STORY PRODUCED BY CAPITAL NEWS SERVICE
Many jails across Michigan face serious challenges today, including outdated buildings, poor layouts, aging technology, plumbing problems and overcrowding.
A significant number of these facilities are more than 70 years old, and officials say conditions are not improving.
In fact, concerns are growing, they said.
“The jail is old, and the fact is it’s falling apart,” said Jackson County Sheriff Gary Schuette. “We put thousands, tens of thousands, sometimes hundreds of thousands of dollars a year into this facility just to keep it operating,” said Schuette.
Jackson County has tried several times to pass a millage – a local property tax increase – for a new jail, but it has not been approved by voters. Schuette said one of the biggest challenges is convincing the public that a new facility is necessary.
“The problem that continues to persist is that people believe if you’ve committed a crime, you should not have luxury when you go to jail,” Schuette said.
“They think building a new jail will be like a Taj Mahal for people who’ve committed crimes. They think it should be a punishment-type situation,” he said.
In 1978, the Jackson County Jail increased its capacity with a west-side wing. Today, that section is separating from the main building, with a 6-inch gap visible three stories up, a sign of a much larger structural problem, according to Schuette.
That situation is not unique to the Jackson County Jail but common in older jails around the state.
“Many older facilities were built in a linear design,” said Matthew Saxton, the executive director of the Michigan Sheriffs Association. “Linear layouts can create supervision problems because officers are not stationed with inmates.”
“Newer jails use direct supervision, with officers assigned to pods to provide 24/7 monitoring,” Saxton said.
Most of Michigan’s 83 counties operate their own jail. But a few smaller counties choose not to run a local facility because their population is too small to justify the cost.
Instead, they house inmates in neighboring counties’ jails.
“It doesn’t make sense to run a jail for only a few inmates and still pay staff to operate it,” said Saxton.
Marquette County, the most populous county in the Upper Peninsula, has the opposite problem. Its jail doesn’t have enough space, so the sheriff’s office leases beds in neighboring counties, including Alger, Iron and Delta.
“We’re spending about half a million dollars a year leasing space from other county jails,” said Greg Zyburt, the Marquette County sheriff.
The Marquette County Jail faces many of the same problems that Jackson County’s does.
In addition to overcrowding and structural problems, officials report frequent plumbing failures that make it harder to focus on safety and daily operations.
“The facilities are all old and starting to break. There are all kinds of issues with plumbing,” Zyburt said.
“Sometimes sewage is running from the ceiling. It’s unsanitary,” he said.
Zyburt said the problem is made worse by the growing number of inmates with mental illness. Some wait months, or even a year, for evaluations or placement in mental health facilities.
During that time, jails must house them, creating added pressure on staff and safety, Zyburt said. “We’re not psychiatrists, we’re not nurses, we’re not doctors. They don’t belong here, and it’s a real issue,” he said.
Zyburt said building a new jail is the only way to reduce long-term costs and workload, and officials are now considering a 180-bed facility that could cost about $40 million.
“We could cut about $1.1 million in labor costs with fewer officers, plus the half-million dollars we spend leasing space from other counties,” said Zyburt.
“That’s nearly $2 million a year,” he said.
In 2024, Wayne County opened its new criminal justice center in Detroit that centralized the jail, juvenile detention center and courtrooms.
While Jackson and Marquette counties are still trying to secure funding for new jails, Branch County was eventually able to build a new facility after years of failed votes.
The county spent more than a decade trying to pass a millage before voters approved one in 2018. A 202-bed jail opened in 2021.
“One of the biggest advantages of the new jail is the ability to classify inmates into 16 levels based on their criminal history, incarceration history, contraband issues and current charges,” said Sheriff Fred Blankenship.
Branch County officials ran a marketing campaign before the millage vote, offering public tours and posting videos on social media so voters could see conditions inside the old jail.
“You need to show people what’s wrong with the old jail,” said Blankenship. “Give tours so voters can see the conditions firsthand and hold public meetings with videos as well.”
Officials said renovating old jails is expensive and often doesn’t make practical or financial sense, noting that new facilities offer better technology, stronger security and more space.