A meeting slated for this week in Lansing between Escanaba city leaders and the Michigan Department of Corrections aims to clear the air over claims by police in the Upper Peninsula town that the MDOC is dumping prisoners there who aren’t from the area.
State Representative Ed McBroom says it is happening, but in some instances it has been justified.
Police in Escanaba say they’ve recently seen an uptick in crime and the people they’ve arrested claim to not be from the area. The MDOC says it did send some parolees from Marquette County to Escanaba, but that was only temporary.
McBroom says the fiasco stretches beyond that but he hasn’t been able to figure out how far.
A state program requires parolees return to the community they’re from with the hope that friends and family will help them get back on their feet.