Parolees enrolled in a residential drug treatment facility in Macomb County say the building, leased by the Michigan Department of Corrections, is overrun with bedbugs.

The Macomb Daily reports the infestation has been verified by former staffers as well as residents in the Self Help Addiction Rehabilitation (SHAR).

Bedbugs, which are known to transmit a variety of diseases, are common at SHAR Macomb, a former residential facility for troubled youth and former psychiatric hospital. Citing sources including parolees and ex-employees of the nonprofit company, The Macomb Daily reported on Thursday that the bedbugs are part of the reason more than 30 parolees assigned to the facility for counseling and housing have fled by climbing over fences, going through windows or simply walking out a door. At least 11 absconders, including offenders convicted of violent crimes, remain at large, according to state records.

One resident says a bite he received led to an infection of staph bacteria which are resistant to most common antibiotics. The parolee was hospitalized recently to allow doctors to cut open the infected location and drain it. Doctors thought the bite may have come from another source — possible the poisonous brown recluse spider — rather than bed bugs. But William Hartley III, the parolee who ended up with the MRSA infection, tells the newspaper he has seen the bedbugs himself.

The bed bug infestation is a not a reality, say officials from the Michigan Department of Corrections.

“There is no bed bug problem at SHAR. Much of that story is fiction,” says Russ Marlan, spokesperson for the department.

MDOC Director Dan Heyns is cautioning that outsourcing may be an ineffective way to meet the recent budget goal of reducing food service expenses by $7 million a year.

Last week Heyns told the Detroit News that he agrees with the corrections officers who say that allowing food service workers from private companies into the prisons could undermine security and trigger new expenses.

He said he wants to meet the targeted food savings of $7 million, along with more than $33 million in other efficiencies his department is expected to find in the fiscal year that starts Oct. 1. But he hopes lawmakers will allow flexibility in how savings are achieved.

“Meals are extremely important to the stability of institutions,” Heyns said Wednesday. “You’ve got to proceed very carefully.”

It costs the state $2.07 a day to provide prisoners with three meals, down from about $2.60 a year ago, spokesman Russ Marlan said.

Marlan said that while MDOC will solicit bids from companies interested in taking over food service it may not decide to go with any of those bids.

Other states that have privatized food service have seen food quality decline.

In 2009 eight corrections officers and eight inmates at Kentucky’s Northpoint Training Center were injured in a fiery riot that destroyed food service, dormitory and other buildings and guards attributed the disturbance to dissatisfaction over the food served by the Ararmark corporation.

Michigan Department of Corrections officer James Sims says he is disappointed with a decision by the MDOC administration to bar him from wearing his uniform in Saturday’s Gay Pride March.

In an interview, Sims said he wanted to wear the uniform to challenge stereotypes of gay men.

“I want to show my community and the public that we are not all limp-wristed, talk with a lisp, or want to get into bed with every man we meet. While I am a gay man, it is a small part of who I am, but it is a part of me, being a corrections professional is an even bigger part of who I am, and I want my fellow corrections professionals to know and feel it is ok to be themselves and still be professional and proud,” Sims said. “Wearing my uniform would have meant that I was valued as a corrections professional and that the department recognized me as such, and that being gay did not matter one bit.”

Sims asked permission to wear his uniform on May 20th. He says he went to his warden with request because he was new at the Cotton Correctional Facility and was unsure how supervisors would respond to his coming out as gay. The warden, he says, asked for clarification on his request on May 24. And then things were silent.

On June 10, his supervisor approached him to tell him the warden had denied the request and provided him with her email denial. Sims had actually approached Warden through his union representative in order to prevent exactly that scenario from playing out.

Michigan Messenger reported on the denial on June 10.

“It meant to me that it was not ok to be who I am,” said Sims of the decision.

He noted that other corrections officers had been authorized to wear uniforms to a church service for law enforcement, Special Olympics events and even to the Ionia Free Fair.

“I don’t have information on the specific cases you cite, however the policy does allow for employees to wear their uniforms outside of work, with supervisory approval, when representing the department in their official capacity. I presume that in the instances you mention, the employee’s supervisor gave approval for the employee to wear their uniform after determination the employee was representing the department in their official capacity,” said Russ Marlan, spokesperson for MDOC. “The decision to deny Officer Sims request to wear his uniform in the parade was made by Correctional Facilities Administration Deputy Director Dennis Straub.”

Marlan says the decision was made because it was a parade and Staub felt such an event was better suited for the organization’s Honor Guard.

“I am disappointed the officer was not permitted to wear his MDOC uniform in the event. Over the past several years, the department has received a great deal of well deserved recognition for its progress on LGBT issues – relative to prisoners and staff. So in terms of further demonstrating that progress, this was an opportunity missed,” said R Cole Bouck, president of the Michigan Gay Officer’s Action League. Bouck is also employed by the MDOC. “I hope the Department will re-review its uniform policy to further consider such events in the future. I am encouraged that the Department has suggested MI-GOAL consider submitting a formal request next year, for the Department’s Honor Guard to participate as a group. While that had not occurred to us, we look forward to making that request.”

“Obviously we think it is wrong that the officer was not permitted to wear his uniform at the Lansing Pride Parade, as there are obviously LGBT employees for the Department of Corrections,” said Jay Kaplan, of the ACLU of Michigan’s LGBT Project. “It seems clear that he should have been able to represent the MDOC within the parameters of the policy (they were not serving alcohol at the parade and he would not have to have consumed alcohol). It seems that the MDOC must have a misunderstanding of the purpose of the Michigan Pride March and what occurs during the Parade.”

The Michigan Department of Corrections has told corrections officer James Sims that he is not allowed to wear his uniform in Saturday’s gay pride march in Lansing.

Sims, who works at the Cotton Correctional Facility in Jackson, made the request so he could be identified as a corrections officer while participating in the march with members of the newly formed Michigan Gay Officers Action League (M-GOAL). The group represents LGBT first responders, law enforcement agents and correctional facility officers.

Russ Marlan, spokesman for the department, says the decision was made based on departmental policy. The policy in question reads:

Employees shall wear uniform items only in the performance of their official duties, during travel directly to and from their work site, and, with supervisory approval, when representing the Department in their official capacity. Employees are prohibited from wearing a uniform item which has a Department insignia while in any establishment which serves alcohol on the premises except when representing the Department in their official capacity. Employees shall not purchase or consume alcoholic beverages while wearing a uniform item which has a Department insignia unless approved by the Director at official functions.

Marlan says that only the department’s honor guard is authorized to represent the MDOC in parades. He said it is possible that a request from M-GOAL — the president of which, R Cole Bouck, works as an administrative assistant in MDOC’s Lansing offices — could result in the color guard marching in a pride march or event in the future.

While MDOC is saying no to its employees who want to wear their uniforms in the gay pride event, the City of Lansing has authorized Lansing Police Officers and firefighters to participate in the Michigan Pride March Saturday. Both departments have also authorized the use of vehicles for the march. There will be both gay and straight officers from the City of Lansing participating in the march.

In California earlier this month a corrections officer was denied permission to wear his uniform in a pride march, but the department reversed that decision after a public outcry.

A letter to the editor of the Gratiot County News by Ithaca Schools’ Superintendent Nathan Bootz has been making the rounds on the internet for his big ask — he wants his school turned into a prison so it can be adequately funded.

Bootz points out that Michigan spends $30,000 to $40,000 per year per prisoner, but can’t manage to find more than $7,000 per student in K-12 education funding.

This is why I’m proposing to make my school a prison. The State of Michigan spends annually somewhere between $30,000 and $40,000 per prisoner, yet we are struggling to provide schools with $7,000 per student. I guess we need to treat our students like they are prisoners, with equal funding. Please give my students three meals a day. Please give my children access to free health care. Please provide my school district Internet access and computers. Please put books in my library. Please give my students a weight room so we can be big and strong. We provide all of these things to prisoners because they have constitutional rights. What about the rights of youth, our future?!

The office of Gov. Rick Snyder is not pleased with Bootz letter. Geralyn Lasher, spokesperson for the governor, wrote the following statement to Michigan Messenger when asked about the Bootz letter:

Governor Snyder is interested in bringing people to the table to discuss constructive ideas. Cheap publicity stunts are not constructive for the reinvention of Michigan.

Bottom line is we had a $1.5 billion deficit we had to face in Michigan to put our fiscal house in order. The target budget agreement being acted on today reduces the reductions to schools to less than 2% and asks them to participate in common-sense best practice measures to ensure efficiencies. This is a very sensible approach to such a vital part of the Michigan budget.

On the reduction side many areas of the budget are facing cuts of 10% or more so we are pleased schools were protected and held to less than 2% in reductions.

Bootz tells Michigan Messenger he was just exercising his First Amendment rights.

“I have sent my letter to about 11-12 of our legislators and the governor, and up until this point in time, I have not had any response. I know that they are busy trying to put together the budget, so I totally understand. As for the response from the governor, I have not received any response from the governor’s office.

I was not aware that voicing my opinion in a legitimate public forum was now considered a “cheap publicity stunt.” All I’m really trying to do is increase public awareness of school funding. The speed at which this message has spread via Facebook and email has surprised me. It’s just an indicator that I’ve touched a nerve with many likeminded people.

If we are truly “pushing the reset button” like Speaker Bolger has suggested this week, then this seems to be a place Michigan citizens would like to see addressed.

The less than 2% reduction is misleading. That’s for the foundation allowance reduction. Factor in the loss in federal revenue of $170 per student, and the increase in the MSPERS rate (close to $230 per student), and it’s a lot more than 2%. For my district, I’m looking at close to a $600 per student reduction that I have to budget for, which means more cuts to our programs…and we’ve been cutting programs every year for the past 5-6 years.

I respect what the legislature and the governor is trying to do, and turning around our great state is not an easy task, that’s for sure. We all agree that Michigan needs some reinvention, we just don’t necessarily agree on how to do it.”

The governor’s office is not the only officialdom questioning Bootz’s letter.

Russ Marlan, spokesperson for the Michigan Department of Corrections, says Bootz has some of the information about prisoners and the amenities they have wrong.

“They get food, health care, a roof over their heads, clothing and access to a library,” Marlan said in an email to Michigan Messenger. “They don’t have access to the Internet. They do get cable television and a weight room, but they pay for it. They can earn a degree but they have to pay for that as well.”

A federal audit of Michigan’s Department of Corrections has slammed the state agency for overspending on medications.

The audit was particularly harsh in its review of the use of anti-psychotic medications, reports the Associated Press. The audit found that psychotropic medications accounted for $8 million in spending from January to July of 2010. That spending accounted for nearly 41 percent of all medication spending in the corrections system.

Auditors also took the state to task for its use of Seroquel, a name brand medication used to treat schizophrenia and bipolar disorder.

Seroquel, a treatment for schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, was the most prescribed antipsychotic drug. Auditors said the Corrections Department could have saved more than $350,000 a month by switching just half of the prescriptions to Risperdal, a cheaper drug that is off patent and has generic rivals.

Russ Marlan, a spokesman for MDOC, says the state concurred with many of the auditor’s concerns and has since taken action to remedy concerns, including reducing the use of Seroquel, and opting or Risperdal. The report is particularly striking in that the department overspent its budget allocations by $46 million last fiscal year.

The policy first came to light in April of 2009.

At the time, a spokesman for MDOC had this to say about the reason for the ban:

“A prison holds about 1,000, 1,200 people and as those 1,000 prisoners go through for breakfast, lunch and dinner, prisoners are scooping that food onto their trays,” said MDOC spokesman Russ Marlan. “So if a prisoner was HIV-positive and sneezed onto a food item and then a prisoner ate that food item and that prisoner had a lesion in their mouth they could contract the disease.”

That reasoning, officials from the Michigan Department of Civil Rights said, would violate state and federal laws.

Corrections officials eventually settled on a reason for the policy as safety and security in the facilities. Arguing that other inmates might cause issues if they knew a person feeding them in the chow line was HIV positive. That reasoning was deemed legal by MDCR.

But in November of last year, corrections officials said they were moving to change the policy. And while the policy change took longer than originally planned, it is now complete.

The new policy was released to Michigan Messenger Friday and is policy MM in an 8 page policy dealing with communicable disease in the prison system. The new policy language reads:

“Offenders with a communicable bloodborne infection are eligible for any housing, work, or school assignment or other program which their behavior and health allows, except that a prisoner shall not be assigned to work in a health service area. For example, a prisoner with a communicable bloodborne infection may work in a food service area unless s/he also has a condition which should disqualify anyone from working with food or food contact surfaces, such as cuts, sores, and dermatitis (above the torso), diarrhea, uncontrolled cough, runny nose, and poor general hygiene.”

People with HIV and advocates for the community are hailing the policy change.

“It is good to see that this policy now reflects science instead of fear. People living with HIV already have to deal with a myriad of issues related to their health as they face life with a terminal illness,” said Mark Peterson, spokesman for the Michigan Positive Action Coalition. “Stigmatizing them solely based on the fact that they have this illness is uninformed and cruel. There is no known transmission risk for HIV in this instance and the policy was created out of ignorance and fear.”

The Muskegon Chronicle reports on comments from MDOC spokesman Russ Marlan:

“It seems to be percolating and resonating, that we’re losing money,” said Russ Marlan, spokesman for the Michigan Deparment of Corrections. “We’re a little bit smarter than that. We’re not going to get into a deal that costs the state.

“Not only are we preserving jobs, and allowing those people who keep their jobs to continue to buy goods in the Muskegon area, and all the economic impact they have — we’re also making money on the deal,” Marlan said.

Under the deal, announced last week, Pennsylvania will send up to 1,000 prisoners to Muskegon at a cost of $62 per day. It costs the state $59.85 per day to house a prisoner, meaning the state will make a profit of $2.15 per day per prisoner.

MDOC Assistant Director Russ Marlan said in an interview last week that the department’s director, Patricia Caruso, has approved a plan to change the policy, something Michigan Messenger first examined in April followed by an investigation by the Michigan Department of Civil Rights.

“[Caruso] has authorized a change in the policy,” said Marlan, who serves as a department spokesman. “She authorized me to begin that process with our policy people.”

As a result, a letter and draft language eliminating the food service prohibition provision went out sometime in the last week to wardens and other stakeholders in the corrections department, Marlan said. Those officials will have 30 days to respond to the proposed changes, and if nothing surfaces to challenge the change, the policy could go in effect as early as the beginning of December.

Marlan stressed that while the policy change was not a “done deal,” only strong reservations from wardens and others backed up with substantial information could derail the roll-out of the policy revisions.

“She has said it couldn’t just be anecdotal, they’d have to have real data,” Marlan said.

Statistics from 2006 show1 percent of the Michigan’s prison population was infected with HIV, the virus which causes AIDS.

The current policy is in place, Marlan said, to prevent violence. The basis for the policy was the cause of some controversy earlier this year, when Marlan told Michigan Messenger that the policy was to prevent HIV from being spread to other prisoners through food. At the time, Marlan suggested it was possible for the virus to be transmitted through a HIV-positive inmate sneezing on food. Marlan also suggested that an infected prisoner could transmit the virus in kitchen accidents, saying, for example, that blood on a radish could cause HIV to spread.

Months later, Marlan retracted his comments telling Michigan Messenger they were “ridiculously wrong.” They also triggered a review of the policy by the Michigan Department of Civil Rights.

The actual reason for the policy is the fear that out of ignorance, a prisoner who is HIV-positive serving other prisoners could result in targeted violence against the HIV-positive prisoner. Federal courts have ruled corrections policies do not have to be based on facts, but have a wide latitude to address real or perceived threats to security. Potential violence could certainly be a threat to security.

But Marlan said education in place in all MDOC facilities should negate the ignorance factor which could fuel potential violence. Prisoners are tested annually for the virus, and are given extensive peer-lead education on HIV and its transmission.

Activist Mark Peterson, a director with the Michigan POZ Action Coalition, is praising MDOC officials for the policy change.

“I think it shows we are in a place where a department is seeing HIV as a health issue and not so much a hysteria disease response,” Peterson said.

(Creative Commons photo by my_southborough)

The policy came under scrutiny in April when Michigan Messenger reported Michigan Department of Corrections official Russ Marlan stating the policy was in place to prevent the spread of the infection.

“A prison holds about 1,000, 1,200 people and as those 1,000 prisoners go through for breakfast, lunch and dinner, prisoners are scooping that food onto their trays,” Marlan, who serves as MDOC’s assistant director, said at the time. “So if a prisoner was HIV-positive and sneezed onto a food item and then a prisoner ate that food item and that prisoner had a lesion in their mouth they could contract the disease.”

Another MDOC official, spokesman John Cordell, gave another explanation at the time, saying that life in prison runs on very different rules and it would be possible that a prisoner might feel an HIV-positive prisoner who was preparing and serving food was intentionally attempting to infect him. That, Cordell said, could lead the uninfected prisoner to attack the HIV-positive prisoner in “the big yard on Tuesday.”

Cordell’s reasoning is now the basis of MDOC’s policy, Marlan said Wednesday.

“Let me tell you something, I am embarrassed and I must say that that information was given to me by the [attorney general's] office. I subsequently was told it was not true. I apologize,” Marlan said this week. “It was ridiculously wrong.”

Mark Levy, chief legal officer for the Michigan Department of Civil Rights, had said in April that the justification being offered by MDOC was not legally allowed. The new justification, he said, would pass legal muster. “We looked into the matter, and the reason they are currently giving complies with the law,” Levy said. “I said in the first article the reasoning would probably change because one was legal and one was not.”

HIV/AIDS activists say the justification may be legal but argue that the policy is still discriminatory and should be reversed.

Mark Peterson from Michigan Poz Action Coalition, a group that represents the interests of HIV-positive people, said in an email:

This policy has no basis in the science of HIV transmission. If the department wanted to be serious about preventing the transmission of HIV among those incarcerated, they would distribute condoms and other risk reduction supplies.

There are other infectious diseases that people might have that actually could be transmitted via casual contact behaviors. Are these individuals denied the right to work in the same areas? This really looks like another example of [a] stigma-building over-reaction from the state.

In fact, MDOC policy does allow people with Hepatitis B and C to work in food service but under certain conditions. They are allowed to work as long as they don’t have open cuts or sores, a runny nose or other obvious problems. Both viral infections which attack the liver have had infections linked to close contact, such as food service, by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta. HIV is only spread via exchange of bodily fluids.

Marlan said he intends to meet with MDOC Director Patricia Caruso to discuss the policy’s necessity.

“I plan to look into this more deeply, and see if it is something we need to continue doing. If that threat is real,” Marlan said.

Marlan noted that all prisoners coming into the MDOC custody are required to attend a peer-lead HIV-prevention program which includes a video, as well as written materials. In addition, Marlan said, each prisoner is provided HIV information at their annual physical.