Paul EganDetroit Free Press
LANSING — Violence and turmoil are on the rise at Michigan's only prison for women, inmates and officers say.
Many of the problems are related to a systemwide staffing shortage that has all Michigan Department of Corrections facilities in crisis. But Women's Huron Valley Correctional Facility, a unique Michigan prison near Ypsilanti which historically has not counted frequent fistfights among its many problems, is failing to enforce security classifications to keep aggressive and problematic prisoners away from peaceful ones who just want to quietly do their time and go home, inmates and officers told the Free Press in a series of interviews.
Effective prison classification systems "help minimize the potential for prison violence, escape, and institutional misconduct," according to a publication from the National Institute of Corrections.
"They’re cutting our TV cords, they’re fighting us, they’re stealing all of our stuff, our units are getting locked down constantly," said Women's Huron Valley inmate Sharee Miller, whose unit is intended to house "Level II" women like herself, who are not considered a management problem, but is housing increasing numbers of "Level IV" inmates, who are.
"It's off the chain," said Corrections Officer Georgiann Stan, who is union president at Women's Huron Valley. During August, "every day we've had fights on all three shifts."
At Women's Huron Valley:
- The Michigan Department of Corrections acknowledges that 46 prisoners with "Level IV" management points have been moved to units intended for Level II prisoners after being granted waivers. Inmates say they are living with more Level IV inmates than that, because the department's number does not include prisoners who have accumulated Level IV management points while housed in Level II units but who have never been moved to a Level IV unit because of a lack of available beds.
- Officers say they are at times instructed not to write "tickets" to certain prisoners for nonviolent infractions, such as being out of place or refusing a direct order, either because of a lack of Level IV bed space or because prison officials want the prisoner released on parole and a new infraction could prevent that from happening. It's a practice they say can endanger staff, lower-security prisoners, and the general public. Prisoner security classifications are based, in part, on how many "points" a prisoner has and each prison infraction comes with additional points.
- Fewer than 100 of WHV's roughly 1,740 inmates are classified as Level IV prisoners, whose movements are normally much more restricted than Level II prisoners and whose units have a higher number of officers per prisoner than Level II units do. "There are no plans to create additional Level IV beds for this population at this time," said Jenni Riehle, a spokeswoman for the MDOC.
- Some of the increased aggression may be testosterone-fueled. Currently, 38 inmates at the prison are diagnosed with gender dysphoria, said Riehle. Many of those inmates are being treated with hormones such as testosterone, which has been linked to higher levels of energy and aggression. In an incident this month, two Level II women were fighting when an inmate who had been released to the Level II unit from Level IV intervened, and one of the Level II women was sent to the hospital with injuries, Riehle confirmed. Miller and two other prisoners said the Level IV inmate who "stomped" one of the Level II women was being treated with testosterone. A recent parolee, Giovanni Russell, who received testosterone treatment at WHV, identifies as male, and prefers the pronoun "he," said testosterone use can increase aggression levels at the prison, largely because inmates are given the hormone without adequate counseling about how the treatment affects the body and the mind.
Prisons across the state are experiencing major staffing shortages that have resulted in officers being repeatedly ordered to work double shifts, prompting Michigan Corrections Organization President Byron Osborn to describe the situation as desperate and ask Gov. Gretchen Whitmer to dispatch troops from the Michigan National Guard to help out. Osborn's request was rejected by MDOC Director Heidi Washington, who has announced other steps to try to increase recruitment and temporarily move officers to the most short-staffed prisons in the Upper Peninsula.
At Women's Huron Valley, the duration of the staffing crunch has been much longer, because of rules that generally prohibit male corrections officers from working in the housing units.
"We are exhausted. Us women there are so ... burned out," Stan said. "It's horrible and it's very dangerous."
Prisoner Kaitlynn Bleeda said when she complained about a disruptive prisoner assigned to share a room with her in Level II, officials asked her whether she wanted to be moved to protective custody — a type of solitary confinement — before eventually moving the problem prisoner.
"They have these Level IVs out on waivers and telling them, 'You have one more incident and you’re being put back in there,' " Bleeda said. "Why aren’t they put back in there when they have Level IV points? I don’t understand it."
Riehle said, "classification is dynamic and the use of departures and waivers by correctional staff is a long-standing practice." She said the number of Level IV prisoners who are on waivers to Level II is not significantly different from one year ago.
Miller, who has served more than 20 years of a life sentence for murder, said prisoners housed in Level II units have earned the right to do so through good behavior and the movement of Level IV prisoners into their housing units not only threatens their safety and possessions but unfairly subjects them to frequent lockdowns, during which they can't go out in the yard or use amenities such as the pay phones or microwaves. The department needs to create a larger Level IV unit, said Miller, who said she has overheard officers complaining about being told not to write tickets that would send prisoners to Level IV.
Stan said it's true that supervisors sometimes give those directions to officers, which she said undermines officers' authority and makes it more difficult to manage an already unruly prison. Sometimes it's because of a lack of Level IV bed space, Stan said, sometimes it's because prison officials want unruly prisoners released, so they become somebody else's problem.
"You get her paroled because you don’t want to deal with her — the facility doesn’t — she goes out and hurts somebody, can you live with yourself?" Stan asked.
Even when officers write tickets for prisoners, the tickets sometimes mysteriously disappear after they are taken to the prison control center and no disciplinary hearing is held, said Stan, who believes prisoners at WHV are generally "coddled."
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Osborn said he's aware of a recent uptick in violent incidents at Women's Huron Valley, where he said serious fights have historically been less frequent than at the men's prisons.
Osborn said supervisors directing officers not to write tickets for certain nonviolent infractions is not unique to WHV. Moving inmates who should be housed in high-security settings into low-security units is also a problem in the men's prisons, Osborn said. It has gotten worse in recent years and is now "commonplace," he said.
Riehle did not explicitly deny that supervisors sometimes direct officers not to write tickets in certain situations, but denied that tickets, once written, sometimes get intentionally "lost" once taken to the control center.
"Officers are trained to manage prisoner behavior and outcomes using a variety of techniques such as communication, education, as well as issuing misconducts and sanctions," Riehle said. "Officers can write misconducts when it is deemed the most appropriate response to a situation and the best course of action for the prisoner."
Miller said she married a woman in 2017 and is not transphobic, but the presence of transgender inmates at WHV has created competition among some women to be in relationships with prisoners who identify as men, as well as heightened aggression levels more broadly.
"The 'men' have multiple girlfriends, which causes the fighting to increase," Miller said in an email. "It feels like a coed prison," and "their voices are so deep ... we hear male voices all day long."
Russell, who was interviewed by phone while still housed at the women's prison but who was released on parole Aug. 20, said he received testosterone treatment there and believes the hormone, as dispensed at WHV, does increase aggression.
"I’ve been trying to advocate for more groups and more counseling," Russell said.
"They don’t give you any communication, they don’t tell you what testosterone does to the body, they don’t tell you what testosterone does to the mental, you know what I’m saying?" he said. "They don’t give you none of that. It’s just, here, take the testosterone."
Other than disclosing the number of WHV prisoners diagnosed with gender dysphoria, Riehle declined to answer questions about transgender inmates at WHV and declined to respond to Russell's allegation that the hormones are dispensed without adequate counseling.
Another Level II prisoner, Rebecca Smith, said she knows all three inmates who were involved in the recent fight that sent one woman to the hospital, and she does not believe the fact that one of the inmates was on testosterone was a significant factor in the incident. Smith believes that in the case of that fight, and also more generally, it has more to do with the individual prisoner's personality and physical size.
Smith said there have been more fights and lockdowns, creating inconvenience, but she hasn't felt less safe in her Level II unit.
Stan said she has noticed more aggression among some inmates taking testosterone and "they've got some power."
Contact Paul Egan: 517-372-8660 or pegan@freepress.com. Follow him on X, @paulegan4.
