Crime & Safety

An Afternoon on the Inside: Touring the Macomb County Jail

Join Macomb Patch Editor Jenny Whalen on a trip inside the Macomb County Jail for a crash course in the local justice system.

On Wednesday, I had the opportunity to join approximately 20 students for the second half of Justice System Day, a class field trip of sorts that took us inside the Macomb County Jail.

Now, I had toured the jail once before, but I was 17 and scared out of my mind, so naturally, I don’t remember much of what I learned.

While the second experience was not nearly as terrifying, it definitely solidified my resolve to remain a law-abiding citizen.

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We started with a short question-and-answer session hosted by Sheriff Anthony Wickersham before breaking off into groups of 10 to tour the facility itself.

Before I regale you with information gained from the tour, let me share a few statistics and observations made by Wickersham and other officers.

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  • When the jail is fully operational (the annex has been shut down due to budget cuts), it can house 1,438 inmates.
  • On a daily basis, the facility houses 1,200 inmates, of which about 200 are women.
  • Circuit and district court judges operate on a bed allocation system, which means, if a judge has 10 beds, they can only send 10 people to jail at any given time, until one of their 10 completes their sentence or is let out early.
  • Older parts of the jail, which Wickersham said are “desperately in need of repair,” would cost $5 million to repair. Negotiations for these repairs are still pending with the new county government.
  • Approximately 20,000 people pass through the Macomb County Jail every year.
  • In the last eight years, the Sheriff’s Office has been forced to cut 41 positions.

Of we go …

Before we left the training room for the jail itself, the class was instructed to remove all hanging jewelry, ties and nametags.

While incidents are few and far between, according to officers, it’s better to err on the side of caution and not have anything that can be “grabbed” when touring jail.

Officer William Fasbender escorted my group of 10 safely through the facility and managed to answer any and every question my tour mates posed.

Our first stop on the tour was booking. It is here that soon-to-be inmates are padded down, fingerprinted and photographed upon entering the jail.

Stop two was the kitchen. Recently renovated, the kitchen, catered by Aramark, now serves about 3,600 meals a day. Giant vats line the walls and thousands of turquoise-colored trays wait to be filled and shipped upstairs to inmates’ cells.

Before the kitchen was brought up to fully working order, inmates dined on bag lunches, which Fasbender said many preferred, as present meals provide the minimum nutritional and caloric intake required, but not too much extra.

From the kitchens, we made our way to the mental health ward. It is here that inmates with mental health issues and those on suicide watch are housed.

The control room in this part of the facility is filled with monitors recording the activities of every inmate in the section and officers make 30-minute rounds to check occupants.

As some of my tour mates noted, life inside the Macomb County Jail is not exactly like that seen on TV.

Inmates do not trade cigarettes for favors–there is no smoking inside the jail. Fights don’t break out in the cafeteria–there is no cafeteria; inmates eat in their cells or in small common areas.

Through partnerships with local clergy and L’Anse Creuse Schools, inmates have the opportunity to learn ministry or pursue their GED.

At the end of the day, the majority of Leadership Macomb class agreed that Justice System Day had definitely been a learning experience, if not as enjoyable as previous classes in Education and Arts & Culture.

For John Chown, who is attending Leadership Macomb on behalf of Anderson, Eckstein and Westrick, Inc., the day changed his perspective of the justice system.

“(I was impressed to learn) the fairness of the system to everyone included,” Chown said. “To see the judicial side from the perpetrator of the crime, to the victims and police gave me a little more faith in the system.”

Chown echoed his classmates in saying that while the lesson was enlightening, it was also a little depressing, but added believes it is changing for the better.

Final Words

For all my my descriptive words and witty observations, at the end of the day, an understanding of the jail, its inmates and the officers in charge can only truly be achieved through an in-person experience.


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