LANSING — The Michigan Department of Corrections announced on Sept. 8 that it is adding 870 high-security beds, hours after the union for corrections officers linked a suspected prison homicide over the Labor Day weekend to a shortage of beds to house Michigan's most dangerous inmates.
The department said in a news release it will use $152 million appropriated in the 2027 budget to build 400 new Level 4 and Level 5 beds at Oaks Correctional Facility in Manistee and at St. Louis Correctional Facility. Construction is expected to be completed in about 30 months as part of the MDOC's Safe Prisons Initiative, the release said.
Level 5 beds are for prisoners with the highest security assessments. They are kept in single-person cells. Level 4 prisoners are also
considered high-risk and face greater restrictions on their movements, but they typically share a cell with one other person. Higher-security beds require higher staffing levels.
The MDOC is also converting 182 beds at Macomb Correctional Facility, which now house lower-security inmates, to Level 4, with completion expected Sept. 18 of this year, the release said. Additional bed conversions at Oaks will create a new 192-bed Level 4 unit and a 96-bed Level 5 unit there, with the conversions expected to be completed by the end of this year.
The department also announced plans to convert a Level 2 unit at Richard A. Handlon Correctional Facility in Ionia to a protective custody unit, with completion expected this fall, and to upgrade 30 cells at Bellamy Creek Correctional Facility in Ionia for prisoners with disabilities. The Bellamy Creek project is slated to be completed by January, the release said.
“When we have the right housing to support individuals throughout their course of incarceration, we create safer facilities for staff and increase the success of those housed there,” MDOC Director Heidi Washington said in the news release.
Byron Osborn, president of the Michigan Corrections Organization, who has been complaining for years about a lack of corrections officers staffing and a lack of Level 5 beds, told the Detroit Free Press Sept. 8 that a suspected Sept. 6 homicide at Carson City Correctional Facility is "another glaring example of the MDOC’s inability to properly place prisoners in the correct security level."
Given the chronic shortage of corrections officers in Michigan prisons, "we have serious concerns about how the MDOC plans to staff these higher-security housing units," Osborn said in an email.
The Michigan State Police said Johnathan Adam Brancheau, 28, died early Sept. 6 after being found unresponsive inside his two-person cell. Neither the MSP nor the MDOC would immediately identify Brancheau's 26-year-old cellmate, whom MSP identified as a suspect in the investigation.
A relative of Brancheau's could not be reached Sept. 8.
"The prisoner suspected in this case was a Level 5 prisoner being housed in a Level 4 prison," Osborn said. "Unfortunately, yet another prisoner has lost his life and other prisoners and staff continue to face the possibility of injury or death due to the MDOC’s lack of adequate Level 5 maximum security prisons and segregation units.”
Jenni Riehle, a spokeswoman for the MDOC, declined to respond to Osborn, citing the ongoing investigation.
Riehle did not respond when asked how many of the 870 additional high-security beds would be Level 5.
On Aug. 19, Bellamy Creek inmate Kevin Joseph Kelly, 36, was found unresponsive at the prison amid signs of trauma and soon pronounced dead. At the time, Osborn said that Kelly's cellmate, a suspect in the killing, should not have been sharing a cell with anyone.
Osborn said the new units at St. Louis and Oaks "are at least three years away." but "we need help with security levels now."
Oaks, St. Louis, and the Alger Correctional Facility in Munising were all built as Level 5 prisons, Osborn said. The union has suggested the MDOC convert one of those three prisons back to Level 5 from Level 4, which Osborn said "could be done in a matter of weeks, not years."
Contact Paul Egan: 517-372-8660 or pegan@freepress.com.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: MDOC to add 870 high-security prison beds amid safety concerns
