Over the past week, correction officer Steven Ladoux said there have been "at least half a dozen assaults” at the St. Louis Correctional Facility.
“With how bad it's gotten, you sit in your vehicle for five minutes before you even go inside the building and wonder if you even want to go in,” Ladoux said.
He says the worst incident in past few days was when an inmate at the level-four facility grabbed a female mental health counselor after manufacturing a weapon.
According to the Michigan Department of Corrections, the staff member defended herself against the assault until the prisoner left the area. No injuries were reported.
The Michigan Corrections Organization, the union representing corrections officers, has reported that workers in St. Louis have been punched, hit with "unknown substances," and splashed with hot water and oil over the past year.
Concerns over safety and understaffing are not isolated at the mid-Michigan facility.
While picketing against the MDOC on Tuesday, corrections officers from around the state told WCMU that the benefits package doesn’t outweigh the risks and demanding hours caused by low staffing.
“People cannot get home to be with their family,” said Jon Hoath, a corrections officer at Lakeland Correctional Facility in Coldwater. He drove over two hours to the informational picket. "You go into work every day wondering if you're going home or not, and most of the time you don't go home when you're supposed to.”
According to data from the MDOC, St. Louis has around 36 vacancies, or roughly 17% of the total number of positions staffed at the facility. Vacancies and high turnover have remained an issue for prisons across the state, with multiple facilities experiencing an over 30% vacancy rate.
The union said that as corrections officers struggle to maintain prisons with low staffing, there has been an increase in prisoners attacking other prisoners as well.
The MDOC said in a statement to WCMU they're working to address the state’s prison staffing crisis.
“The last officer academy class provided approximately 22 new officers for (the St. Louis Correctional Facility),” Riehle wrote. “The department is also currently organizing a staffing mission to (the St. Louis Correctional Facility), which will provide volunteer custody staff in the month of October, which will also reduce overtime.”
Georgi Stan, a corrections officer at the Women’s Huron Valley Correctional Facility, drove two and a half hours to join officers in St. Louis for the informational picket.
Her facility has around 59 positions vacant, or nearly 17% of the total staff. There have been five deaths at the women's prison this year, and advocates are citing poor healthcare treatment as the reason, according to Michigan Public.
“We need better wages,” Stan said. “We need the pension bill to pass. People are leaving and going elsewhere because the mandates are so bad.”
In July, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer vetoed bills that would've placed corrections officers on the same retirement plan as state police.
The Democratic governor wrote in her veto letter that the bills "would impose an insurmountable administrative burden" and would've had "significant fiscal impacts."
The bills were reintroduced earlier this month and included other agencies like conservation officers. They were swiftly passed in the state Senate.
It currently sits in the state House, and President of the Michigan Corrections Organization Bryon Osborn said he wants to see lawmakers act.
“We're near a decade into the staffing crisis. Nothing has improved,” Osborn said. “Right now, folks aren't willing to make the sacrifice to come in here and work in a dangerous setting like this when they can get similar pay and benefits at much safer jobs.”
State Rep. Cam Cavitt, R-Cheboygan, sits on the House Appropriations Committee of Corrections and Judiciary. He said that corrections officers need better benefits but doesn't want to rush these bills.
"We certainly want to help the corrections officers, but I think that the bills need to be re-actualized," Cavitt said.
Cavitt added that Michigan's prison system as a whole needs to be improved.
"We need more hiring; I think (corrections officers) need a more flexible schedule," Cavitt said. "They've been working those guys and ladies to death."
When asked if he would vote on these bills, he said he was not prepared to provide a statement.
State Sen. Ed McBroom, R-Waucedah Township, said that he is concerned that the bill includes other agencies outside of corrections officers and state police officers.
But he says some level of reform needs to be taken.
"It's going to add costs that discourage certain people from supporting the legislation," McBroom said. "There's not a crisis in the conservation officers. There's not a crisis with motor carrier division ... I still supported the bill because we have to get some help to our corrections officers."
