Prison guards protest plans to end regular perimeter patrols at Michigan prisons

State prison guards are upset over plans to end regular perimeter patrols outside 27 of Michigan’s 31 state prisons.    Guards protested outside the Corrections Department’s Lansing headquarters today. 

 The Corrections Department says changing to random patrols, and adding cameras and motion sensors will save the state $13 million. 

Mel Grieshaber is the head of the Michigan Corrections Organization, the prison guards union.   He says the decision to end perimeter patrols is just part of a pattern.

“Right now we have a situation where the department (of Corrections) is just unilaterally doing a lot of things and some of them we think are unsafe,"  says Grieshaber.

Grieshaber says  regular perimeter patrols not only keep prisoners in,  they also keep drugs and other contraband out of Michigan’s prisons.