Only One Candidate Responded to Little Me
And why I am voting for a Sheriff for Governor (gasp!)
Author’s Note: The guide below is based on hours of pouring over direct candidate responses, public records, interviews, legislative history, campaign platforms, and verified reporting. The decision, however, was an easy one.
When I began this piece, the entire state of Michigan was covered in a grey, smoky haze. The sun was red in the midday sky. Sure, we blamed Canada, but it doesn’t help that we have been living in a political dumpster fire here for decades.
For the past seven years, we have had women firmly seated in the most coveted, hardest-fought, tippy-top political thrones in our state. Our current Governor, Attorney General, Secretary of State, and the Director of the Department of Corrections are all female.
You would think we would have something to boast about but, alas, we do not.
For much of my time as a lifelong voter in Michigan, criminal justice and prison policy were not my top concern. “Bad” people and the condition of our twenty-five prison complexes were small matters compared to the sexier ones—you know—taxes, education, healthcare, abortion, and the damn roads. *If you don’t live here, you’ve no idea how much we bitch about the roads.
While I assure you I do have strong convictions about each of the aforementioned topics, I will immediately drop them to align with Dostoevsky now:
"The degree of civilization in a society can be judged by entering its prisons."
In 2020, I became the mother of a man imprisoned by the State of Michigan, and was thereby forcibly shoved belly to belly and nose to nose with a big State Bully intent on breaking my family—no holds barred.
Though he was sentenced at 22-years-old for non-violent crimes and transferred in as a first-time offender, the ‘treatment’ he received was akin to medieval barbarism. Our female Director of the Department of Corrections, Heidi Washington, could have cared less.
Five years later, he has returned home with PTSD and no functional rehabilitation nor skill improvement (unless you count fighting, bartering, and general MacGyver survival skills). We are now working full-time every day to see him healed and more functional in the world as a result of his time in MDOC—and many days it is not going well.
When I dare to swerve into this discussion with friends, they ask me what I think can or should be done to “change the system” in order that it become more and better focused on tangible, meaningful rehabilitation. They ask me not only as a justice-impacted woman, but because I am also a mental health professional. The answer is not that deep. It does not require experience nor degrees—
“VOTE ACCORDINGLY,” I always say.
“But how do we know who to vote for?” they plead.
Fair question.
For that, I set out to create a decision tree.
In May, I put my ear to the ground and started listening for murmurs of what our Gubernatorial candidates were saying about criminal justice and prison matters here in Michigan.
Beyond the sound bytes, I became more interested in their records, their social media posts, and their personal experience with the carceral system. At some point in the listening, I thought of you and decided to take on the role of an amateur investigative journalist with my zoom lens pointed solely at positions on prison and parole policy. After seven long years of flaccid leadership, I say cue the t-shirt cannons and dance floor.
It is time to vote, and vote accordingly.
The Michigan Primaries will be held tomorrow, August 4th. If there is anything you can do to help my family and the other 50k people like us, please vote.
One Candidate Cared
To gather source information, I sent out a formal, standardized questionnaire to each of the (then) registered candidates. I also contacted their press and campaign contacts with follow-ups, where available. I asked each of them the same questions, as follows:
What do you believe is the primary purpose of incarceration?
Do you support prison reforms, and if so, what changes would you propose?
Do you support good-time credits for incarcerated individuals who complete educational, vocational, or rehabilitative programming?
What is your position on Michigan’s Truth-in-Sentencing laws? Would you support maintaining, modifying, or repealing them?
Do you support the expansion of family visitation opportunities and communication access for the incarcerated people in Michigan?
How would you address the current concerns about healthcare and mental healthcare access inside MDOC facilities?
Do you support independent oversight and/or increased transparency within the Michigan Department of Corrections?
What is your approach to reducing recidivism?
Do you support expanding parole considerations for elderly, medically fragile, or terminally ill prisoners?
If elected governor, what would be your highest priority related to Michigan’s prison system within your first term?
Since I began my investigation, three candidates have dropped out of the race including— Republicans Mike Cox and Aric Nesbitt, and Democrat Mike Duggan. That was a lot of work I did not need to do and I offer mad respect to journalists who have to cut entire weeks of work on the fly.
That leaves us with four “hopefuls.”
On the Republican side, we have the current House Rep John James and businessman Perry Johnson. On the Democratic side, we have to choose from our current Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson and Genesee County Sherriff Chris Swanson.
In full transparency, only one of these campaigns responded directly to me.
And, while you might think I would never consider a sheriff as a viable candidate to run my state— you know, given that their business is locking people up and mine is shedding light on how defunct and dysfunctional the criminal justice system is—life is, indeed, stranger than fiction.
I had planned to offer you a full non-partisan matrix of personal voting records, public statements, and career experience for each candidate. I will no longer be doing that—time is short and we don’t need to belabor this thing. We vote tomorrow.
Let me spare us all the time and energy and cut to the chase:
I am fully endorsing Chris Swanson for Governor of Michigan.
And here’s why:
Firstly, he responded directly to me—the identified mother of a prisoner. I have chatted with a member of his staff via email, and he was kind and met my deadline with generous and expanded answers to every one of my questions.
Secondly, he isn’t just throwing out talking points.
As Genesee County Sheriff (since 2020), Chris Swanson started and maintains the ground-breaking I.G.N.I.T.E program at one of the most notorious jails in our state.
I.G.N.I.T.E stands for Inmate Growth Naturally and Intentionally Through Education. It’s core mission is “to break cycles of generational incarceration and reduce repeat offenses (recidivism) through structured learning.”
This program has been studied and cited by such institutions as The University of Michigan (Go Blue!), Harvard, and Brown University. I.G.N.I.T.E is so effective that it has been expanded to the National Sheriff’s Association offerings which can be found HERE on their website.
This initiative is changing lives, it is impacting people like my son, and it is altering the discussion around the purpose and effectiveness of incarceration.
Lastly, Chris is one of us. Not an elite, and not part of the establishment.
He is my age, a GenXer, raised in a working-class Michigan town and seemingly still Salt of the Earth today. Check out his Instagram page, check out his campaign page, watch him on YouTube. He is giving BMX bike jumps in 1987 vibes and he reminds me of my brother in that way. Interestingly, none of the other candidates feel as close to home as a County Sheriff.
I will only say this of the other candidates: Not one has any experience nor records related to managing anything having to do with incarceration. As the MDOC budgets alone account for 15% of our tax allocations (roughly 2.2 million dollars of our hard-earned money), this should be noted.
And Jocelyn Benson— don’t get me started.
She is part of the good old girl’s club here whose husband worked (recently resigned under pressure) for the billion-dollar company responsible for getting the contract to build a massive AI data center in Saline, Michigan. She was also part of the debacles in Michigan during Covid, which some of us will never forget (and that’s all I have to say about that). Last month, she was spotted on Mackinaw Island carrying a $35,000 Hermes handbag about which her campaign lied—saying she purchased it on the island. She, very simply, did not. Not a good look, gurl.
John James seems a nice enough man (and I graduated with one of his relatives whom I adore) but with his recent Trump endorsement, I am less than enthusiastic about his stances on prison policy than I had been at the start. Notably: he is the only person of color and the only veteran running in this race which gives him unique perspectives I can respect.
Perry Johnson is all about business, and well, prison makes good dollars and cents. I have seen nothing in print or elsewhere which suggests he has ever given any thought or energy to prison matters, let alone harbor an iota of concern for change.
And there you have it. My last minute, down-to-the-wire-because-I-have-been-on-vacation endorsement for Governor. Sorry in advance for any typos.
Please, whatever you do—VOTE in the primaries. If you have a viewpoint on this election, I would love to here your take in the comments! If you are brave, tell us who you are voting for…
I'm not a MI voter but I read this whole thing & appreciate your take (& wish candidates everywhere were tasked w answering these questions!). And once again, I smile at & admire your writing ability: This sentence is great - "He is giving BMX bike jumps in 1987 vibes"
Life, indeed! - IS stranger than fiction. I am not intimately familiar with Michigan prisons (although I do have a friend who has a loved one incarcerated there and we sometimes discuss it), What I *AM* familiar with is the fact that the majority of people aspiring to (or already occupying) political office are performative in their commentary regarding prisons. They also are usually unimpacted by the system. You did good - asked challenging questions. The fact that you DID receive a qualified response - regardless from whence it came - tells you exactly who to support. You GO, Mom!