LANSING — Inmates in Michiganprisonshave received $22.6 million in federal stimulus payments since Oct. 1, according to a spokesman.
But the state has clawed back about $6.1 million of that amount to pay court-ordered restitution and other obligations, Michigan Department of Corrections spokesman Chris Gautz said.
Both the payments to prisoners and the recovery by the state — particularly at least $90,000 collected to cover prisoner "room and board" — are controversial.
The net inflow of $16.5 million to state prisoners— or about $500per inmate, on average— has also promptedconcern among prison managers and corrections officers about the money being used topurchasedrugs, weaponsand other contraband, as well as inspiring potentially violent extortion plots.
Critics say prisoners have not lost their jobsbecause of the coronavirus pandemic and therefore do not need extra federal help. Also, they are not truly part of the economy and are in no position to stimulate it, critics say.
"Regardless of ideology or political party, we should all agree that sending taxpayer-funded checks to prisoners has nothing to do with coronavirus relief," U.S. Rep. Bryan Steil, a Wisconsin Republican, said in March, making the standard argument against sending stimulus checks to inmates.
"Prisoners currently incarcerated are not concerned about covering rent or losing their job due to COVID."
Prisoners and theiradvocates say the money can mean the world to prisoners paid less than $2 a day for prison jobs. Some want to supplement what they see as meager and unsatisfying prison food, buy toiletries and other items at inflated prices from the prison commissary service, or send money home to their struggling families.
"Yes we are part of the economy," prisoner James Hart, 55, who is serving time at Saginaw Correctional Facility, said in an email to the Free Press.
"We are charged taxes on items we order," plus a surcharge, Hart said.
There have been three stimulus checks for eligible recipients— checks of up to $1,200, $600and $1,400 respectively. Citizenship or legal residency and filing an individual or joint tax return or other forms are among the eligibility requirements. Certain income caps applied, and some of the checks were made more difficult for creditors to garnishthan others.
Most of the $6.1 million recovered from stimulus checks issued to Michigan prisoners was court-ordered restitution, Gautz said.
Here is a rough breakdown of the money that has been clawed back:
- $5.4 million forcourt-ordered restitution.
- $371,000 for "institutional debt."
- $149,000for court-ordered child support.
- $124,000 forcourt filing fees.
- $90,000 for prison room and boardunder the State Correctional Facility Reimbursem*nt Act.
Institutional debt includes penalties assessed against prisoners for breaking lights or other prison property and loans issued to indigent prisoners so they could buy needed items they could not afford, Gautz said.
Perhaps the most controversial item is charging prisoners for lodging ina place they do not want to stay. Some attorneys label as "draconian" the state law that allows for that.
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Gautz said any money collected from prisoners for their own lodging goes into the state's general fund and is not returned to the department. Gautz said it is possible an additional amount of money in prisoner accounts, beyond the $6.1 million the state has recovered,has been frozen while the Attorney General's Office is in court attempting to recover the money. But neither he nor a spokeswoman for Attorney General Dana Nessel could say how much prisoner money is frozen because of pending state litigation.
"If restitution is owed or institutional debt, that's one thing, but if we don't owe anything, why take the money that we're only getting as a temporary fix to the economy?" asked Hart, who is serving a 13- to 20-year sentence.
"We haven't had a pay raise in 30years so how is it we have prisoners doing slave labor for less than $2a day, and now they want to take anything extra we get or save for?" Hart asked.
Prisoners "struggle every day to make enough money to have some extra items like TVs (or)small radios," he said, and the cost of buying such items through the private firm that runs the prison commissary keeps going up.
Michigan prison jobs pay 74 cents to $3.34 per day, the Free Press reported in 2017, but the higher-paying jobs are quite limited. Gautz could not say Thursday when Michigan prisoners last received a general wage increase but confirmed that most prison jobs pay less than $2 a day.
Lois Pullano, executive director of Citizens for Prison Reform, said few people understand how broken the prison system is or how expensive it is for family members to supply their loved ones with food and other items they need. Nearly all prisoners will return to society one day, and those who do earn money in many cases send it home to save it for their release, to help them find a job and an apartment and return to society, she said.
Though the department has a few successful programs such as the Vocational Village, very few prisoners are able to participate in them, Pullano said. Many prisoners do not receive required programming until their last 18 months in custody, if then, she said.
"They're going to charge people for room and board and they're sitting in there and they don't have programming?"
Lynsey Mukomel, a spokeswoman for Nessel, said the AG must go to court to collect the cost of room and board from prisoners under the State Correctional Facility Reimbursem*nt Act. Because oflimited resources, the AGdoes not try to collect room and board from all prisoners, but only those with sufficient recoverable assets to justify the time and expense, she said.
"The office does not target stimulus funds," but there could be instances whereprisoners'receipt of stimulus funds pushthem above the threshold to warrant AG action, she said.
Gautz said the department first started receiving stimulus checks for prisoners in April 2020 but received instructions from the IRS that the checks should not be deposited in prisoner accounts, but returned to the IRS.
The attempts by the IRS to withhold the checks from prisoners prompted a lawsuit and a federal judge in Californiaruled against the federal agency in October, saying there was no language in the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security, or CARES,Act excluding prisoners from receiving the checks.
The department was concerned that a large influx of prisoner cash could lead to more prison drugs and other problems, Gautz said.
On the other hand, the money can be a benefit for families when prisoners send some of it home, he said.
Officials have been finding large amounts of drugs and other contraband in recent weeks, but it is difficult to say whether that is related to the stimulus checks or due to the fact that systematic shakedowns of housing units haveresumed after a lengthy period during the pandemic when such searches were conducted much more sparingly.
"We are certainly finding more drugs, more weapons, more spud juice (prison-made alcohol), all those kinds of things," he said.
Pullano noted that prison visits have been mostly halted during the pandemic and all prison mail is now photocopied before prisoners receive it.
"If drugs have become so much worse, where are those drugs coming from?" she asked.
Byron Osborn, president of the Michigan Corrections Organization, the union for corrections officers, said another concern is certain prisoners and prison gangs threatening violence to extort money or goods from prisoners they learn have received a sum of money.
"These gangs in the prisons are going to do what they do if they know these other prisoners have these funds," Osborn said.
"It's a safety concern."
Gautz said the department does all it can to interrupt such extortion efforts but acknowledged they do occur.
Contact Paul Egan: 517-372-8660 or pegan@freepress.com.Follow him on Twitter @paulegan4. Read more on Michigan politics and sign up for our elections newsletter.
