Michigan Office of the
Auditor General
Thomas H. McTavish, C.P.A.
Auditor General
 OAG Seal

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EXECUTIVE DIGEST #4739095

Prisoner Transfers and Transportation

INTRODUCTION This report contains the results of our performance audit of Prisoner Transfers and Transportation, Department of Corrections (DOC), for the period October 1, 1993 through October 31, 1995.
AUDIT PURPOSE This performance audit was conducted as part of the constitutional responsibility of the Office of the Auditor General. Performance audits are conducted on a priority basis related to the potential for improving effectiveness and efficiency.
BACKGROUND Prisoner transfers and transportation occur primarily for three reasons: interfacility transfers, off-site medical visits, and court appearances. The primary responsibilities for transporting prisoners were assigned to four transportation hubs: Kinross Correctional Facility in Kinross, Riverside Reception Center in Ionia, the Reception and Guidance Center in Jackson, and Western Wayne Correctional Facility in Plymouth. These four transportation hubs employed 77 full-time equated transportation officers.

Excluding the camp program, DOC used 168 vehicles to travel over 3 million miles while conducting 263,773 prisoner movements during fiscal year 1993-94. The approximate annual cost of prisoner transportation was $14.2 million.
AUDIT OBJECTIVES AND CONCLUSIONS Audit Objective: To assess the effectiveness of DOC's management of prisoner transfers and transportation.

Conclusion: Although DOC's transportation services were conducted safely, DOC could improve its management of the prisoner transfer process and transportation services. Our assessment of the effectiveness of DOC's management of prisoner transfers and transportation disclosed one material condition:

  • DOC did not have a methodology to identify, account for, report, and monitor the costs of prisoner transfers and transportation. This resulted in DOC's inability to evaluate the financial significance of transferring and transporting prisoners and its effectiveness in providing these services. (Finding 1)

    DOC agreed with the recommendation related to Finding 1 and will develop a system pursuant to the recommendation.
In addition, our assessment identified other reportable conditions related to management's effectiveness over lateral level transfers and the assignment of the transportation hubs (Findings 2 and 3). Also, management had not assigned a high priority to implementing the recommendations from other transfer and transportation evaluations and had not fully documented its transfer and transportation of prisoners (Findings 4 through 6).

Audit Objective: To assess whether DOC provided prisoner transportation in an efficient manner.

Conclusion: DOC did not generally provide prisoner transportation services in an efficient manner. Our assessment disclosed one material condition:

  • DOC had not developed/purchased a comprehensive computerized prisoner transportation system. As a result, DOC was unable to effectively and efficiently prioritize, schedule, route, and coordinate its prisoner transportation services (Finding 7).

    DOC agreed with the recommendation related to Finding 7 and will comply. DOC staff are contacting other agencies nationwide to select a package that can be used.
In addition, our assessment identified reportable conditions related to DOC's lack of staging areas, a central transportation coordinator, and coordination of off-site medical visits (Findings 8 through 10).
AUDIT SCOPE AND METHODOLOGY Our audit scope was to examine the program and other records of Prisoner Transfers and Transportation for the period October 1, 1993 through October 31, 1995. Our audit was conducted in accordance with Government Auditing Standards issued by the Comptroller General of the United States and, accordingly, included such tests of the records and such other auditing procedures as we considered necessary in the circumstances.

Our audit did not include prisoner transfers and transportation within DOC's camp program.

To accomplish our objectives, we interviewed central office and field transfer and transportation staff, and we reviewed DOC policies and procedures to gain an understanding of prisoner transfers and transportation. We obtained and reviewed various states', private consultants', and correctional oversight and accrediting organizations' reports on prisoner transfers and transportation. We contacted selected states to obtain overviews of their transfer and transportation systems.

We evaluated DOC's efforts to account for prisoner transfer and transportation costs. We examined the process the DOC used to approve and document prisoner transfers by reviewing prisoners' files.

We analyzed DOC's efforts to prioritize, schedule, route, and coordinate its prisoner transportation services. We conducted on-site interviews with staff at the four transportation hubs and a prison, and we examined their daily transportation activities. We analyzed transportation officer overtime, travel expenses, and vehicle usage and occupancy.
AGENCY RESPONSES Our audit report includes 10 findings and 12 corresponding recommendations. DOC's preliminary response indicated that it agreed with our recommendations.

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This page was created on 4-28-97.