7/26/2024

LANSING - According to a press release yesterday, the Michigan Corrections Organization has received no response from Governor Gretchen Whitmer’s office weeks after submitting a request for assistance from the National Guard to address staff shortages in correctional facilities.  On July 3, MCO President Byron Osborn sent a letter to Governor Whitmer requesting that she authorize the Michigan National Guard to provide assistance to short-staffed prisons. Osborn said in the letter he described how corrections officers are being forced to work exhaustive amounts of mandatory overtime and how the prisons are being operated with unsafe officer-to-prisoner ratios.  The MCO said 13 of the 26 state prisons are operating with officer vacancy rates greater than 18%. The Marquette Branch Prison and the Baraga Correctional Facility are both seeing staffing levels down by more than a third.