Crime

Freep: 2 Dead, 1 Injured Since Prison Worker Complained About Unsafe Railings and Nothing Was Corrected

January 17, 2025, 8:57 AM

Perhaps the numbers are no greater proof that the state has failed to address safety concerns at two Jackson-area prisons.

Paul Egan of the Detroit Free Press reports:

In August 2023, a prison employee complained to the governor's office that gallery railings at two Jackson-area Michigan prisons were too low, putting workers at risk of falling or being pushed to their deaths several floors below.

Gov. Gretchen Whitmer's office referred the complaint, which also cited concerns about prisoner safety, to the Michigan Occupational Safety and Health Administration. But nothing changed at Parnall Correctional Facility or the Charles E. Egeler Reception and Guidance Center.

"No hazard exists," a Michigan Department of Corrections official said in a Sept. 20, 2023, letter to a manager at MIOSHA. The agency closed its investigation less than three weeks later, without physically inspecting the two prisons, despite concerns raised by one MIOSHA official that improvements were needed, according to records the Free Press obtained Wednesday under Michigan's Freedom of Information Act.


Read more:  Detroit Free Press


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