Michigan

The Michigan Department of Corrections (MDOC) runs the state’s 26 state prisons and holds about 32,800 people, as of the end of 2024 — down from a peak above 51,000 in 2007. The agency refers to people in its custody as prisoners.

The line between a state prison and a county jail is sentence length. Under state law, a sentence with a maximum of one year or less is served in the county jail, and almost all detention before trial happens there too; a felony sentence longer than one year is served in an MDOC state prison. So a person awaiting trial or serving a short sentence is held in a county jail, not a state prison — and that county sets its own visiting, mail, and phone rules.

Newly sentenced people are processed first at a reception center. Men go through the Charles E. Egeler Reception and Guidance Center in Jackson, and women through Women’s Huron Valley in Ypsilanti — a period (often a couple of months) of screening and classification before transfer to a permanent prison. There are no personal visits during this intake period.

A few things make Michigan distinctive. Women’s Huron Valley is the only women’s prison in the state (and the women’s reception center), so every incarcerated woman is held there. The security system runs Level I, II, IV, and V — there is no Level III, and Level V is maximum. And many prisons are in the Upper Peninsula (Marquette, Baraga, Kinross, and others), which can mean a drive of seven hours or more for families from the Detroit area. Michigan also has no death penalty — it abolished capital punishment in 1846, and the ban is written into the state constitution.

To find where someone is held, search the Offender Tracking Information System (OTIS) by name or MDOC number (note that OTIS drops people more than three years after discharge). For release and transfer alerts, Michigan uses MI-VINE. Michigan also has an independent Legislative Corrections Ombudsman that investigates complaints about the prison system. If a person does not appear in OTIS, they are most likely in a county jail — contact that county.

Use the guides below for the statewide rules at MDOC prisons, or go straight to a specific facility.