Act No. 269

Public Acts of 1998

Approved by the Governor

July 16, 1998

Filed with the Secretary of State

July 17, 1998

EFFECTIVE DATE: July 17, 1998

STATE OF MICHIGAN

89TH LEGISLATURE

REGULAR SESSION OF 1998

Introduced by Senators Stille, McManus, Gougeon, Bouchard, Shugars, Steil, Jaye, Bullard, Schwarz, Rogers, Cisky, Emmons and DeGrow

ENROLLED SENATE BILL No. 873

AN ACT to amend 1953 PA 232, entitled "An act to revise, consolidate, and codify the laws relating to probationers and probation officers, to pardons, reprieves, commutations, and paroles, to the administration of correctional institutions, correctional farms, and probation recovery camps, to prisoner labor and correctional industries, and to the supervision and inspection of local jails and houses of correction; to provide for the siting of correctional facilities; to create a state department of corrections, and to prescribe its powers and duties; to provide for the transfer to and vesting in said department of powers and duties vested by law in certain other state boards, commissions, and officers, and to abolish certain boards, commissions, and offices the powers and duties of which are transferred by this act; to allow for the operation of certain facilities by private entities; to prescribe the powers and duties of certain other state departments and agencies; to provide for the creation of a local lockup advisory board; to prescribe penalties for the violation of the provisions of this act; to make certain appropriations; to repeal certain parts of this act on specific dates; and to repeal all acts and parts of acts inconsistent with the provisions of this act," by amending section 51 (MCL 791.251), as amended by 1998 PA 204.

The People of the State of Michigan enact:

Sec. 51. (1) There is created within the department a hearings division. The division is under the direction and supervision of the hearings administrator who is appointed by the director of the department.

(2) Except as otherwise provided in this section, the hearings division is responsible for each prisoner hearing the department conducts that may result in the loss by a prisoner of a right, including but not limited to any 1 or more of the following matters:

(a) An infraction of a prison rule that may result in punitive segregation, loss of disciplinary credits, or the loss of good time.

(b) A security classification that may result in the placement of a prisoner in administrative segregation.

(c) A special designation that permanently excludes, by department policy or rule, a person under the jurisdiction of the department from community placement.

(d) Visitor restrictions.

(e) High or very high assaultive risk classifications.

(3) Except as otherwise provided in this section, the hearings division is responsible for each prisoner hearing that may result in the accumulation of disciplinary time.

(4) The hearings division is not responsible for a prisoner hearing that is conducted for prisoners transferred under section 11a to an institution of another state pursuant to the interstate corrections compact.

(5) The hearings division is not responsible for a prisoner hearing that is conducted as a result of a minor misconduct charge that would not cause a loss of good time or disciplinary credits, or result in placement in punitive segregation.

(6) Each hearings officer of the department is under the direction and supervision of the hearings division. Each hearings officer hired by the department after October 1, 1979, shall be an attorney.

This act is ordered to take immediate effect.

Secretary of the Senate.

Clerk of the House of Representatives.

Approved

Governor.