Division One Is 14 Stories High, Has 1088 Beds, 150 Beds for the Mental Health Wards, And
Needs Assessment
Wayne County Jail Program Population
Prepared by: Rachel Reyst-Carroll, UofM SSW Intern
Jail Population
Wayne County Michigan has three jails, listed as Division 1, 2 and 3. Division 1 and 2 are in Detroit and Division 3 is in Hamtramck. The description of how many inmates can be housed at each follows:
Division One is 14 stories high, has 1088 beds, 150 beds for the mental health wards, and 20 beds for the Infirmary Section. Division one houses the Central booking area and Classification section for the entire jail system.
Division two was completely overhauled and now has the capacity to house 641 individuals.
Division three has 804 beds and is a direct supervision [no bars] facility. This facility houses sentenced inmates, offers alternative programs, and provides such services as laundry to the entire jail system as well as the Juvenile Detention Center, Food Service to the jails, Juvenile Center, and the House Senior Nutrition Program.
Total Jail capacity – 2533
- Wayne County operates the largest jail system in the State of Michigan, which includes three major facilities with an average daily population of about 2,600 people.
- Annual traffic - Each year, approximately 40,000 individuals are booked into the county’s three jails [1]
Demographics
There are approximately 500 known prostitutes on the streets of Wayne County.[2]
Regarding Total population of Released Michigan prisoners, approximately 13,000 in 2003. During the intake process, close to half (43 percent) of the released prisoners reported having a history of drug use, and approximately one-third (32 percent) reported having a history of alcohol use. Only 17 percent were actually convicted of drug use.
The percentage of families living below the federal poverty level in Wayne County is 72 percent higher than the statewide average, and the Part I crime rate is 57 percent higher in Wayne County. The majority (80 percent) of prisoners released to parole in Wayne County returned to Detroit, where the unemployment rate in 2000 was more double what it was in the rest of the state, and where over one-fifth of the families live in poverty. Among the prisoners released to parole in Wayne County, 41 percent returned to eight zip codes—all of which are in Detroit. Most of those eight zip codes display high levels of economic and social disadvantage. [3]
Programs
Behavioral Health/Criminal Justice Expedited Plea Program
This program (sometimes referred to as "Mental Health Diversion") seeks to identify and refer for treatment criminal defendants in the county jail who can benefit from community mental health treatment for a mental illness, emotional disturbance or developmental disability.
Project Fresh Start
Project Fresh Start recognizes and addresses the dynamics that surround street-level prostitution including childhood physical and sexual abuse, rape, substance and alcohol abuse, mental health disorders, physical health disorders, education, employment and homelessness. By taking women off of the streets via arrest by sheriff’s deputies and then monitored closely by the 36th District Drug Court, this 18-24 month program provides jail-based sub-acute detoxification, mental health evaluations, medical and STD screenings and short-term treatment readiness. Upon completion of jail-based triage and treatment, the participants are released to community-based, intensive residential treatment followed by transitional housing where participants receive GED preparation and testing, continued medical, mental and dental care, life skills, parenting, employment preparedness, training and placement, independent living and finally, family reunification, all provided by the City of Detroit Health Department and Bureau of Substance Abuse Prevention Treatment and Recovery’s (BSAPTR) provider network. Upon graduation, the criminal records of the participants are expunged.
Division 3 – Non-Violent offender programs
This division of the jail system has been set up to deal with non-violent offenders and refers those with substance abuse problems to outside facilities such as “Christian Guidance Center” and other local programs. I attempted to contact the facility itself and the main Sheriff’s office but no one was available to provide me with specific numbers on how many people are being served and redirected under this program. Considering the fact that 32% of the jail population is housed at this facility and extrapolating that out to the other numbers, it can be assumed under perfect conditions that 5,440 clients could be referred to outside programs per year.
Conclusions
If 43% of the prisoners in Michigan have substance abuse issues, and approximately 40,000 people go through the Wayne County Jail system per year, that means that approximately 17,000 people with substance abuse issues could be potentially reached through the Wayne County Jail system per year and provided with services to rehabilitate them away from substance abuse. Currently, People’s Community services handles 119[4] cases per year from Wayne County Jails all of which come from “Project Fresh Start”. The Mental Health Diversion program handles 100 cases per year, 75% of which involve clients with a history of substance abuse[5]. 119 cases from PCS plus 75 cases from the Mental Health Diversion program and an estimated 5,440 cases from Division 3 of the Wayne County Jail system brings up a possible total of 5,634 clients who are being served some sort of program through Wayne County Jails. This shows that only 33% of all potential clients are being served. No information was readily available to speak to the rate of success for most of these programs. Clearly, this does not add up to a sufficient level of service for these clients which could be a factor in the high recidivism rate for prisoners in Michigan. Reports show that many of the people who return to their neighborhoods from jail are from neighborhoods that are poverty stricken and have few or little resources. Providing resources for success in conjunction with counseling services that address substance abuse issues may have a higher success rate overall.
Wayne County Jail Needs Assessment1
[1] Wayne County Website -
[2] Project Fresh Start, Wayne County (MI) Sheriff’s Office
[3] Solomon & Thompson (2004), Prisoner Re-entry in Michigan, Urban Institute Justice Policy Center.
[4] Per Program Director Tracy Bishop
[5] Per William Heaphy, Deputy Chief Diversion of Wayne County Jails - via phone (313) 224-2887.