The following email from Middle Ground Prison Reform founder Donna Hamm was sent to the AZ Senate Appropriations Committee after the AZ DOC director, Charles Ryan, presented his Dumb on Crime Budget. Donna and I don't exactly see eye to eye on a lot - I think privatizing the prison business is unethical and dangerous, myself - but she really nailed it with this email about protective custody.
Frankly, I think the prisoners could do a much better job running the prisons than the Good Old Boys at the DOC are - it's just that the wrong prisoners are in charge right now. See When the Prisoners Ran Walpole for more on that theme...
----1/23/14 email from Donna Hamm to AZ Senate appropriations chair Don Shooter--
From:
middlegroundprisonreform@msn.comTo:
dshooter@azleg.govSubject: Appropriations Hearing Follow-up
Date: Thu, 23 Jan 2014 08:25:11 -0700
Senator Shooter and Members of the Senate Appropriations Committee:
First,
thank you for taking public testimony at the hearing on January 21,
2014. I am aware that these types of hearings usually do not include
opportunity for public testimony.
Second, during my remarks to
the committee, I misspoke regarding one fact. The Does v. Stewart
litigation that was mentioned by myself and by Charles Ryan was
initially a lawsuit that began in the district court as Does 1-5 v.
Lewis. Hence, it was former DOC Director Sam Lewis, not Terry Stewart,
who arbitrarily decided to limit the number of beds that would be
available to prisoners requiring protection custody (PC). When Terry
Stewart took over as Director, the litigation caption was changed to
Does v. Stewart. I apologize for the error and I advised Terry Stewart
that I would inform you of my mistake.
Thank you for requesting
that I put my notes taken at the hearing into an email to you and
assuring me that you would distribute my comments to the rest of the
committee members. Since the DOC budget is one of the largest in state
government, it is important that legislators make informed decisions
about all aspects of that budget.
Middle Ground Prison Reform,
by the way, does not oppose private prisons per se. In fact, of the
many letters we receive each month from prisoners located in prisons
throughout the state, few come from prisoners housed in private prisons.
Prisoners tell us, for the most part, that private prisons have newer,
better infrastructure; more polite and professional guards; better
food; better, more effective programming; and more relaxed visitation.
Of course, we acknowledge that the prisoners confined in private
prisons are better behaved than maximum and close custody prisoners
housed in state facilities, and that their crimes are usually less
serious. Although there are many arguments back and forth about whether
the private prisons save money or are a good bargain for the state, we
believe that the better service they provide is worth the extra cost, if
they cost more. We do disagree with the fact that the contracts
require a 90% guaranteed occupancy rate and that it is much more
difficult to obtain information (public records) from a private
facility. Still, we don't oppose the use of private prisons to provide
relatively quick provision of prison beds when needed. Many functions
of government are privatized and we do not object to privatized prisons
as long as they are held strictly accountable to their negotiated
contracts and that proper and diligent monitoring of their operations is
consistently maintained.
With respect to some of the discussion
that took place at the hearing and with regard to some of the questions
asked by committee members and the responses provided by Director Ryan,
we provide the following observations/opinions for the committee's
consideration.
Director Ryan spoke of the huge increase since
1998 in protective custody population (432 in 1998; 3,553 (9.5% of the
population) as of 12/13). We believe this must raise alarm bells for
legislators -- what on earth is causing all these inmates to require
protection? Remember, Director Ryan did not provide you with the number
of inmates who are currently in the 805 process (which refers to
Department Order 805, the internal management policy which governs the
process for obtaining protective custody). Those 3,553 inmates who are
already assigned to PC as of December 2013 have already been thoroughly
investigated by the DOC and have been determined to have a genuine
state-wide security issue. That is to say, whatever security issue or
issues have developed for them has been determined by DOC administrators
-- all the way up to the Central Office where the final decisions are
made, and not by the prisoner himself -- to be an issue so serious that
he cannot be placed in any general population unit of any prison in the
Arizona system. That's the only way a prisoner obtains PC
classification.
We were dismayed to hear Mr. Ryan's somewhat
cavalier description of the reasons why inmates "need" PC and his
implying that many inmates arrive on the doorstep of DOC and immediately
request PC because they want to be housed in a one-man cell. Clearly,
of the 3,553 already investigated and approved for PC (admittedly, by
Charles Ryan, the largest PC population of any state prison in the USA),
there are none of these malingerers in the count. The Director
testified that either as of 12/13 or during the month of 12/13, 358
inmates requested PC. How many of that number were granted during the
relevant time frame? The actual number granted PC out of the 358
requesting PC will demonstrate that the DOC is not over-using PC and is
not granting it to malingerers. Inmates who are being investigated for
potential classification to PC should not be counted in the 3,553 number
mentioned by the Director; instead, they are in the "805 process"
(referring to Department Order 805, which is the policy governing
protective custody).
Prison officials don't like to admit it,
but there is an aspect to prison life that fits the "inmates are running
the asylum" theory. Here's why.
When an inmate arrives on any
DOC yard/unit, a prisoner who represents the gang that runs the yard
(for prisoners of the same ethnic group as the new arrival) will
approach the newly arrived inmate and perform what is referred to as a
"roll call." " Roll call" is the process of determining whether the new
arrival has "bad paperwork." The new arrival will be asked for his
"paperwork." His paperwork consists of police reports on his case, his
Presentence Report, his Sentencing Minute Entry, his Plea Agreement,
etc. The prisoner is expected to produce these documents so that the
"head" of the yard (for his race) can determine if there are any obvious
problems with the paperwork, such as the prisoner having turned over
the names (snitched off) any other co-defendant (even if that other
person was never charged with a crime); testified against anyone;
committed a crime that involved or occurred in the presence of children
or against a young female; or anything that calls into question the
person's "loyalty" to the unwritten convict code, which includes certain
"rules" that all inmates are expected to follow.
If the
paperwork is determined to be "bad paperwork," most of the time the
inmate is advised by someone that he should get himself rolled up off
the yard (that is, go to PC/805 investigation) by the next morning or he
will be removed from the yard in a helicopter (implying that he will be
injured badly enough to require air evacuation to a hospital). Even if
this act would not actually be carried out, the threat alone
constitutes ample reason for an inmate to request an 805 investigation.
Sometimes the threat is, in fact, carried out, with resultant injuries
to the targeted inmate -- sometimes serious; sometimes not.
Checking
the paperwork in the first step in roll call. For example, if the
inmate arrived from another yard on a bus with other inmates, one of the
yard leaders will pick up a (contraband) cellphone and call his
counterpart on the other yard and will ask if there are any known
"problems" with the inmate (problems include such things as drug or
gambling debts, previous requests for PC, other known issues with that
inmate, or any suspicions or unresolved issues on that other unit).
Inmates
who are perceived to be weak, often young or
young-looking-for-their-age, small in stature; naïve,
first-time-in-prison offenders (which, according to DOC documents
presented to you, comprise 51.9% of the total current population), are
often approached and advised that they must pay protection money or they
will be beaten. Many of these inmates are very fearful and pay "taxes"
or "respect money" to gang members and others in order to avoid being
assaulted or having their property or commissary items stolen.
Some
prisoners fall prey to the wide variety of drugs that are readily
available in every prison unit (albeit, they are more expensive in
prison due to the risk involved in securing them either through visitors
or staff). As the DOC noted in its materials presented to you, 75% of
prisoners at intake have significant substance abuse histories. Despite
what you were informed about all the programs available, there are long
waiting lists for substance abuse programs, and such programs are not
available on every prison yard, nor are AA or NA groups available on
every yard. Once a prisoner begins using drugs in prison, it is almost a
sure bet that he will eventually owe debts for the drugs, in addition
to "tax" when he doesn't pay his drug supplier on time, and "respect"
money that is paid to the gangs just because they demand it. Middle
Ground frequently assists family members pleading for their son's
placement in PC who have paid thousands of dollars in extortion monies
which began as paying off debts for their son, etc. and end up with just
paying money because they become a ready source of cash.
Recently,
the DOC implemented a policy whereby only a person on the prisoner's
visitation list may send a Securepak (i.e., items that may be sent as a
gift box to an inmate, which includes everything from specialty food
items to toiletries). This policy was implemented because extortionists
were ordering extortion victims to have the victim's family member send
a Securepak to the extortionist. However, money orders can still be
sent to any prisoner by any free world person. Hence, when extorting an
victim, an inmate can simply have the victim's family send a money
order to the extortionist's inmate account. If he wishes to avoid
having the money come to his account, or if the DOC passes a policy to
prohibit money orders except from someone on the prisoner's own
visitation list, the extortionist will simply demand that his victim's
family send a money order to a girlfriend, parent, etc. who lives in the
community, and that person, on the extortionist's visitation list, will
have the money forwarded to his inmate spendable account.
The point is: What is the DOC doing about this serious problem? How much do these problems affect prison operating budgets?
Case
law abounds from the U.S. Supreme Court, which is binding in Arizona,
and from the Ninth Circuit Court, and even from Arizona courts, formally
holding that prisoners have a constitutional right to be safe from harm
and that prison officials must take steps to protect an inmate when
prison officials know or should know that a credible security issue
exists. Prison officials must protect a prisoner from harm even if he
has never actually been assaulted (a credible threat of assault is
sufficient to trigger constitutional protections) and even if the
security issues are of his own making.
Legitimate Questions for the DOC:
1. How/why are drugs so readily accessible in prison?
2. What are you doing to prevent introduction by visitors? By staff?
By private vendors entering the prisons?
3. How are cell phones being introduced in the prisons?
4. How many visitors/fiscal year are arrested on site with illegal contraband?
5.
How many staff members of all types (uniformed/non-uniformed) are
caught in illegal activity involving facilitating the introduction of
illegal contraband?
6. How many staff and visitors are prosecuted for activity in Questions 4 and 5?
7.
What types of security procedures are in place for each shift of
workers/seven days/week at each prison unit to prevent introduction of
illegal contraband?
8. How does Arizona's prison system compare with
other states with similar sized populations with respect to contraband
and prosecutions?
9. What is Arizona doing to affirmatively control
and/or moderate the prolific influence of gangs and gang activity on all
prison yards?
10. Why is Arizona's PC population the largest in the USA?
With
respect to the paperwork/colorful handouts provided by the DOC to your
committee members, it is important to understand that much very
valuable information is excluded, or, more precisely, presented in a
format that is of little use to the Legislature. For example, the DOC
presented a chart on the subject of Assaults on Staff (presented in a
red column) and Assaults on Staff With Injuries (presented in a blue
column), and presented it for Fiscal years 2009 through 2014. Three
things seem important for the Committee. First, there is no breakdown
of the two types of assaults by prison unit, which would provide the
Committee with truly significant information by identifying the actual
prison units that have high numbers of assaults and therefore enable
targeting for the purpose of increasing staff safety, investigating why
the numbers are so high for those units, and enabling additional
questions and information for those units (High staff turnover?
Questionable policies? High numbers of inmate grievances? Lack of
educational or treatment programs or other positive activity available
on that unit? Excessive gang activity? High numbers of
inmate-on-inmate assaults as well? High numbers of positive drug tests?
High staff vacancy?) In contrast, the information presented in the
current DOC document ("Corrections at a Glance") is virtually useless
for any genuinely meaningful purpose.
For a second example, the
DOC presented a pie-chart on the 9,891 inmates admitted to DOC to date
in FY 2014, and the chart states that 70% were new court commitments,
14% were county probationers revoked, and 15 percent were parolees
revoked. Since parole was eliminated for offenses committed on or after
January 1, 1994, and replaced by Community Supervision, it is unlikely
that absolutely no Community Supervision revocations occurred and
similarly unlikely that there were that many persons revoked on parole.
The DOC should clearly know the legal difference between "parole"
(which is a release status granted by a vote of the members of the Board
of Executive Clemency) and "community supervision" (which is a release
status that is automatically granted to most prisoners who serve 85% of
their imposed sentence). This lack of clarity is important for policy
and budgetary considerations. The DOC supervises both those on parole
and community supervision, but the Board is only involved in release
decisions for old-code inmates who are still eligible for parole. It
would be useful for legislators to know how many parolees are revoked,
versus how many on community supervision. This knowledge might even
form the basis for consideration of reinstating parole eligibility at
some time in the future. Also, and importantly, what were the
committing offenses for those returnees to DOC (if the numbers are
unusually high for one or two types of offenses, perhaps a targeted
program would reduce the recidivism rate). It also would be very
important to know if there is overlap between the groups. That is, how
many of the new court commitments were releases who committed new
offenses (or how many of the release revocations were for committing new
crimes as opposed to technical violations). The data as presented does
not provide this type of detailed and useful information. Similarly,
Arizona law allows a judge to waive community supervision if the person
has a probation term to serve following release from prison, which
raises the question of how many of the probation revocations were for
persons who had completed a prison term and were serving a consecutive
probation period? While seemingly providing useful information, the
pie-chart on FY 2014 admissions fails to break out the data into more
detailed, more meaningful, and more useful slices instead of three very
general categories.
With regard to the presentations regarding
the ADC Census (by prison complex) and the presentations regarding "Bed
Capacity and Population Detail," one is left in the dark about how many
inmates are in beds that were created as "temporary beds" long ago and
have never been upgraded to permanent beds. One example would be the
East Unit of the Florence Complex, an entire unit consisting solely of
Quonset huts installed about 30 years ago. Are these beds now
considered "rated" beds, or are they "temporary" beds? When is this
Unit going to be upgraded with permanent facility construction?
As
you can see from the above information, we simply don't think that
Legislators are being provided sufficiently detailed information in
order to make informed decisions about the budget for one of the largest
state government agencies in Arizona.
Again, thank you for the
opportunity to present our views. We would be happy to answer any
questions of any member or provide additional information.
Donna Leone Hamm, Judge (Ret.)
Executive Director
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