Michigan’s Criminal Justice Crossroads: Post-Conviction Issues in the Great Lakes State
This is part of a series on crime and justice in Michigan. Read the other posts here: Pre-Arrest, Pretrial.
Michigan has made strides in its criminal justice landscape in the past two decades, including reducing incarceration rates, creating new diversion programs in the pre-arrest or pretrial stages, and allowing for automated sealing of certain criminal records. Yet the state continues to face steep challenges once individuals are inside the justice system as well as when they complete their sentence and attempt to reenter society. Because roughly 95 percent of those incarcerated will ultimately return to the community, Michigan’s greatest opportunities to improve public safety and save taxpayers money may lie in addressing the post-conviction barriers that persist long after time has been served.
Michigan’s incarceration rate, which had fallen steadily since 2006, saw a small increase from 2021 to 2022. The state has also seen its average minimum prison sentence length increase, keeping it among the highest in the country. From 1998 to 2022, Michigan’s average minimum sentence length increased by more than two-thirds, from 7.1 years to 12 years.
Together, these trends have left Michigan with an incarceration rate of 535 per 100,000 residents—lower than the U.S. average, but still more than three times higher than the United Kingdom (the next-highest North Atlantic Treaty Organization member country), which incarcerates 144 per 100,000. Beyond the approximately 48,000 Michigan residents currently behind bars in the state, another 122,000 remain under government supervision on probation or parole.
This level of incarceration in Michigan costs taxpayers an average of $48,000 per year per incarcerated person. This amounts to a $2.1 billion correctional budget for the state. Even after release or for sentences not involving jail time, probation and parole cost Michiganders about $5,000 annually per person, bringing this total even higher.
To its credit, Michigan has been a national leader in reducing recidivism. Since 2005, the state has cut its rates of reoffense in half, from 42 percent to 21 percent. This should certainly be lauded, reflecting the Michigan Department of Corrections’ focus on “provid[ing] a full circle support system to those reentering our communities,” including expanding prison education, securing vital documents for reentrants, and connecting reentrants to housing and recovery resources.
Still, even a relatively low recidivism rate leaves tens of thousands struggling with the weight of criminal records and systemic barriers. Local jails, where more than 163,000 people are booked annually, also expose individuals to unstable and sometimes unsafe conditions. Simply put, Michigan has opportunities to build on its gains by reducing unnecessary incarceration, shortening excessive sentences, and ensuring that those returning home have a fair chance to succeed.
Increasing Sentence Lengths and Growing Staffing Shortages
Like many states, Michigan holds thousands of individuals in its prisons far longer than their risk to society warrants. Research consistently shows that most “criminal careers” end within 10 years. It also reveals that individuals serving lengthy sentences pose little risk as they age—in fact, most individuals age out of criminal behavior by their late 30s. Every dollar spent incarcerating individuals longer than necessary to protect public safety after their punishment has been served is a dollar not spent on more pressing public safety concerns. It is also a dollar not invested in improving conditions for jail and prison staff already facing the consequences of widespread understaffing across the state.
Despite this, the Great Lakes State has been unsuccessful in bringing its sentencing policies up to date, failing to pass ”second look” legislation considered in recent sessions. Michigan’s increasing minimum sentences make the absence of a second look process especially costly, as the state could benefit greatly from a policy that allows prosecutors to reconsider sentence length during incarceration.
This can also help address the understaffing problem in Michigan’s carceral facilities. Currently, about half of Michigan’s prisons are understaffed, and 13 state correctional facilities have staff vacancy rates of 18 percent or higher. There have been reports in the Upper Peninsula of staff working consecutive days of double (16-hour) shifts and facing uncontrolled drug use inside, as well as problems with improvised weapons in the possession of incarcerated individuals.
Improving staffing inside prisons is critical—not only to protect correctional officers from dangerous conditions, but also to ensure safer, more stable environments that support rehabilitation and reduce the likelihood of recidivism following release. A significant share of Americans are under criminal justice supervision: about 1 in 100 in prison or jail, and nearly 1 in 33 when including probation and parole. It is important to consider how to maintain public safety while shortening overly long sentences and using alternatives to incarceration for nonviolent offenders, particularly in the face of staffing issues. However, when individuals do need to be incarcerated, it is critical that conditions support successful reentry.
Reentry Barriers: Lingering Records and Increasing Homelessness
After release from incarceration, individuals in Michigan face barriers to reentry. While these barriers have been somewhat alleviated for roughly 1.2 million lower-level reentrants via the 2020 “clean slate” automated record sealing package (which was further expanded in 2022), gaps remain. Michigan currently lacks a central portal to notify people that their convictions have been sealed, leaving many without the knowledge of opportunities newly available to them. Without that awareness, the promise of clean slate laws is only partially realized, as individuals who have been denied opportunities do not know that certain doors may reopen for them now that their criminal record is no longer visible to employers, landlords, and other entities.
Importantly, these laws exclude assault; serious misdemeanors; crimes of dishonesty; human trafficking offenses; any crime involving a minor, a vulnerable adult, injury, serious impairment, or death; certain traffic offenses including driving while intoxicated or any offense that causes injury or death; and any other offense punishable by imprisonment of 10 years or more.
Furthermore, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, Michigan has more than 200,000 open jobs, meaning that allowing and equipping the returning citizen population to fill these roles is important to help the state’s economy flourish.
Even with record-sealing laws opening new doors for reentrants, Michigan faces another obstacle that threatens both public safety and successful reintegration: a growing homelessness crisis. More than 33,000 Michiganders experienced homelessness in 2023, representing a 2 percent increase from the prior year and the fifth consecutive annual rise. In Kent County—the fourth most populated county in the state—the number of individuals experiencing chronic homelessness has doubled in recent years, while the population of houseless youth has surged by 70 percent.
These trends matter because homelessness and justice system involvement frequently overlap. Individuals without stable housing are more likely to encounter law enforcement, cycle through local jails, and struggle to comply with the conditions of parole or probation. This means the state’s growing housing insecurity problem is not only a societal concern, but also a criminal justice issue with real public safety and fiscal consequences.
Simply put, homelessness should not serve as an informal extension of a prison sentence or as an established pathway into the criminal justice system. Michigan’s policymakers have an opportunity to treat homelessness as a core public health and public safety issue and to craft solutions that conserve limited resources, improve individual outcomes, and promote more stable communities.
Conclusion
The criminal justice system is complex and, like any governmental system, always ripe for improvement. It deals with people in their worst circumstances, meaning there is no quick, one-time fix. Michigan has made some positive strides in reducing incarceration, diverting offenders from the justice system, and reducing recidivism rates; however, it also struggles with endemic problems like homelessness, overly long prison sentences, and declining conditions in carceral facilities. Despite recent political setbacks, Michigan’s criminal justice policymakers still have plenty of opportunities to effect change.