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Lifers

Inside Voices – August 2024

Michigan’s prisons are understaffed and overcrowded On July 3, 2024, Corrections Union President Byron Osborn “sounded the alarm” announcing prisons are dangerously understaffed and unsafe, and calling on Gov. Gretchen Whitmer to deploy the National Guard as a temporary solution until permanent measures can be taken. The department owns and operates 26 prison complexes, 17 [...]

Michigan’s prison population on the rise again — barely

Michigan’s prison population nudged upward again for the first time in a decade, reversing a trend of rapidly falling headcounts inside prisons operated by the Michigan Department of Corrections. According to the figures recently published in the MDOC’s 2022 Statistical Report, there were 32,374 people incarcerated in Michigan prisons at the end of 2022, up [...]

2024-02-29T17:46:36-05:00February 29th, 2024|Categories: Blog, Corrections budget, Lifers, Sentencing|

Hear some ‘Inside Voices’ – August 2023

Second Look leads to second chances My name is John Halcomb. I am 60 years old. I regret my violent behavior every day as I am reminded through the violence I see in my prison environment. This prison violence, however, began my rehabilitation when it caused me to empathically place myself in my victim's place. [...]

2023 Mid-Year Legislative Status Update

The state Capitol is now in summer mode. Legislators are wrapping up work on their spring projects and getting ready to go back to their communities for their summer in-district work period, which means little action will be taking place in Lansing over the next few months. With that in mind, we thought we’d give [...]

2023-07-11T17:12:02-04:00July 11th, 2023|Categories: Blog, Jails, Juveniles, Lifers, Prison programs, Sentencing|

Don’t Throw Away the Key on Michigan’s Youth — Bring Them Home

The Michigan Legislature is considering a proposal to end juvenile life without parole in Michigan. Fully half the states and Washington, D.C., have already taken this step, banning the practice of sending children to prison to die, and another seven states currently have no one serving such a sentence. In 2012, the U.S. Supreme Court [...]

2023-04-27T14:18:49-04:00April 27th, 2023|Categories: Blog, Courts, Juveniles, Lifers, Parole, Reentry|

April brings Second Chances to Michigan

We use the phrase “second chances” so often in criminal justice reform work that it can sometimes sound like a buzzword. We urge employers to adopt second-chance hiring to give people with a criminal record a chance at a job. The federal Second Chance Act provides grants to nonprofits and agencies that work to reduce [...]

2023-03-30T15:36:36-04:00March 29th, 2023|Categories: Blog, Juveniles, Lifers, Parole, Reentry, Sentencing|

Inside Voices – February 2023

Think twice before demanding Bernstein resignation There’s no mistaking Michigan Supreme Court Justice Richard Bernstein’s Freudian Slip objection to newly appointed Justice Kyra Bolden’s hiring ex-felon Pete Martel as one of her law clerks as racism, bigotry, or discrimination. But calls for Bernstein’s resignation are unwarranted because his outburst isn’t reflective of the “blind justice” [...]

Inside Voices – January 2023

Inside Voices is an opportunity for our members who are incarcerated to voice their ideas and opinions to the outside world. Since they can't access our monthly electronic newsletter, Safe & Just Michigan prints a newsletter several times a year that is mailed to our members who are in prison. We have invited those readers [...]