COLDWATER, MI (WTVB) – Despite efforts to beef up staff in Michigan’s prisons, officials with the union representing corrections officers say mandatory overtime is putting a strain on its members, including those at the Lakeland Correctional Facility in Coldwater.
According to data obtained by MLive, from 2013 to 2023, overtime hours have nearly doubled. Officers worked a total of j2.3 million hours in 2023, up from just over 1.4 million hours of overtime in 2013. That cost the state $112.5 million in 2023, or about about 6% of the overall corrections department budget.
In response to the overtime pressure, the MDOC has closed multiple cellblock units across the state and continues to coordinate a Volunteer Relief Program, which allows officers from higher-staffed prisons to volunteer to work at understaffed facilities on a temporary basis.
Since September, MDOC has hired over 550 new officers, and corrections department officials say they continue to work on strategies to reduce mandatory overtime, increase retention and further their recruiting efforts.
Michigan Corrections Organization President Byron Osborn says the state has been in staffing crisis for quite a bit, with “officers working 16-hour shifts, back-to-back sometimes.”
He says it disrupts life for corrections officers and is not sustainable.
MDOC officials say they have to rely on voluntary and forced overtime to fill gaps in staffing.
Of the state’s 26 prisons, the G. Robert Cotton Correctional Facility outside Jackson has the highest rate of unfilled positions at 33%. The average vacancy rate throughout the state prison system is 17%.
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