News Photo by Reagan Voetberg Corrections Officer R. Hunt smiles for a photo in the training room at the Alpena County Sheriff’s Department on Friday.

ALPENA — Alpena Community College offers much-needed corrections courses for the training of present and future corrections officers.

The state requires that future and current corrections officers attain 15 credit hours worth of corrections courses to be in their positions. Most correction officers are hired for the job first and then have 12 months to begin taking classes, Rob Mills, the criminal justice program director at ACC, said.

If officers are hired without college credit first, they can receive a grant to enroll at one of the 31 community colleges across the state through the Michigan Community College Association, according to the Department of Corrections website.

Officers who have not started earning college credits receive a notice at 12 months. If they do not enroll in classes within 12 months of receiving the notice, they are not technically terminated, but they are put in inactive status, Mills said.

“We’re not gonna terminate you,” Mills said, explaining what a corrections officer might hear. “We’re gonna put you in inactive status. You’re an employee, you’re still on the books, but you just have zero hours.”

Mills took over the corrections program in 2021. Before he started, corrections courses were only offered once a year at the college. Now, he offers them three times a year. All of his corrections courses are virtual so officers around the state can earn their credentials.

The classes have grown from 52 enrollments in 2021 to 132 in 2024. This year, Mills has already had 124 enrollments, and that’s only counting the spring semester. There are still two more semesters to go.

The corrections program at ACC is one of the most popular in the state, with 27% of grant-funded officers choosing to earn their credentials there over 30 other community colleges, Mills said.

When an officer has been accepted to the college and is ready to enroll in classes, Mills makes sure to work in classes around their schedule. If an officer has a family or is active in their community, Mills may advise them to take classes at a slower pace.

On top of family life, an officer’s schedule typically runs in a cycle of six days on and three days off. During those six days, they will work a combination of eight-hour and 16-hour shifts. Officers can be mandated to work overtime under their contract if needed.

Corrections officers are only supposed to work overtime up to two times in a cycle, but with the current shortages, they could be told to work up to four.

Some ACC students will enroll in the criminal justice program and become corrections officers since they only have to be 18 to apply. Other law enforcement positions require candidates to be 21. Mills said that only a handful of his students earn their degree first before employment.

Before the shortage, people would earn their qualifications first. People could choose to complete classes and earn a certificate or go to an academy.

“It’s completely inverse to what it used to be,” Mills said.

It also used to be more unpredictable for an officer to know where they would be assigned once they were done with their training. Mills said his brother found out he had to move to Muskegon right out of the academy. A few years later, he was transferred to Standish.

Now, if an officer chooses to go to an academy, they receive a conditional offer of employment from the assigned post before they start training. They can prepare to move to their assigned post during their time at the academy rather than being given a matter of days, Mills said. Officers can choose to transfer to other prisons if an opening or a promotion is on the table.

While the issues with corrections officer shortages continue statewide, the Alpena County Jail is not currently experiencing a shortage, Alpena County Sheriff Erik Smith said. They did struggle during the COVID-19 pandemic but have rebounded since.