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Corrections isn’t a political sideshow. Michigan’s next governor must make it a priority.

By Jon King | Michigan Advance

A protester outside the Michigan Department of Corrections headquarters in Lansing. July 31, 2026. | Photo by Katherine Dailey/Michigan Advance.

There is a reason Michigan’s Department of Corrections rarely makes it to the top of the list of political priorities.

Jobs, roads, taxes and schools all make for more comfortable campaign-trail conversations. If there’s any campaign talk of prisons, it’s usually along the lines of “How many more should we build?” The conversation rarely goes much deeper than that, likely because prisons force politicians to confront a much less comfortable question: What does the state owe the people it locks up?

Few politicians want to answer that question with any earnestness. And it’s not a huge mystery why.

The people at the center of the issue are convicted criminals. They have committed crimes, harmed victims and, in many cases, been sentenced to years, maybe even life, behind bars.

That makes corrections an easy problem for politicians to ignore.

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