Corrections officers object to budget cuts

Those who work in Michigan’s prison system say that Gov. Rick Snyder’s budget for next year, which includes more than $70 million in cuts to the Department of Corrections, targets them unfairly and increases the risks of their already dangerous jobs.

Tom Tylutki is president of MCO-SEIU Local 526M, the union that represents 7500 officers within the corrections system. He says that the cuts that corrections is taking is disproportionate to the rest of state employees.

“In all his wisdom he makes a decision that out of the $145 million [in total state employee concessions] we’re going to have corrections officers give $72 million of that. There are 7700 of us in the state of Michigan and there are 42 thousand state employees,” said Tylutki in an interview with Michigan Messenger. “That’s disrespectful for the tough job that corrections officers do day-in and day-out protecting the public and people inside the prison.”

Sacha Crowley, Communications Specialist with the MCO, also commented on the heavy cuts to corrections.

“So while we make up 16% of the state employee workforce we’re being asked to shoulder 50% of the concessions. The only reasoning we’ve been told is that it is because the DOC is where the money is — where the state spends mostly general fund dollars,” said Crowley. “We’ve given concessions several times since 2003.”

Tylutki said on average each prison has had to cut patrol officers from all three shifts — morning, day and night. According to Tylutki, having to make the concessions will mean putting officers in greater danger.

“We have prisons that come in with a third shift with 18 officers with 1400 inmates, how do you like those odds?”

Corrections officers are the “police force” inside of prisons said Tylutki.

“They’re doing rounds, making sure everyone is following the rules and regulations. You’re protecting not only your safety and your co-workers’ safety but prisoners from each other — from theft, rape, assault and from anything imaginable.”

The cuts have led to previously open positions being closed which has led to more precarious “critical incidents” in the prisons, situations where officers need to respond to either violence or some sort of infraction behind bars.

MDOC puts out a weekly newsletter which highlights a few of these incidents. A common theme amongst several of them is the fact that the threat to the officer, facility employee or prisoner was heightened or occurred because a position had been closed. Here are a few examples:

JUNE 10, 2011

On June 6, 2011, a youthful offender at the Thumb Correctional facility was observed attacking a teacher in her class room by a passing officer. The officer quickly entered the room and pulled the inmate off of the teacher had been taken to the floor. The responding officer would not normally have been in that area because that position is one that the facility has been closing. However, due to shot gun training, it happened to be left open at the time of the incident and prevented what could have been a very serious assault.

MAY 27, 2011

From 4.23.11 to 5.12.11 there were over 50 inmates sent to Ad-Seg (Administrative Segregation). There have been multiple fights with inmates sustaining stab or slash wounds and at least five officers have been assaulted by inmates. Two officers were treated at the hospital; one for getting bit by an inmate which drew blood. Most of the inmates causing problems are coming from units where positions are being closed.

MAY 13, 2011

An officer working the dialysis unit alone (due to the closure of a position) had to step in and break up a fight when one inmate began beating another who was in full restraints and couldn’t defend himself. The officer sustained a back injury and was treated for exposure.

Prison closings and consolidations have also happened this year because of the tightened funds from the state, said Crowley. There have been four prison closings and four consolidations in the state.

“Many of the closures were due to a decreasing prisoner population through success of MPRI, etc. according to the Department and the Administration,” said Crowley. “From our perspective, a lot of prisoners simply had their classification changed so that they could be housed at a lower security level facility thus saving the state money.”

Prisoner classification is a system that ranks prisoners on a one to five scale based on their behavior while incarcerated. Level one prisoners are the least restricted individuals whereas level five prisoners are considered highly dangerous and are likely to incite violence. Prisons are also rated the same with level five facilities housing the most dangerous people.

Tylutki explained that prisoners are often downgraded on the system so the state can bunk them less expensively. He said the same goes for prisons, the state has lowered the rating of some maximum security level prisons to a lower level in order to save money.

Tylutki gave the example of Alger Correctional Facility. A facility that used to be a level five security prison but was downgraded to a level four.

“Alger was a level five on Saturday, on Sunday it was a level four — double bunked and they had 80 some percent of the same prisoners. It was like a magic wand,” said Tylutki. “And what happens to these prisoners when you go from a level five to a four. They’re double bunked, they’ve now got a cell mate, they have more movement, less officers, more ability to move around the prison, to get into mischief.”

“So when you start taking level five and just pushing them into level four and giving them this added freedom it is a threat to the security of the institution and not only that, you have the fact that they’re cutting assignments at every prison in the state,” Tylutki said.

The cuts to positions are not simply trimming out unneeded jobs or because of a lack of security risk said Tylutki. He said they are solely to meet the budget.

Tylutki believes there are other ways to save money and that is to cut the excess number of supervisors in the system. “We argue there are too many supervisors,” he said. “Here in Michigan we have the highest ratio of supervisor to state employees in the nation.”

Tylutki went on to say that the cuts that have taken effect this year have already contributed to a rise in risk to safety inside the prison. Within the past three months there have been six incidents where “warning shots” had to be fired. Warning shots are fired when violence breaks out between inmates and the violence directly threatens an officer or prisoner’s life.

Tylutki said that number of warning shots is “unheard of.”