Prisons in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula “in a Death Spiral” Due to Under-Staffing
Data from the Michigan Department of Corrections (DOC) shows that, like many state prison systems across the country, chronic guard vacancies are on the rise. While all of the DOC’s 26 prisons are under-staffed, the problem is much more pronounced in one region in particular: the Upper Peninsula (UP), the largely rural and sparsely populated stretch of Michigan that juts out from northern Wisconsin.
There are six state prisons in the UP that lock up a combined 8,000 of Michigan’s total 33,000 prisoners. Despite holding a quarter of Michigan’s prison population, UP prisons saw three-quarters of all guard assaults across the state in 2025. As Bridge Michigan reported, only one prison in the UP, the low-security Newberry Correctional Facility, had a guard vacancy rate (less than 10%) that was lower than the state average (16%).
Unlike Newberry, the other five UP prisons, as of January 2026, the most recent period for which data is available, each had vacancy rates that were far higher: 35% at Alger Correctional Facility in Munising, 34% at Baraga, 29% at Chippewa, 28% at Kinross Correctional Facility in Kincheloe and 30% at Marquette Branch Prison.
As PLN reported, there are roughly 31,000 prison guard job vacancies throughout the United States. [See: PLN, Sept. 2025, p.1.] Nearly every state prison system is affected, although some such as New Hampshire, Wisconsin, and North Carolina, have higher vacancy rates than most. In some states including New York, the national guard was called in to fill guard roles.
Although many news sources focus exclusively on under-staffing’s impact on guard safety, as was the case for the article that this report draws on, prisoners and detainees suffer severe consequences, as understaffed prisons are more dangerous, more prone to lockdowns, and offer less programming.
“We’re in a death spiral,” Michigan state Representative Dave Prestin (R-Cedar River), whose district covers portions of the UP and who witnessed an assault on prison staff during a 2024 tour of the Chippewa prison, told Bridge Michigan.
Source: Bridge Michigan
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