The mission statement of the Michigan Department of Corrections (MDOC) is a complete fraud. You have to fail the polygraph test to become a staff member of the MDOC. You must be willing to lie, cheat, and steal from the taxpayers--not all staff, but the ones I have had contact with. One of the functions of the criminal justice system is supposedly to enhance public safety, but they cannot protect the prisoners behind their own fence--another lie.
The MDOC is a complete fraud on the taxpayers. There are five people over 90 years of age in the Michigan prison system, over 45 people over 80 years of age, 414 over 70 years of age, and over 4,000 prisoners over 60 years of age. The MDOC mission statement claims to provide meaningful opportunities for offenders to help themselves to improve their behaviors and become law abiding and productive citizens through academics, vocational work, recreational activities, etc. Yet the untrained, unskilled, uneducated, unprofessional, and out of control correctional officers are just one step from being incarcerated themselves.
Allow me to give you an example. A prisoner's wife came to visit. A correctional officer saw her and told other officers that he was going to sleep with the prisoner's wife. He went to the prisoner's file, wrote down the home number, and started calling the prisoner's wife and making sexual advances toward her. She told her husband who told the Warden. Instead of disciplining the correctional officer, MDOC transferred the prisoner and the prisoner was disciplined. This is how MDOC operates. There are correctional officers engaging in or attempting to engage in sexual assault on prisoners, but who can the prisoners tell? They all work together against the prisoners.
The MDOC states that one of the major objectives of the MDOC is to influence criminal offenders to become law abiding citizens and that both on duty and off duty conduct of department personnel must serve as an example of proper conducct for offenders. This is a huge lie. The whole department is a complete fraud on the taxpayers. We must close down Marquette Branch Prison to protect the public.
-Rev. Pinkney
