Humanity for Prisoners

We have numerous prison problems in Michigan…some that require difficult solutions. But it doesn’t take a brilliant scholar to figure this one out!   Here’s the deal.   Michigan prisons spend roughly 15% of their $2.1 billion budget on healthcare, especially driven by the aging population. As of today, our state prison population stands at about 32,250.   Now let’s focus on that “aging population.”   Here in Michigan we have nearly 1,000 prisoners between the ages of 70 and 80, and another 129 who are 80 and older ! The margin of incarcerated men and women over 60 years of age in Michigan totals 3.5%, as compared to the national average of 1-2%. Just imagine the dollars that could be saved by reducing this segment of our prison population!   My friend “Big Ben,” now 76 years of age, has been in prison for 52 years! He’s elderly, kind and gentle. Do you honestly believe that he and others like him, aged 70-90, might reoffend? Give me a break!   It ...

March 1, 2026. HFP’s award-winning documentary--- WRONGED: THE MAURICE CARTER STORY---was scheduled for a screening as part of the Lake Michigan Film Festival in Okemos, Michigan. Immediately following the showing of our film, another powerful documentary--- MICHIGAN VISITS MATTER: THE FAMILY COST OF INCARCERATION, commissioned by CPR, was to be shown. HFP founder Doug Tjapkes and CPR founder Lois Pullano would be in attendance.   It was no surprise that, when the two of us met in the lobby of Studio C: Meridian Mall theater, we threw our arms around each other   Many people know my story. I’m a small market radio newsman whose life was changed in the 1990s upon meeting an indigent Black man sitting in the Michigan prison system and claiming wrongful conviction. That led to a 9-year fight to obtain his freedom. Maurice Carter and I became brothers! As a result of that experience, I started a little one-man operation now known as HUMANITY FOR PRISONERS. Today, however, ...

  It was a 90-minute session filled with horror stories. Then came the headlines:   Mistreatment, mold alleged at women’s prison--- Detroit News   Bipartisan outrage erupts at House hearing on conditions inside Michigan’s only women’s prison--- Detroit Metro-Times   House Oversight Committee demands answers on mold, safety concerns at Huron Valley prison facility--- Michigan Advance   ‘Infested with Mold’ and Suicide Bets: Inside Michigan’s Women’s Prison Horror Show--- Hoodline   Women's Prison Called 'Michigan's Death Sentence'   --- Michigan Information and Research Service, Inc.   Lawmaker says Michigan treats its women prisoners worse than animals--- Detroit Free Press   And that’s just a sampling. All of this in response to a hearing this week conducted by the state legislature’s House Oversight Committee. The focus was on complaints of alleged problems at Women’s Huron Valley, Michigan’s only prison for women, located in ...

I can no longer remain silent. We cannot, we must not continue picking up people without warrants, without Miranda warnings, and locking them up in warehouses in the land of the free! It’s just plain immoral!   I’m a journalist, and earlier in life I had no intention of getting involved in this incarceration business. In the mid-1990s, however, I met a wrongly convicted Black man, we became brothers, and there was a dramatic change in my life.   In 2001 I formed an organization now known as Humanity for Prisoners, which, at last count, had assisted some 16,000 prisoners…about half of the entire population of Michigan’s prisons.   Then this journalist started writing again. I began posting essays on the internet 18 years ago, and since that time have shared more than 1370 editorials on topics related to incarceration. Startling numbers prodded all of this.   -The U.S. has the highest incarceration rate in the world, with over 2 million people in prison. - T...

  When I first met Maurice Carter in the mid-1990s he was unknown…simply a Black man serving time in the Michigan prison system for a crime he swore he did not commit.   History will show that he and I fought side-by-side for his freedom for nearly a decade. He was granted a medical release in 2004 and died 3 months after his release. BUT, during that 9-year campaign, the name Maurice Carter became well known…internationally!   Maurice is gone, now…but the impact of his story lives on! It’s told in my book SWEET FREEDOM; in the award-winning documentary WRONGED---THE MAURICE CARTER STORY, produced by Nate Roels; and in the powerful stage play JUSTICE FOR MAURICE HENRY CARTER, written by award-winning Toronto playwrights Donald Molnar and Alicia Payne. And this story is about that play.   The playwrights were pleased when their drama was chosen for presentation at Toronto’s famous Fringe festival last year.   But, here’s what no one realized at that time....

I’m sure you’ve heard of the Innocence Project. My first encounter with this organization was in the mid-1990s, when the University of Wisconsin IP provided invaluable assistance as we tried to prove the innocence of Maurice Carter.   Founded in 1992 by visionary attorneys Peter Neufeld and Barry Scheck, the Innocence Project has been at the forefront of criminal justice reform, using DNA and other scientific advancements to prove wrongful conviction. The Innocence Project works to free the innocent, prevent wrongful convictions, and create fair, compassionate, and equitable systems of justice for everyone. These wonderful people have helped free more than 250 innocent people from prison!   That’s the bright side. Now, the dark side: shameful statistics…stuff that we must hear during Black History Month…stuff that we see in the Humanity for Prisoners office on a regular basis.   The Innocence Project headquarters has compiled 8 outrageous statistics highlighting the...