By Michael Kransz
mlive.com
LANSING, Mich. — For nearly three years, lawmakers needed to give a 72-hour advance notice if they wanted to inspect a correctional facility, reducing access to and oversight of the state’s prisons.
That delay has afforded the Michigan Department of Corrections (MDOC) time to address or conceal issues that lawmakers may be looking to investigate, said state Rep. Laurie Pohutsky, D- Livonia.
“We’re prevented from providing meaningful oversight of MDOC facilities if we have to announce when we’ll be attempting to do so,” Pohutsky said Thursday. “72 hours notice can and has allowed the department to address, often superficially, issues with facilities, or even to schedule appointments for inmates so that they cannot meet with their legislators.”
The MDOC rule requiring 72 hours notice before a lawmaker inspection was put in place in December 2022 after several incidents with now-former lawmakers, according to MDOC officials. A warden could waive this advance notice.
Before the rule, lawmakers often scheduled visits in advance but could also show up unannounced.
The state’s latest budget, enacted in October, eliminated the 72-hour notice rule and restored lawmakers’ ability to make unannounced visits under MDOC policy. Unannounced visits won’t resume until December, MDOC officials said.
Pohutsky has put forward a bill to put into state law the ability of state lawmakers to be granted access to a correctional facility at any time and without notice to inspect the premises. She gave testimony on her bill Thursday, Nov. 13 , before the House Government Operations Committee.
“It’s an important step, but we have to codify this practice rather than letting an executive department dictate how we perform our jobs,” Pohutsky said. “The ability for us to visit facilities that we fund and where our constituents are being housed is a longstanding, fundamental and crucial aspect of our job.”
The legislation and the retraction of the 72-hour rule come as the state’s prison system continues to grapple with a staffing crisis.
That staffing shortage has resulted in corrections officers working more overtime, weakening staff morale and creating tensions between officers and prisoners.
During the committee hearing Thursday, there were some concerns from lawmakers about how unannounced visits could disrupt operations or create safety issues. Lawmakers also raised concerns about what would happen if a legislator showed up during an emergency situation at the prison.
Kyle Kaminski, MDOC legislative liaison, echoed those concerns, saying MDOC supports allowing unannounced visits in policy but not in state law.
Kaminski said having unannounced visits put in state law would prevent MDOC from knowing who is in the facility during an emergency.
It also would take away MDOC’s ability to ensure that visiting lawmakers aren’t disruptive or dangerous to staff and prisoners, he said.
“What this bill says is that any legislator or any group of legislators can come in and we cannot enforce any of our other policies that exist for the operation and safety of very complex facilities,” Kaminski said.
Pohutsky said her legislation wouldn’t give lawmakers free rein to go wherever they wanted in a correctional facility or do whatever they wanted. It also wouldn’t prevent MDOC from implementing any rules around how visits are carried out and acceptable behavior.
Her legislation only requires that lawmakers can’t be turned away from entrance into the prison if they show up unannounced. What parts of a prison lawmakers can access would remain the discretion of MDOC.
“It’s worth noting that previously, if there have been unsafe conditions or an issue where legislators would not be safe or staff wouldn’t be safe, inmates wouldn’t be safe, that has been part of the department’s or the corrections staff on-site – their decision about where legislators can go, whether or not they can get in,” Pohutsky said. “This just says that they can’t be turned away at the gates.”
The 72-hour rule was put in place amid COVID and several incidents from visiting lawmakers, Kaminski said. Prior to the rule, lawmakers very rarely showed up unannounced at a correctional facility for a tour or inspection.
Those incidents with former, unnamed lawmakers involved conduct that violated MDOC policies or endangered staff and operations, Kaminski said.
In one instance, a lawmaker said they wanted to tour three MDOC facilities. They arrived nearly three hours late and only wanted to tour one of the facilities, despite preparations by staff at the other two facilities, he said.
In another incident, a lawmaker came unannounced as a protest and tried to surreptitiously record and provoke prison staff in what Kaminski described as an attempted “gotcha moment.”
Another time, a lawmaker arranged for a facility tour and wanted clearance for a person they said was their staffer to come along. Kaminski said it was later determined that person was not a staffer.
The safety of your personnel, your facility and your inmates depend on inspections. In the video below, Gordon Graham talks about the importance of performing necessary inspections regularly to avoid future problems.
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