Three Upper Peninsula lawmakers are joining the picket line with Michigan corrections officers next week to protest a state prison staffing crisis they claim Gov. Gretchen Whitmer has largely ignored.

State Reps. Dave Prestin, R-Cedar River, and Greg Markkanen, R-Hancock, will join Sen. Ed McBroom, R-Vulcan, at a series of informational pickets to support the corrections officers union’s call on the Michigan Department of Corrections to alleviate staffing shortages that are taking a toll on officers.

Those lawmakers demanded “urgent attention” from MDOC Director Heidi Washington in July to address the issue that has contributed to recent unrest at the Baraga Correctional Facility, and led to significant damage and assaults on officers at all five MDOC facilities in the Upper Peninsula.

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“Director Washington has failed to fix or even address the damning staffing shortages within our prisons,” McBroom said at the time. “I have been warning the state for more than 10 years about the dangers of administration policies that are making our prisons more dangerous for both prisoners and state employees.

“My committee investigations have highlighted numerous failed policies and lack of success at increasing the ranks of officers – which is by far the biggest threat to safety,” he said. “Director Washington must either resolve this crisis or find a leader who can.”

The lawmakers contend many corrections officers are working more than 80 hours per week, with some on shift for more than 32 hours across two days. In early July, Michigan Corrections Organization President Byron Osborn penned a letter to Gov. Gretchen Whitmer to request she deploy the National Guard to help address the “dangerous working conditions.”

The letter followed six years of requests for relief for overworked corrections officers that Osborn said have largely gone unanswered. Osborn contends conditions have deteriorated since Whitmer took office, with prisoners “coddled at the expense of officer safety” and inmates taking advantage of “lax MDOC policies on prisoner discipline, classification and use of segregation,” The Detroit News reports.

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The union president pointed WLUC to at least five state facilities, including three in the UP, that had CO vacancy rates between 33% and 35% in July.

“That’s a staggering number of vacancies. These folks are being asked to just basically live at the prison and work these 16-hour days and that in turn exacerbates the problem because after a while, people start dropping off, they start resigning,” he said. “They’re taking other jobs, they’re choosing family life and their health over giving up this much time and energy to the Department of Corrections.”

Michigan employs over 5,000 corrections officers and forensic security assistants at 26 facilities, with another 1,000 open positions left unfilled. The years-long shortage is further exacerbated by a prison population that grew by 1% over the last year, according to a House Fiscal Agency analysis cited by MLive.

“The conditions I’ve described to you are real,” Osborn wrote to Whitmer. “If you are skeptical and wish to see for yourself, I’ll gladly escort you inside several of your prisons so you can speak directly with your corrections officers, not the administration, about the conditions. We’ve been seeking effective relief solutions from the Legislature and MDOC for years and are now to the point of desperation.”

Democrats blocked a MDOC request for $12 million in the 2025 budget signed by Whitmer the department intended to spend on signing and retention bonuses for corrections officers, despite MDOC spending $112.6 million on overtime in fiscal year 2023, The News reports.

Democrats increased MDOC’s budget in their 2025 spending plan by a mere 0.2%.

Whitmer never bothered to respond to Osborn’s letter or to media requests about the staffing crisis, instead referring comment to MDOC, which immediately nixed any possibility of help from the National Guard.

“The situation facing MDOC staff continues to be challenging, but the solution is not a temporary measure such as bringing in National Guard members who have not been trained to operate in this environment,” the department said in a statement cited by MLive.

In just the two weeks after Osborn’s letter to Whitmer, there were 13 incidents of violence between inmates and corrections officers at the Baraga Correctional Facility, while staffing shortages forced the facility to lock down housing units and cancel prisoner yard periods on nine occasions, according to McBroom.

“Corrections officers cannot continue at this pace,” Markkanen said. “MDOC is supposed to give corrections officers at least 32 hours between mandatory overtime shifts. Staffing shortages have caused countless violations of this policy, with many officers being required to work 16 hour shifts three to five days in a row. Five years ago, an internal survey revealed 140 corrections officers were actively planning to commit suicide. These officers go toe-to-toe with dangerous criminals every day. Yet, our corrections officers remain wildly understaffed, underpaid, and unappreciated by the administration.”

McBroom, Markkanen, and Prestin are pushing legislation that could boost retirements for corrections officers and redirect overtime costs to pay increases, though it remains unclear how much support the bills have in a legislature controlled by Democrats.

Prestin plans to attend the first scheduled informational picket at the Chippewa Correctional Facility in Kincheloe on Aug.19, Markkanen will attend a second event at the Baraga Correctional Facility in Baraga on Aug. 20, and McBroom will attend the final picket at the Marquette Branch Prison in Marquette on Aug. 21., according to a statement.