capacity is double of what they were originally designed for.  I was in two different prisons with level 1 pole barns that had originally been equipped for 80 men.  There were 4 men assigned to each cubical.  Now there are 160 men in the housing unit and 8 men to a cube.  When I was in level 2 and level 4 the cells were two-man rooms.  While level 2 was designed that way, level 4 was not, they were supposed to be one-man cells with their own toilet and sink.  Instead of addressing the overcrowding issue by keeping prisons open with fewer inmates the MDOC decided to maintain few prisons in order to offset cost increases while keeping its $2 Billion budget flat. 

It is not a case of Monday morning quarterbacking to say that this was a fatal mistake.  Many people have been speaking out about this problem for years, yet the MDOC ignored the warning signs such as outbreaks of norovirus that have resulted in prisons being quarantined on a regular basis.  The sad thing is that unlike the Flint water crisis there will be no Attorney General investigation, no one will lose their jobs, and no one will be held responsible for the criminal negligence that has led to the unnecessary loss of life that has resulted from the coronavirus pandemic of 2020.

Having said all of this, I hope I have made my point that self-isolation at home is not like being in jail.

Anti-Social Distancing

It has been widely reported in the news recently about the fears of what could happen with the COVID-19 pandemic spreading inside of jails and prisons.  There has been much talk but little action nation wide to reduce the population density by releasing non-violent offenders and those with high risk factors such as the elderly or those with sever chronic health issues.  Defense attorneys and prisoner advocates along with some District Attorneys have petitioned the courts and the various state correction agencies to act on humanitarian grounds to little effect so far.

In Michigan, the MDOC itself can do little to reduce prison population due to Truth in Sentencing.  This policy was enacted by a vote of the people and would require a super-majority in both houses of the legislature to overturn.  Michigan is about the only state in the country which enacted this draconian punishment back in the 1980s that still persists in this failed deterrence strategy.  It was part of the Tough on Crime policing laws, where inmates would not be considered for parole until they had reached their Earliest Release Date (ERD).  Combined with harsh sentencing guidelines Truth in Sentencing caused an explosion in the incarceration rate which lead to the current over crowing situation. 

Now Michigan prisons are full of inmates serving long indeterminate sentences.  While your Earliest Release Date (ERD) might be 7 years, your maximum release date could be 15 years.  The result is that there is no guarantee that you will qualify for parole after serving 7 years.  There is no good time or disciplinary credit unless you were sentenced before Truth in Sentencing.  Longer sentences and harsher policies like the 3-Strike law mean that the number of older prisoners has increased significantly as a percentage of the total inmate population.  This runs counter to the evidence that people typically age out of crime and the fact that the number of older convicts going to prison for the first time is significantly lower than for those in their teens, twenties or thirties. 

Inmates in general tend to be in poorer health than the general population.  This is due in part to the large number of older inmates, but also to the number of inmates with underlying medical conditions, mental conditions, and/or addictions.  Combine this with poor health care which has been the subject of oversight by a federal judge, the result is that even in good times there are needless deaths due to inadequate treatment, medication and therapy. 

It’s been known for many years that jails and prisons are a breeding ground for disease.  Tuberculosis, Hepatitis, HIV, MERSA, Norovirus, and Influenza, just to name a few, have been of significant concern.  In the MDOC, Hepatitis and Influenza vaccinations are available.  TB skin tests are performed routinely.  Prior to release all parolees are tested for HIV.  Every year there are individual prisons quarantined due to an epidemic of one sort or another.

It’s been well documented that prisons are severely overcrowded.  Even with falling rates of incarceration in Michigan, the MDOC closes prisons rather than reduce population density because of the cost savings.  Housing units that were originally designed to hold 80 men now contain 160.  Single beds were replaced with bunk beds.  Desks were removed to make room for additional lockers.  This effectively reduced the square footage allotted per inmate by 50%.  Infrastructure could not be updated so toilets, sinks and showers have double the utilization.  This happened all across the MDOC.

In prison, access to cleaning chemicals is limited.  The cleaning chemicals available are highly diluted because concentrated chemicals can be weaponized.  Heavy bathroom utilization combined with unsanitary conditions due to inadequate custodial maintenance and poor personal hygiene by many inmates, leads to a breeding ground for germs, bacteria and mold.  Add in outdated, inoperative ventilation and old plumbing subject to frequent backups, you have a recipe for disaster. 

While I was incarcerated, I experienced a norovirus quarantine.  It was the only time when dilute bleach was made available for the inmates to clean their areas of control.  5-gallon buckets of bleach water were put out with a few rags and was moved from cube to cube down the hall.  The problem was that not everyone participated in the housekeeping and I’m not sure how well the common areas of the units were cleaned.

Like most of the epidemics in prison, personal hygiene plays a big part in transmission.  Hand washing isn’t widely practiced and there are lots of places where there is no access to soap.  Places like the school building bathroom frequently did not have soap, let alone toilet paper.  Hand sanitizer is not available because it contains alcohol.  The mouthwash doesn’t contain alcohol either.  Alcohol pads from medical used by the insulin dependent diabetics are contraband.  The basic tools used to combat the spread of infectious disease are either not practiced adequately by inmates, poorly implemented and executed by staff,  or prevented by policy as security risks.

Policy says that soap made by MSI will be supplied to inmates as needed.  That didn’t mean that soap was always available.  Housing units generally only order a certain amount based on their budget as determined by the unit counselor.   State soap didn’t have the best reputation, so if you had the funds in your trust account, you would order soap from the commissary. 

Recent news from the MDOC website reports that Michigan State Industries (MSI) is making masks and other PPE for officers and inmates.  Like the recommendation from the CDC that the general population should be wearing cloth masks when going out in public, the MDOC has begun distributing masks to inmates in prisons with confirmed cases of COVID-19.  This fails to take the rest of the CDC guidelines into account.  Inmates can’t separate themselves from others who might be showing the initial symptoms of the virus.  Instead staff must make the determination to quarantine the inmate pending the result of a confirmation test.

Masks without the proper way to clean your hands before and after handling them or being able to properly clean and sanitize them, can lead to contamination.  If anything, they will provide a sense of false security.  When doctors, nurses and first responders who have been trained in proper PPE handling techniques are getting sick with the virus, what chance do inmates have?  In an article I read recently the author concluded that wearing a cloth mask was better than wearing nothing.  Hardly a strong recommendation, but still better than simply pulling up your tee-shirt over your nose which has been shown to provide almost no protection.

At the time of writing this article the number of inmates in the MDOC with confirmed COVID-19 cases was 338 with 2 deaths.  Thirteen of 29 prisons had confirmed cases.  Thirteen other prisons in the MDOC had tested at least one inmate with negative results.  These numbers have doubled in a week and appear to be following the same trends experienced in the general population.  Changes such as suspending visits, stopping outside volunteers or tours from entering the prisons did not prevent the virus from entering prison.  One prisoner in the upper peninsula contracted the virus while he was in the local hospital where COVID-19 positive patients were being treated.  Inmates arriving from county jail may have also brought in the virus.  However, the most likely avenue for the virus to get into prison was through the staff. 

Staff entering prisons must undergo a daily temperature check and answer a series of questions about possible exposure as they enter for work.  If this is anything as thorough as their inspections for drugs, cellphones or other contraband, then it won’t be long before the virus is in every prison.  This is serious and in addition to 142 staff members testing positive there have been two staff deaths reported.  COVID-19 is a silent killer that is often contagious before any symptoms become apparent.

There have been a number of unusual facts about this Corona virus that are particularly troubling.  First there the observation that the virus kills more men than women.  Then there is the issue around how the virus is affecting brown and black communities and individuals at alarmingly higher rates than in the general population.  Also, the elderly and those with underlying health issues are specifically vulnerable.  Finally, there is the issue of access to health care.  The percentage of men significantly out numbers the number of female prisoners.  There are a much higher percentage of brown and black ethnicities incarcerated than in the general population.  There are a large number of inmates who are either elderly or in very poor health.  Finally is the problem of prison health care even in the best of times. This will combine into a perfect storm that the MDOC and all other jails and prisons, either state or federal are not capable of handling.

When this pandemic is brought under control and life resumes its new normal, my concern is that the successful measures taken to combat the spread of this disease will be eased or rescinded altogether.  That the more onerous measures such as restricting visits and access by volunteers, lock downs and restricted movement by inmates will continue.  And that the lessons learned will be quickly forgotten or ignored by administrators and legislators.  When it comes to corrections there is more than a tendency to cling to the failed, outdated, outmoded policies and procedures of the past.  There is a conscious effort to maintain the status quo, resist change even in the face of significant pressure, and a lack of real accountability in a critical branch of government.

If you have loved ones or friends currently incarcerated- pray about them; reach out to them; speak out for them. 

For information regarding the COVID-19 pandemic and how it is affecting those in jail or prison I recommend the coverage being provided by the Marshall Project website.  It is the best source on the internet for daily updates of news being reported across the country the affects our loved ones and friends serving time behind bars.

For specific updates regarding the COVID-19 pandemic in the MDOC, information can be found on their website at: https://medium.com/@MichiganDOC/mdoc-takes-steps-to-prevent-spread-of-coronavirus-covid-19-250f43144337