LANSING, Mich. — As COVID-19 numbers climbed in Michigan, the Michigan Department of Corrections decided to cancel rehabilitation classes in prisons. That decision has caused hundreds of inmates to remain behind bars past their early release date.
“I did the crime, you know I’m not one of the innocent guys, but I did the crime, and served my time, so I should be able to go home,” said Terry Kloz, an inmate from Lansing at the Gus Harrison Correctional Facility in Adrian.
Klotz has an early release date set for March 17, but he fears he won’t get out by then, because the Department of Corrections has decided to pause required rehabilitation classes in all 27 state prisons due of COVID-19.
Department officials say about 10 percent of the state's 32,000 Michigan inmates are COVID positive. Michigan prisons have also seen over 150 COVID deaths among inmates since the pandemic started.
“It’s kind of devastating when you’ve been locked up like myself for six years, like not being able to go home on your [early release date], it’s saddening, really,” Klotz said.
The classes touch on mental health, drug or alcohol abuse and sex offense prevention.
“If somebody has been beating their spouse or killed someone, we’re not going to send that person back out on the street without having gone through these violence prevention classes or these other steps that they need to take,” said Department of Corrections spokesperson Chris Gautz.
Gautz said around 2,000 inmates were registered for a class before the pause.
“Of those, only about 500 of the 2000 are past the early release date, meaning they could potentially be paroled right now, some of that reason could be because of the classes, but it could also be because they were denied parole because of either their behavior or actions,” Gautz said.
“When you put something like this on pause, you have to remember some of those individuals have jobs lined up for them and some even have housing lined up for them, so what this does is setting everything back,” said Michael Mckissic who created the Mikey 23 Foundation, an organization that works to improve the lives of young people through skills training and mentorship.
A lot of his mentees are former prisoners, and ,while he understands the pause in rehabilitation classes, Mckissic thinks prisons can find a way to avoid keeping inmates past their early release dates.
“A lot of stuff we’re doing online, the college stuff we’re doing online so we should be able to implement some of this virtual resources to get some of those individuals homes and be productive citizens,” Mckissic said.
“You know a lot of people have said do them virtually, well, it’s easier said than done,” Gautz said. “It’s not like all our prisoners have laptops and tablets and WiFi in their cells like students who do virtual learning, that’s not the case in prison.”
The classes have been on paused for two weeks now.
“I did everything I was supposed to except of the classes, but I kept my nose clean the whole time and I’m just ready to go home,” Klotz said.
