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Decky Alexander: This is 89.1 WEMU, and welcome to our weekly conversation on equity and opportunity in our county and in our community. I'm your host, Decky Alexander, and I'm honored still and always to welcome you to this week's edition of Washtenaw United. They are every place--in this mitten, this state, in the thumb on the waterfront in Marquette, on the west side near Manistee in Muskegon, state center in Ionia, or sitting just a couple miles from the studio here in Milan. There are 26 state prison facilities managed by the Michigan Department of Corrections, housing roughly 33,000 incarcerated individuals. In many towns and cities, these facilities are part of the landscape, the ecosystem and the economy. So how do we end something like mass incarceration when, to some, it's a lucrative cottage industry or an economic driver, and to others, a necessary step towards healing a fractured community, and to others, incarceration is treated as a permanent warehouse for human beings, rather than a system of justice. Today, on Washtenaw United, our guest is Chuck Warpehoski, the executive director of the Michigan Collaboration to End Mass Incarceration, also known as MI-CEMI, whose mission is to coordinate efforts to improve public safety and end mass incarceration by preventing unnecessary incarceration, ending excessive sentencing, expanding access to rehabilitation and promoting successful re-entry, a mission that is nothing short of heroic. Chuck, as soon as I began this journey, you were one of the voices that I most wanted to bring on as you are one of the county's movers and shakers. So welcome, Chuck, to Washtenaw United!
Chuck Warpehoski: Thank you, Decky! I'm so honored to be here, and thank you for those kind words!
Decky Alexander: Well, you have lent your voice to lots of spaces and places in this county: A2 City Council, Interfaith Council on Peace and Justice, foundation and nonprofit boards. So, what is your A2/Washtenaw County origin story up to MI-CEMI?
Chuck Warpehoski: So, as you said, Decky, I've been involved in the community for a long time in a variety of roles. And the throughline for all of those has been how do we bring people together across differences to solve shared problems, whether that's affordable housing, whether that's climate action, or whether it is excessive use of police and prisons to try to solve problems. And so, whether that was bringing faith leaders together across issues when I was at Interfaith Council for Peace and Justice, trying to find common ground in an often fractious city council role or now with MI-CEMI, even for all of our differences, we do have these common bonds and common goals and how do we find where we can stand together and move the ball forward on those.
Decky Alexander: But let me cut to the chase. How is it going? Are we ending mass incarceration? And if so, how? And if not, why not?
Chuck Warpehoski: So some of that depends on your time scale. Over the last 20 years, we've actually made incredible progress. You mentioned 33,000 people incarcerated today. 20 years ago, it was 52,000. That's saving Michigan taxpayers $ 1 billion a year. And over those 20 years, our crime rates have actually gone down. Over the little bit, things have gotten more fractured and polarized, just like everything. We're hoping for some progress in 2027, but it's been a tough season over the last little bit.
Decky Alexander: What has been so tough about it?
Chuck Warpehoski: Part of it is, just like weight loss or anything, the first pounds are the easiest ones to take off. The first reduction in the numbers was dealing with people who everybody agreed didn't need to be there, improving our parole system. The second issue is that there had been a bipartisan agreement on the need to change our criminal justice policies. From a progressive perspective, mass incarceration is an engine of racial inequity. It destroys communities. That uproots families. It steals resources from Black, brown and poor communities. From a conservative angle, you've got a bloated government bureaucracy that's not actually delivering public good. It's run by unions and it deprives people of their liberty. And so there had been a moment where conservative groups, and some of them are still involved, including Americans for Prosperity, Mackinac Center and others, are saying, "Let's work together on some of these common-sense policies." And I think the last thing is when you look at the data, the crimes that are sometimes the most shocking and harmful are also the ones that have the lowest risk of recidivism. But after somebody's turned their life around, after they've grown up and made the changes in their life where they're not at risk of reoffending, we're not actually getting any public benefit from it. But that conversation, how do we honor and respond to real harms in the community while also recognizing real rehabilitation and transformation, it's a really difficult conversation because of the pain involved.
Decky Alexander: You are listening to Washtenaw United in 89.1 WEMU. I'm Decky Alexander. And today we are talking with Chuck Warpehoski, the executive director of the Michigan Collaboration to End Mass Incarceration, also known as MI-CEMI, on making communities safer by avoiding excessive incarceration and punishments and supporting rehabilitation and reentry. Chuck, I think as you know, I teach at Women's Huron Valley [Correctional Facility], and shout-out to my illuminating improv students! And what strikes me as arbitrary and inconsistent is sentencing, particularly for low-income communities and people of color who lack access to top-tier, private defense. So, how is MI-CEMI tackling this lack of consistency and pushing for reform in regards to sentencing?
Chuck Warpehoski: Yes. So, actually, when you talk about the women at Women's Huron Valley, it's a specific issue there. One of the issues working right now is what's called Survivor Justice Act legislation. Many people, especially many women who are in the criminal legal system and up there, through cases that are directly tied to their own experience of domestic violence, sexual assault or human trafficking. I think of Linda Nunn, who was recently commuted by Governor Whitmer. She was a sex worker in the Flint area and had an abusive john, and she fought back to defend herself. And she was initially sentenced to life in prison for that act of self-defense. Right now, our criminal legal system doesn't account for how somebody's own experience of domestic violence, sexual assault or human trafficking might have led to a case. And so there's other states, like Georgia. We mentioned bipartisan before. Deep red Georgia, Oklahoma, passed Survivor Justice Act legislation. And this is one of the ways that we're to provide both perspective. Looking ahead, okay, we've got a new case. How do we recognize that domestic violence was an element of the case and adjust the sentences appropriately? Don't eliminate accountability, but adjust the sentences. And then also, retrospectively, how do we look back at these old cases from the '80s, the '90s and the aughts and review them and say, "Hey, you know what? We missed this. We know more about trauma now. We know more about sexual assault and sexual violence. Let's go back and adjust the sentences retrospectively for the people who had these cases in the past."
Decky Alexander: There's something very humane about reflecting back in order to move forward. I want to talk a little bit about the power of a collaborative. So, I believe you're bringing over 115 member organizations together, from everything from smaller grassroot voices and directly impacted individuals, elevated alongside sort of heavy-hitting policy shops. So how does this type of model maybe move your mission forward?
Chuck Warpehoski: Great question, Decky. So, what we know, whether it's in the theater, social movements or everything, nobody can do everything. No organization is good at everything. And so the power of a collaborative is, how do we harness the best capacities of all of our members, whether it's deep on-the-ground connections in different parts of the state, whether it is lived experience from a formerly incarcerated or other justice-involved members or whether you say it's the academic research or the land side or inside game that some of our members play? If we all just do our own thing and we're not talking and working together, we're not unleashing the full power of our movement. It's like watching the kindergartners play soccer, right? They don't know their roles. Everybody's running at the ball and they're not very effective. By being a collaborative, we're able to say, "Okay, let's understand where each of our strengths are. Let's align on some shared goals and figure out how we're able to work together to accomplish more than any of us could do on our own."
Decky Alexander: Chuck, as we wrap up, I want to talk a little about maybe some current wins, whether it's community-based violence intervention or using the trusted messengers. Where are you seeing, as the sort of overseer of this kind of collaborative, the most momentum in criminal justice reform right now?
Chuck Warpehoski: You mentioned violence prevention, and Detroit just released new numbers around having the lowest crime rate, low summer violence, in decades. They went from nine youth homicides last summer, the summer prior to one last year. And part of it is, like you said, trusted messengers, having people in the community reach out to folks who are at risk of perpetuating violence, because people mostly know who the hotheads are. People know who's got a feud. They're not necessarily going to tell the police because of the risk that involves, but folks in the community can do that outreach. We're working on making sure that there's continued investment in those kinds of public safety services. The ambulances don't have to go out and fight for their budget allocation each year. Neither should community violence intervention. So that's a win that we've seen. And now the job is to protect it and expand it. You mentioned in your intro the role of incentives and profit in mass incarceration. Where I'm hopeful going forward is, right now, and you see it in the Valley, Michigan prisons are facing a staffing crisis. We're not going to go back to the labor market of 1990 when folks were lining up to get prison jobs. The only way that we're going to be able to solve our staffing crisis is through smart reductions in our prison population.
Decky Alexander: That was Chuck Warpehoski, executive director of Michigan Collaborative to End Mass Incarceration, on collective action and collective justice right here in Washtenaw County and beyond. Washtenaw United is produced in partnership with the United Way for Southeastern Michigan, and you can hear it right here every Monday. I'm Decky Alexander, and this is your community NPR station, 89.1 WEMU, Ypsilanti.
ABOUT CHUCK WARPEHOSKI:
Chuck has decades of experience bringing people together across differences in the nonprofit, government and religious sectors.
He served for 16 years as the director of the Interfaith Council for Peace and Justice in Ann Arbor, Mich., and for six years on Ann Arbor City Council. Chuck has successfully led campaigns to expand public transit, increase affordable housing funding and improve police accountability.
RESOURCES:
Michigan Collaborative to End Mass Incarceration (MI-CEMI)
WEMU has partnered with the United Way for Southeastern Michigan to explore the people, organizations, and institutions creating opportunity and equity in our area. And, as part of this ongoing series, you’ll also hear from the people benefiting and growing from the investments being made in the areas of our community where there are gaps in available services. It is a community voice. It is 'Washtenaw United.'
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