The Michigan Law Prison Information Project (MLPA), an organization staffed largely by law students and supervised by Professor Margo Schlanger, compiled in January 2014, an exhaustive comparison of prison grievance policies. According to that organization, "The goal of the project was to gather and analyze prison grievance policies from ...53 Departments of Correction (for the Federal Bureau of Prisons, each state, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico), and the nation’s 12 largest metropolitan jails.

As part of that massive effort, that group has also made these various policies available on the internet at http://clearinghouse.net/policy, because, "we hope that highlighting the positive policies that are actually in place in various jurisdictions leads to reform,..(and assist) prisoners seeking redress for legitimate complaints."

However, the Project does not limit itself to mere compilation of procedures, but also makes specific recommendations for improvement of the grievance policy of correctional systems. Some of those recommendations included clearly defining out what is what is not grieveble, addressing complaints relating to sexual abuse, health care and emergencies, and "should expressly address remedies, and should allow, at a minimum, remedies of institutional change and restitution and/or restoration."

In conclusion, the MLPA stated that, "We urge all correctional systems to evaluate their own grievance policies and work towards creating a more fair and effective system."

See: Prison and Jail Grievance Policies: Lesson from a Fifty-State Survey, Michigan Law Prison Information Project, October 18, 2015.

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