Advocacy tips for AZ DOC BUDGET HEARINGS this week!

Dave Wells is an Economics professor at ASU, and a damn good thinker, as liberals go. Here's his take on the budget hearings for the AZDOC this week. If you have loved ones in state prison, pay attention. The Grand Canyon Institute identifies itself as a "centrist" thinktank, and is totally not connected to Arizona Prison Watch, nor did they issue the AJA bulletin below.

For my part, I'd suggest that folks with loved ones at stake contact the Governor, who just re-appointed DOC Director Chuck Ryan, here. Register your concerns about the direction of the AZ DOC these past five years. Ask for a new audit of the department by the Inspector General to determine the actual impacts of prisons and health care privatization. Tell your own story.

Find your legislators here, and lobby them hard to de-privatize the prisons, call Chuck Ryan on the carpet, and conduct an investigation into the growing violence and neglect on his watch, as well as the actual impacts of privatization (death rates, average age of death, re-incarceration rates, etc).

The Arizona Justice Alliance's recommendations for impacting the budget hearings this week follow the GCI post below.

from the grand canyon institute

Press Release
CONTACT: Dave Wells, Ph.D.
Research Director, Grand Canyon Institute
(602) 595-1025 ext 3
dwells@azgci.org

Ducey’s Private Prison Proposal would cost $1.5 billion—alternative options save the state more than $500 million over two decades.

PHOENIX —Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Apario is right; Arizona does not need 3,000 more medium security beds through a private prison contractor. Arizona has the sixth highest incarceration rate in the country-and the highest in the Pacific and Mountain West region.  High incarceration rates cost taxpayers and don’t necessarily bring added public safety, but do bring added costs.

On Tuesday and Wednesday this week key committees in the House and Senate will hear the Department of Corrections Budget proposal, including $5.3 million to begin funding toward 3,000 new medium-security beds.  Says Dave Wells, research director of the Grand Canyon Institute, “The $5.3 million is a down payment on $100 million in planned expenditures on those through fiscal year 2018, and their annual cost will be in excess of $70 million.  The nature of contracts with private prisons will require that the state spend that amount each year for the next 20 years, regardless of whether or not those beds are filled. In other words, this is a $1.5 billion proposal, not $5.3 million.”

The Ducey administration argues we have a current short-fall in medium security-beds, except unnecessary state policies drive up our prison population.

In March 2012, The Grand Canyon Institute released its report “Reducing Incarceration While Maintaining Public Safety: From Truth in Sentencing to Earned Release for Nonviolent Offenders.”   Report author, Dave Wells, Research Director for the Institute, noted “Arizonan is the only state in the country that requires nonviolent offenders, regardless of risk or programs they complete while in custody, to serve at least 85 percent of their sentence behind bars.  That’s neither cost effective nor best practice.  Arizona can learn from other states that have moved toward earned release with appropriate community supervision and drug treatment and save between $30 and $73 million annually while maintaining public safety. Over 20 years that’s more than $500 million and possibly in excess of $1 billion in savings.”

The report gave three ways to approach reducing sentences which could impact up to one-fourth of those currently incarcerated by enabling them to more quickly earn release to supervised probation with in many cases needed drug treatment at far lower costs.  Such actions would free up space, if more medium-security beds were needed.

Arizona would be wise to follow the concerns of the Utah Commission on Criminal and Juvenile Justice which in November 2014 released 18 proposals designed to “avert 98 percent of the anticipated growth in the prison population, avoid the need for 2,551 prison beds, and save taxpayers at least $542 million over the next two decades.”
The Grand Canyon Institute is a centrist think-tank founded in 2011 which works to elevate economic analysis of public policy in Arizona.

Links to Resources:
Copy of the 2012 Grand Canyon Institute Report: http://grandcanyoninstitute.org/sites/grandcanyoninstitute.org/files/GCI_Policy_Paper_Prisons-March2012.pdf
Response to County Attorney Objections to an op-ed based on the 2012 Report: http://grandcanyoninstitute.org/sites/grandcanyoninstitute.org/files/GCI_Prison_Response-March2012.pdf
Utah Commission on Criminal and Juvenile Justice Report: http://justice.utah.gov/Documents/CCJJ/Reports/Justice_Reinvestment_Report_2014.pd
                                                 -----------------from the AJA---------------

Arizona Justice Alliance ACTION ALERT:  NO NEW PRISON BEDS FOR ARIZONA!

Gov. Ducey's budget for FY2016 proposes 3,000 new medium-security for-profit prison beds—beds we don’t need. The Governor’s budget estimates that these new beds will cost taxpayers over $100 million over the next three years.

Corrections is already the third largest state agency budget, absorbing 11% of General Funds. Corrections’ total budget for FY2015 is over $1 billion. Yet Arizona’s recidivism rate is between 40-50%. Since recidivism means future crime, our prisons are clearly failing in their mission to preserve public safety.

Arizona’s budget priorities are completely misaligned. Historic underfunding of K-12 and deep cuts to higher education shortchange our kids and make Arizona less attractive to businesses. The state’s failure to care for the poor or treat substance abuse and mental illnesses only serve to undermine public safety.

Fortunately, new prison beds are totally unnecessary. The Department of Corrections has the authority to release thousands more prisoners every year into a Transition Program. This program saved Arizona Taxpayers over $1 million in 2014 alone.

And changes in Arizona’s criminal justice policies, such as Truth In Sentencing, could allow the state to potentially save over $200 million per year. These types of reforms have been undertaken in most other US states—including very conservative ones—and these states have seen greater drops in crime than Arizona has.
The Arizona Department of Corrections will present its budget to the House and Senate Appropriations Committees next week. They need to hear from YOU today!

Take Action!

CONTACT THE GOVERNOR AND THE CHAIRS OF APPROPRIATIONS

Tell them NOT to approve the new prison beds and instead invest $100 million in the things that truly make us safer!

Governor Doug Ducey:
(602) 542-4331 (Maricopa County and Phoenix)
(520) 628-6850 Tucson
(602) 542-1381 Fax

Senate Appropriations Chair: Sen. Don Shooter, (602) 926-4139, dshooter@azleg.gov

House Appropriations Chair: Rep. Justin Olson, (602) 926-5288, jolson@azleg.gov

Suggested Talking Points:

1. 3,000 more medium security prison beds are overly expensive and unnecessary:
a. These new beds would cost Arizona over $100 million in just the first few years.
b. The Arizona Department of Corrections claims it needs the best due to population growth. But ADC’s own records show that the increase in prison population may be due not just to more people entering the system, but also to prisoners staying longer. The number of people being released decreased by 7.5% between 2009 and 2014, while at the same time the average length of a stay in prison has increased by 19%.

2. The Department of Corrections’ funding should be tied to realistic performance standards similar to those expected of other state agencies.
a. The Arizona Department of Corrections reports that its recidivism rate is 42%. However, ADC also reports that 48.8% of inmates have served time in the Arizona prison system before.
b. Recidivism is basically future crime. If the purpose of Corrections is to preserve public safety, Arizona prisons have a 40-50% failure rate.

3. There are effective alternatives either currently in place or being proposed that would make the new prison beds unnecessary.
a. The Transition Program allows all non-violent prisoners to be released after serving 85% of their sentence. In 2012, the program saved taxpayers $1,038,224. Yet even after statutory changes expanding eligibility and an ADC review of its criteria and procedures, the program is being underutilized.
b. A modest adjustment of Truth in Sentencing laws would potentially allow for the release of 9,500 people, with a potential cost savings of $207,493,375 per year.

Corizon HealthScare: Meet me in St. Louis...

The article below was posted from the AP to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch today. This was the comment I left for their readers: 

Corizon has been nothing but disastrous to Arizona state prisoners, ignoring too many to death and leaving their families devastated. We've had a whistleblower speak out and a class action lawsuit here (Parsons v Ryan), exposing how evil they are - as well as numerous protests by prisoners' loved ones and interviews with survivors, but it has been to no avail. 

Some think that's due to Good Old Boy Terry Stewart's influence in AZ (he's the former AZ DOC director - Chuck Ryan's mentor - now in bed with the folks at Corizon Healthscare), but I can't explain why other states still have contracts with them. Voters should really scrutinize things closely if their jails or prison systems are going with these folks and renewing contracts year after year, there's probably something dirty going on that keeps them sucking your tax dollars up for their profits at the expense of some of your most vulnerable citizens. Stop the privatization all together, if you can. It doesn't deliver what it promises, and you'll end up paying more after too many die in the end.

Posted as Peggy Plews

God only knows why the new governor, Doug Ducey, has retained Chuck Ryan after the embarassment his administration was to Brewer - must have something on that guy, too. It's like the whole Republican party here just dug their heads in the sand when it comes to the AZ DOC, though, not just the chiefs. Their mascot should be an ostrich, not an elephant. Elephants are, after all, thoughtful, compassionate, and wise...

By the way, if you're fighting these bastards on behalf of a loved one at the AZ DOC, follow the links to these older pieces, but be sure to be current on the relevant AZDOC policies (Department Orders) and send them the right copies - the docs and links in these old posts have probably expired.

 Corizon's Cruel and Unusual Greed: Follow the Money with Prison Legal News

Corizon and the AZ DOC: Prisoners & Families, Know Your Rights.

 

Corizon's deliberate indifference: fighting back.

 

artwork is mine....

------------from the St Louis POST-DISPATCH--------

Country's biggest for-profit prisoner health care provider under increased scrutiny

St Louis Post-Dispatch

Janaury 20, 2014 

By ADAM GELLER Associated Press

Months after he landed in Florida’s Manatee County Jail, Jovon Frazier’s pleas for treatment of intense pain in his left shoulder were met mostly with Tylenol.

“I need to see a doctor!” he wrote on his eighth request form. “I done put a lot of sick calls in & ya’ll keep sending me back and ain’t tell me nothing.”

Four months later, after Frazier’s 13th request resulted in hospitalization and doctors diagnosed bone cancer, his arm was amputated, according to a lawsuit by his family.

But the cancer spread. Frazier died in 2011 at age 21, months after his release.

As an inmate, his medical care had been managed not by the county sheriff’s office that runs the jail, but by a private company under contract.

That company, Corizon Health Inc., is under growing pressure after the loss of five state prison contracts, downgrades by analysts and increasing scrutiny of its care of inmates held by some of its largest customers, including New York City.

Corizon, responsible for 345,000 inmates in 27 states, including Missouri, is the country’s biggest for-profit correctional health provider, but it’s just one of many firms vying for billions of public dollars spent on prisoner care.

Corizon was established in 2011 when privately held Valitás Health Services Inc., the Creve Coeur-based parent of Correctional Medical Services Inc., acquired America Service Group Inc., a Tennessee-based provider of prison health services.

With corporate headquarters in Brentwood, Tenn., Corizon touts Creve Coeur as home to its operational headquarters.

For-profit prison care raises questions about ceding public responsibilities to private companies. It turns, though, on a thornier issue: How do you ensure care of people who society mostly would prefer not to think about?

Inmates “are still human beings. I think some people forget that, I really do. They’re somebody’s child,” said Shirley Jenkins, Frazier’s grandmother.

PRIVATIZED CARE

States spend $8 billion a year, a fifth of their corrections budgets, on prison health care, according to the Pew Charitable Trusts and the MacArthur Foundation. Local jails spend millions more.

Some critics fault the idea of privatizing the job.

“The problem is a structure that creates incentives to cut corners and deny care to powerless people that have no other options,” said David Fathi, director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s National Prison Project.

Others say deficiencies with prison care go beyond whether it is privatized.

“I don’t have a great love for private health care ... but I don’t think that they’re the source of the problem,” said Dr. Marc Stern, former health services director for Washington state’s prisons. Stern, who once worked for a Corizon predecessor in New York state, issued a 2012 report criticizing the company’s care of Idaho prison inmates while serving as a court-appointed expert.

“I think the problem is how much money and effort we are willing to put into correctional health care,” Stern said.

Some critics, though, say Corizon is notably problematic.

“We get letters from prisoners about medical care not being provided, and the list is endless. And it’s increased tremendously since Corizon took over,” said Randall Berg, executive director of the Florida Justice Institute, who represents inmates petitioning for care.

Corizon says it strives to provide quality care.

“We are always troubled by any questions on the care provided to our patients and view this as an opportunity to reconfirm our commitment to operational ethics and professionalism,” company spokeswoman Susan Morgenstern said in a written statement. The company declined to answer questions.

The criticism surrounding Corizon isn’t new. Correctional Medical Services, or CMS, which later became Corizon, was the main subject of a 1998 Post-Dispatch investigation of for-profit prison health care providers. Looking at CMS and other firms, the investigation found more than 20 cases nationwide in which inmates died as a result of alleged negligence, indifference, understaffing, inadequate training or cost-cutting.

In 2012, Corizon was sued for alleged medical missteps in the death of Courtland Lucas, an inmate in the St. Louis jail. He died May 25, 2009, from complications of a heart problem, congenital aortic valve stenosis, while under the care of CMS. The lawsuit was settled in the fall of 2014, but the terms were not disclosed.

Corizon’s struggles are widespread.

Its care of the 11,000 inmates at New York City’s Rikers Island is under “comprehensive review” by officials, who say they are concerned about problems including at least 16 deaths since 2009.

Arizona hired Corizon last year to replace Wexford Health Sources Inc. after its care came under fire. But an advocacy group warned that “if anything, things have gotten worse” in state prisons. Arizona and the ACLU recently reached a settlement calling for more monitoring of inmate care.

Meanwhile Corizon has lost long-standing prison contracts in Minnesota, Maine, Maryland, Tennessee and Pennsylvania since 2012. Auditors in three states documented problems, including slowness to address poor recordkeeping and inmates’ urgent requests for off-site care.

Corizon, which generated $1.4 billion in revenue in 2013 and is owned by a Chicago private equity firm, has battled stiffening competition. In recent months, Moody’s and Standard & Poor’s have downgraded Corizon’s holding company, citing financial underperformance, contract losses and competition that has squeezed profits.

The connection between Corizon’s contract losses and questions about the quality of care it provides is not clear.

But the challenges are evident in Florida, where a year after the state privatized prison care and awarded Corizon a $1.2 billion contract, news reports point to rising inmate deaths. If the company does not address substandard care, the state’s corrections commissioner wrote to Corizon’s CEO in September, Florida may begin withholding payment.

In Minnesota, an audit last year found that inadequate communication between prison staff and Corizon doctors during overnight hours “may have been a contributing factor to inmate deaths.”

But in announcing Minnesota’s change of contractors, the corrections commissioner said Corizon had provided “excellent” service. In a written response to questions, the state corrections department said its decision was not related to the audit. It would not comment on inmate deaths.

Corizon’s work in local jails also has come under scrutiny.

In October, Volusia County, Fla., officials questioned Corizon executives about lawsuits and its financial stability before voting unanimously to switch contractors. The hearing was held in the shadow of a lawsuit filed locally by the family of Tracy Veira, an inmate who choked to death in 2009 in a cell where she was supposed to be under watch while detoxing from painkillers.

A nurse working for one of the companies that merged to form Corizon saw an ailing Veira in the jail’s clinic the afternoon before she died. She told a supervisor the inmate looked as if she needed hospitalization, but Veira was instead sent back to her cell, according to an affidavit filed in the case.

When the commissioners questioned Corizon’s executives, there was no mention of Veira. But Commissioner Deb Denys said she was mindful of the case, scheduled for a July trial.

“I think everybody was,” Denys said. “Sometimes you don’t state the obvious.”

Jennifer Mann of the Post-Dispatch contributed to this report.