I was absolutely thrilled to see the recent exposé in Metro Times detailing the conditions on the ground from a whistle-blower inside the Michigan Department of Corrections (MDOC).
The source, known as “Abe,” claims there’s widespread corruption involving corrections officers and inmates colluding to smuggle drugs into prisons, resulting in overdoses, deaths, and a deadly culture of silence.
You’ll recall recently that within the last month, ONE unit in G. Robert Cotton Facility in Jackson, Michigan had 12 overdoses in 24 hours; that never made the news.
Multiple staff healthcare providers were also walked out due to possible drug smuggling involvement; you didn’t hear about that on the news, either.
Michigan DOC’s Newberry and Bellamy Creek Facilities are essentially ran by gangs with strong correctional officer involvement.
Just because it doesn’t appear on the news and MDOC refuses to deal with or publicly acknowledge it, doesn’t mean it’s not happening.
And despite Abe submitting hundreds of pages of rock solid documentation over three years to multiple agencies, no meaningful action has followed. His story felt similar to mine; when anyone complains to the Governor, Attorney General, or head of a Michigan Agency, you never hear anything back. If it’s not important or a pet project to them, they absolutely do not care.
The systems built to “protect” us are illusory. It’s only when there’s an opportunity to further punish incarcerated individuals or make themselves look like the hero that transparency prevails.
…And they wonder why families are so angry; voices are hitting a fever pitch from being gaslit and ignored. Because they’ve trapped loved ones in a broken system, essentially tied their hands behind their backs, and blocked opportunities for good time and productivity credits at every turn.
This complete lack of accountability raises a crucial question: Why would officials know about corruption and choose to hide it?
1. Fear of Reprisal
Many officials who witness corruption fear backlash if they speak up. This could come in the form of job loss, being blacklisted, or even threats to personal safety. Within law enforcement and corrections environments, there’s often an unspoken “code of silence” that discourages reporting wrongdoing, no matter how severe. This clearly happened to Abe in the case of the Michigan DOC, and it happens all over the state, myself included.
2. A Culture That Normalizes Corruption
When unethical behavior becomes part of the daily routine, people stop seeing it as something unusual. When people come to me completely aghast about corruption they always ask one question, “Why isn’t the local media picking it up?”
It’s because corruption is not news; it’s the NORM.
If corruption is how things “get done,” then rocking the boat becomes a risk, not just to one’s career, but to one’s ability to function within the system at all.
3. Complicity for Personal Gain
In some cases, officials actively benefit from the corruption they’re supposed to stop. Whether it’s financial kickbacks, influence, or favors, being part of the scheme is more rewarding than stopping it. And once someone is implicated, they have a vested interest in maintaining the cover-up.
This begs the question, has Abe just scratched the surface? What else are these people doing?
Great question and with the proper access, we could find out. Except, Michigan has some of the worst Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) and financial disclosure laws in the nation.
4. Weak Whistleblower Protections
Michigan hands down, has some of the country’s worst whistleblower protections. Without strong legal and institutional support for whistleblowers, few people are willing to put themselves on the line. A clear message was sent to me after I spoke out about corrupt local county practices and its vested interest in protecting a corporation: if you expose corruption you will get punished or ignored. They want you to think silence is safer because they really just want to shut you up.
5. Poor Oversight and Accountability
If nobody’s watching, nobody’s accountable. Funny how that works, huh?
When oversight bodies are underfunded, understaffed, or just uninterested, corruption flourishes. This lack of external checks makes it easy for departments to self-police and just as easy to sweep issues under the rug.
6. Political Pressure and State Capture
When political interests influence how agencies operate, exposing corruption upsets powerful people. Protecting the status quo becomes more important than actual justice. This phenomenon, known as state capture, means the system is rigged not just in practice, but by design.
Why else would Michigan be at the bottom of the barrel for transparency? Because there’s obviously a lot to hide and no one wants to be held accountable when the dam breaks.
This intertwining of political and economic interests leads to a situation where exposing corruption threatens powerful stakeholders, discouraging transparency and reform.
Addressing these challenges requires a multifaceted approach:
- Strengthening Whistleblower Protections: Implementing and enforcing laws that safeguard individuals who report corruption can encourage more insiders to come forward without fear of retaliation.
- Cultivating Ethical Organizational Cultures: Promoting values of integrity and transparency within institutions can help shift norms and reduce the acceptance of corrupt practices.
- Enhancing Oversight Mechanisms: Establishing independent and well-resourced bodies to monitor and investigate corruption can increase accountability and deter unethical behavior.
- Ensuring Political Neutrality: Protecting institutions from political interference is crucial to prevent state capture and allow for impartial enforcement of anti-corruption measures.
7. Bureaucracy Loves Secrecy
Bureaucracy isn’t just a system of paperwork; it’s a system of control. In rigid institutions like the MDOC, silence is often rewarded and dissent is punished. The bureaucracy thrives when things stay quiet because it allows the machinery to keep moving without disruption.
Speaking up introduces risk, delay, and scrutiny; none of which bureaucracies are built to handle well. There is an old adage that “Bureaucracy loves secrecy,” and it’s true. Even for things that are well-known facts.
No one wants to fix the problem or deal with the paperwork. Often times because there is incentive to leave the system broken.
And so the system beats into trains people not to challenge it. Procedures get weaponized against whistleblowers: grievances and complaints get “lost,” investigations stall, or forms sit unprocessed in an inbox not monitored by a human.
In a Michigan Department of Civil Rights complaint against Barry County Court and Judge Michael Schipper, I’m STILL waiting for access to court video over two years later and I’m blocked from contacting the court for it directly, very much in the same as Dr. Hallman’s struggle in obtaining Oakland County court video.
In secrecy, corruption has plenty of room to grow. It’s not always about individual bad actors; it’s about a structure that would rather operate efficiently in the wrong direction than pause to self-correct.
8. Michigan Judges and Prosecutors Would HAVE to Choose Rehabilitation Over Punishment
This, my friends, is the big one.
The entire legal system fails to acknowledge that they knowingly send people into a state-sanctioned trauma pit; by supporting incarceration, they’re forcing people to potentially come out more broken and damaged than they were before going in.
…And that means they would have to explain to the public that they’ve been lying the entire time about public safety, and instead they’ve been peddling generational poverty and class systems.
Moving Toward Accountability
If there’s any hope for change, we have to:
- Build real protections for whistle-blowers.
- Foster transparency over tradition.
- Fund independent oversight with real teeth.
- Disrupt the idea that silence equals professionalism.
- Demand that our leaders make decisions based on data.
- Implement safeguards that prevent elected officials from hiding their missteps; create penalties for corruption and enact strong sunshine laws.
Silence is not neutral, especially when lives are on the line such as with the Michigan DOC and the drugs coming in and out through staff. The story unfolding at the MDOC isn’t just about one agency; it’s a warning about what happens when corruption becomes baked into an entire state’s system, and the system is too invested in itself to care.
