MARQUETTE, Mich. (WLUC) - Today, people from the Michigan Corrections Organization made their voices heard.
Protesters gathered along US-41, right across from the Marquette Branch Prison. This was all to make a point about Michigan Department of Corrections Director Heidi Washington’s handling of hundreds of officer vacancies within the prison system.
“There’s 12,000 people in the department of corrections,” MCO’s President, Byron Osborn, said. "Correction officers are 6,000 of those people. We believe she has failed in addressing those problems.”
Since 2015, the number of vacancies within the corrections system has risen to around 750. While Osborn and other fellow correction officers have been taking a stand in other parts of the state, he wants the number of vacancies to be much lower.
“If they can get that down in the 200 range, spread among 30 facilities statewide, that’s doable,” he explained. "That’s not an instance where there would be widespread mandatory overtime like there is now.”
MDOC Spokesman Chris Gautz says this is an issue that has been discussed for a long period of time and agrees that the numbers should decrease.
“There are vacancies at a number of our facilities,” Gautz said. "That’s true, and that is something we have talked about openly for a number of years.”
But while both sides seem to agree that changes are required to fill openings and keep corrections officers safe, MDOC officials believe there are other motives behind the protest.
“They are going to facilities where there are major media markets around the state,” Gautz stated, "so that has been the focus of this. Just to get media attention and to disparage the director.”
Osborn, however, pushed back on those remarks, calling them “inaccurate.”
“Nobody is saying Heidi Washington is a bad person,” he said. "We are not here to disparage her name. We are saying she has not gotten the job done.”
He said there will be more protests in the coming months, including one downstate in Ionia this Thursday.
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