By Nathan Clark
mlive.com
LANSING, Mich. — The Michigan Department of Corrections is taking measures to improve safety and security inside the state’s prisons and address the department’s shortage of correctional officers.
The department announced the launch of its “Safe Prisons Initiative” on March 20, according to the Michigan Department of Corrections.
Key components of the safety initiative include providing improved evidence-based prisoner programming to promote positive behavior and reviewing segregation needs and infrastructure availability.
The initiative also includes implementing technology improvements to assist officers in day-to-day operations and conducting targeted training at facilities with increased critical incidents.
“The department is committed to our core mission of public safety, with the vast majority of day-to-day prison activities being conducted in a safe and compliant way,” MDOC Director Heidi Washington said. “Our staff, those we supervise, and the friends and family of both, deserve nothing less than our best when it comes to their well-being and the safety of the ones they love.”
The initiative identifies five key areas that impact prison safety: prisoner classification and bed space; contraband introduction and technology; prisoner programming; training and staff support; and recruitment and retention.
In addition, the department will be implementing new tactics to improve employee recruitment and retention such as emerging leader development, hiring process enhancements, and improved marketing strategies.
The staffing crisis in Michigan’s prisons has led to an explosion of overtime hours clocked by the state’s correctional officers.
Corrections officers maintain order in the prison system, and with the shortage, morale has weakened within their ranks, and tensions between officers and prisoners lead to increasingly more dangerous encounters.
“The department has been working to collect and analyze critical data that will help the department identify concerning trends and incidents,” MDOC Correctional Facilities Administration Deputy Director Jeremy Bush said. “Through the course of our work we will be continually evaluating our effectiveness while maintaining open communications with our partners and facility staff to help improve operations.”
The Safe Prisons Initiative is an extension of efforts which have already been undertaken by the department to improve safety and security.
Since 2025, the department has implemented various technologies and policies aimed at reducing contraband. These policies include new mail policies and the implementation of package scanners.
The announcement of the program comes after reports of violence inside Michigan’s prisons and the ongoing shortage of correctional officers.
The St. Louis Correctional Facility, located in mid- Michigan, experienced a surge in violence throughout July 2025, with numerous reports of assaults on prison staff and prisoners, according to a report from the Michigan Correction Organization, the union representing the state’s correctional officers.
Prison officials were later called before the state house appropriations subcommittee on corrections and judiciary to testify about the surge.
Officials said the events, though troubling, were handled appropriately by staff and were isolated incidents.
What recruitment and retention strategies would actually convince more people to join — and stay in — corrections?
Corrections1 readers respond:
- I worked for corrections for almost 30 years. There were many times I thought about quitting, but the only thing that kept me going was the light at the end of the tunnel. Pension and healthcare. You have taken away ANY incentives to stay and make this a career. Quit giving all perks and programming to the prisoners and start helping your staff.
- This is all smoke and mirrors!! I spent 21+ years working for the MDOC. This will only benefit convicts!! The MDOC has never implemented any plan in hopes of benefiting staff. They will move higher classification prisoners to lower levels, simply by signing with a magic pen, close more units, inter mix classifications. All leads to more dangerous situations for staff. All this has been done before, to no avail!!
- This is laughable….. this will change nothing….. until leaders in Lansing actually show they care, nothing will change…..Bring back the pension and people will actually wanna stay in this job…..raise our pay
- Sign-on bonuses help, Guaranteed PTO, Free College. Bring Dogs and local Law enforcement throughout the systems for regular shakedowns. As a good officer, I have realized not all good officers get recognized and/or rewarded for hard work. Only favorites get promoted and treated with respect. It’s pretty obvious that better compensation would make people stay.
- The officers who are within that first 5 years need some type of retention bonus to make them want to stay.
- Bring back the retirement benefits pension system. And put your staff safety and well-being first, they are the ones in there dealing with the consequences, problem and mayhem, not management or administration!!
- Within the last couple of years our DOC received a fairly substantial pay raise which has gotten a lot more people to apply and be hired but it didn’t really helpl our retention rates. One thing that I have heard from our day shift workers, that have less that 10yrs of seniority, is that it’s almost impossible to get a day off. That leads to us having a huge issue with sick calls which force a lot of people into OT which leads to even more sick calls. I don’t think it’s as much about the job itself as it is giving CO’s the time and ability to recover outside of work with consistant time off and the ability to take a couple of vacations throughout the year.
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