MDOC says staff response, phase plans contained July disturbances at Saint Louis Correctional Facility; outlines contraband and classification steps

Kyle Kaminski, offender success administrator and legislative liaison for the Michigan Department of Corrections, told a Michigan House subcommittee that staff contained a July rise in violent behavior at the Saint Louis Correctional Facility and that the department has used a mix of operational controls, technology and policy changes to reduce future incidents.

Kaminski told the panel that the incidents in June and July included multiple assaults on staff — including incidents in which prisoners threw liquids or bodily fluids — resistance to restraint, and a July 14 housing-unit fight that involved about a dozen prisoners and required personal chemical agents and taser use to break up. "The staff again at the facility did a very good job handling that, getting everybody back into their units without any force, or any damage," Kaminski said of an earlier July episode. He said most prisoners involved in the July 14 fight were quickly transferred to higher-custody facilities and issued misconducts.

The department placed the facility under a phase plan after the July fight, Kaminski said, a common corrections practice that temporarily restricts movement and group activities while staff review video, write misconducts, perform searches and conduct intelligence work. He described the phase plan as lasting about a week at Saint Louis, with limited access to the facility's large yard and staggered resumption of activity "on a day over day basis" as compliance was confirmed.

Why this matters: legislators on the subcommittee asked whether the committee received timely notice of serious incidents and whether the current budget "boilerplate" definition of critical incident gives the subcommittee the information it needs to carry out oversight. Kaminski said the MDOC produces a public annual critical-incident report and sends 72‑hour notices under the current budget language; he said the agency believes it is complying with that language but is open to negotiating changes…