“Clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right, and here I am, stuck in the middle with you.”
Stuck in the Middle With You — Stealers Wheel, 1972
Across Michigan, families continue to bear the hidden costs of incarceration. Court delays, video-only hearings, and bureaucratic indifference leave loved ones in limbo, struggling to hold households together while the justice system moves at a glacial pace. What should be straightforward legal processes are drawn out for months, often for no reason other than inefficiency and neglect. For courts, it is “just another day in the office.” For families, it’s another month of uncertainty, financial strain, and emotional exhaustion.
The American criminal justice system has become what many call a “self-licking ice cream cone” — an endless cycle of hearings, filings, and delays that rarely serve justice but always create more work for itself. Behind these inefficiencies are families, forced to pick up the pieces of lives disrupted by incarceration.
Collateral Consequences Run Deep
Research consistently shows that incarceration impacts far more than the individual serving time. Families, particularly women and children, carry a heavy burden that is rarely acknowledged by policymakers or the courts. These consequences — often called collateral consequences — can be financial, emotional, and social, with ripple effects that last for generations.
Impact 01
Overworked and Overlooked Mothers
Incarceration frequently transforms mothers into single parents overnight — expected to work, parent, manage households, advocate for their loved one’s case, and provide tech support for prison communication systems.
MDOC visitation rules only add to the strain, prohibiting incarcerated individuals from performing even simple tasks like opening food wrappers, leaving visitors to shoulder these responsibilities during limited connection time.
Impact 02
Stigma and Discrimination
Families of incarcerated people face an additional invisible sentence: stigma. Communities often view them with suspicion, ridicule, or outright hostility. Children bear the brunt — something as minor as a candy bar wrapper at visitation can result in threats of visit termination. These experiences reinforce to children that the system is hostile not only to their incarcerated parent but also to them, fostering generational trauma and distrust of institutions.
Impact 03
The Financial Toll
The costs of staying connected add up to nearly $300 a month or more — before factoring in JPay stamps, therapy, or lost wages. That is $3,600 extra per year on top of normal family expenses. Families are often forced to choose between maintaining contact or paying for basic necessities. This financial punishment is imposed on people who have committed no crime.
The Monthly Cost of Staying Connected
What Families Actually Pay — Monthly Breakdown
Phone calls
$120.00
Gas to attend four visits
$50.00
Commissary and hygiene items
$50.00
Vending machine meals during visits
$100.00
Video visits
$12.80
Monthly total (before JPay, therapy, lost wages)
~$332.80 / mo
That is over $3,600 per year — an additional tax on innocent people for the crime of loving someone who is incarcerated. This financial punishment undermines the very support systems that help reduce recidivism. Maintaining family connection is one of the strongest predictors of successful reentry. The system charges families for it.
Michigan’s 90% Retirement Interception Law
Outdated Michigan state laws enable the Attorney General to intercept up to 90% of an incarcerated person’s retirement or stimulus checks. This creates unnecessary financial and legal hurdles for families who are already struggling to survive on reduced income without their incarcerated family member’s contribution — compounding a financial crisis the family did not create and cannot control.
“Families should not bear the punishment of the incarcerated. Mass incarceration does not just impact individuals — it destabilizes families, perpetuates inequality, and keeps entire communities trapped in cycles of poverty and trauma.”
Refusing to Lighten the Load
Michigan has access to mountains of data that could support better, evidence-based policy. Diversion programs and restorative justice initiatives have proven more effective and less costly than incarceration. Yet lawmakers, prosecutors, and judges continue to favor punitive systems that drain families financially and emotionally.
The result? Fatherless households, generational trauma, and communities destabilized by endless cycles of incarceration. Reform is possible — but only if citizens demand it.
A Call to Action
What You Can Do
1
Write to lawmakers and demand the expansion of diversion programs and restorative justice. Judges and prosecutors hold immense power — often for decades. Know who holds these offices in your county and what their records show before you vote.
2
Do real research before voting. Sentencing philosophy, trial rates, and diversion program support are all matters of public record. Use them. A judge who sends 99.9% of defendants to prison without trial is not the same as one who prioritizes proportional justice — and voters rarely know the difference unless they look.
3
Ask hard questions and hold officials accountable for policies that punish families rather than prevent crime. When a prosecutor’s office brags about conviction rates, ask what percentage of cases went to trial. When a judge is praised for being “tough,” ask what their appellate reversal rate is.
Related Coverage — Clutch Justice
How to cite: Williams, R. (2023, August 8). Punishing Families: Michigan’s Criminal Justice System’s Devastating Impacts. Clutch Justice. https://clutchjustice.com/2023/08/08/3-ways-the-criminal-justice-system-punishes-families/
