Arizona Department of Corrections: The sound of silence

Kingman Daily Miner
8/29/2010 6:01:00 AM

Column: Her name was Jessica ... and she refused to talk

Mark Borgard

Editor

There was a pretty little girl who transferred to my school when I was a kid. Her name was Jessica, and she was gorgeous. She had cute, dangly curls that framed her sweet face, and her eyes sparkled when she smiled.

Equipped with my 5th-grade boy's confidence, I approached Jessica during recess soon after her arrival and asked her where she had moved from. She stared at me for a second, not smiling, turned and walked away. I figured she must be shy because I knew, even at that young age, that everyone completely adored me. I tried again at lunch.

This time, she didn't even wait for me to finish my question before turning and walking away. At afternoon recess, I watched her playing with some of the other kids, some of my friends, so I tried again. I thought maybe if I showed her how fun I could be that she'd want to know me.

Turned out, my friends weren't in the mood to get chummy right then, and I ended up punching one of them in the arm. She shook her head, turned and walked away. As I watched her leave, my friend recovered enough to smack me in the back of the head.

What got me to thinking about Jessica this week was Director Charles Ryan and PR Guy/Ryan Blocker Barrett Marson with the Arizona Department of Corrections, whose motto is, "Every Killer Deserves a Break." You see, Mr. Ryan refuses to talk to the Miner. Oh, we've tried and tried, but he shelters himself behind Mr. Marson while refusing to answer any questions relating to the June escape at the prison in Golden Valley.

Turns out, we're not the only ones he doesn't want to talk to. He doesn't want to talk to you, either. He cancelled a public forum scheduled for Tuesday because he said he needs more time to prepare, which means, of course, he needs more time to work on his spin.

Although, he might be a bit spooked to stand before the people he and his department have put at great risk for at least the last five years. I call it the Ron Walker Syndrome. It's when you hide in your office and refuse to answer questions ... because you're a pinhead.

However, I could be wrong. Not about the pinhead part, about Mr. Ryan's intentions. Maybe Mr. Ryan respects our community enough to want to do his homework before he stands in front of us and explains why killers were housed in a medium-security prison, which, as far as we can tell, was actually a minimum-security prison. To give Mr. Ryan the benefit of the doubt, I've prepared some questions he might want to be able to answer when he finally decides to Cowboy Up.

1. Why were murderers housed at a medium-security prison?

2. Please explain your classification system that allows murderers and other violent offenders to be housed in a medium-security prison?

3. Please explain how it is not criminal to place high-security inmates in a medium-security prison (that actually was a minimum-security prison).

4. How much do you hate the people of Kingman and Golden Valley that you would allow our safety, not to mention the safety of the guards and other inmates, to be in jeopardy for at least the last five years?

5. In your mind, can the Arizona Department of Corrections be faulted for anything relating to the escape of two killers and a soon-to-be-convicted killer from the prison in Golden Valley?

6. Would you have allowed a woman who was caught delivering drugs to the prison leave with no charges leveled against her?

7. Do you think an internal audit is ever beneficial?

8. Has the recent escape proven to you that private prisons do not work?

9. Have all the convicted murderers been shipped out of the prison in Golden Valley, and when will you sneak them back in?

10. Did Gov. Jan Brewer, knowing her party had turned against her on the sales tax hike, sign SB 1070 to get herself back in the Republican fold in a final effort to get elected in November?

All right, you can skip the last one. But you better study and have answers to the other ones whenever you decide to grace us with your presence. You see, I've dealt with your type before. Her name was Jessica.

For weeks, I tried everything I could think of to get Jessica to talk to me, but she never did. I lost interest eventually, as young boys do, and moved out of state the next summer.

To this day, though, I still wonder why she never said a word to me. Maybe it fueled my passion for journalism, to get people to talk to me.

The only difference I can see between Jessica and Mr. Ryan is that Jessica was 11.

Oh, and she didn't run a severely flawed prison system.

Kingman Prison: Once upon a time.

(FYI: McCluskey and Welch arrested in AZ 8/19/10 post)

Looks like the priorities of Arizonans shifted in recent years from rehabilitating offenders to warehousing them again. Maybe if we didn't have so many petty offenders incarcerated in the state - and such high recidivism rates - there would have been more room for murderers so they wouldn't be putting the overflow in medium security private prisons dedicated to DUI and drug offenders.

It's now damn near impossible for prisoners who really need it to be placed in a meaningful substance abuse or mental health treatment unit - programs which, if they were accessible enough on the outside, may have prevented many from needing them on the inside. Now lifers and white supremacists occupy this place, and young addicts and burglars with just a few years to do are placed in massive state prisons with gangs and killers running them. What do we think we're teaching them there? Who will they be when they leave - if they survive?

College classes for AZ state prisoners, by the way, are reserved for those who can afford to pay for it themselves - funding for that was axed a long time ago, fueling the prison boom.

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Prison outside Kingman at capacity of 472 Oct 14, 2004 By Marvin Robertson Kingman Daily Miner

KINGMAN – The Arizona State Prison facility southwest of Kingman has an inmate population unique in the state, Deputy Warden Clint Davis said.

“This is the first place I have worked where all the inmates were in for the same offense.” Davis said “I have always recommended non-violent first offenders be kept away from repeat offenders.”

The population at the facility near the Griffith power plant interchange in Interstate 40 is at current capacity of 472. Construction continues to add space for nearly another 1,000 inmates by April. Food service and administrative facilities are in temporary buildings. Davis said the prison population is older than he had expected for the driving under the influence sentences. Most are there for drinking and driving, although DUI could include drugs if the individual was picked up driving while “high,” Davis said.

The prison was quiet Monday, a holiday when some staff members who handle the educational programs were taking a break.

Many inmates were enjoying the warm Arizona October sun in the exercise yard. Some were still in their bunks sleeping past mid-morning. Others had their usual duties helping in the kitchen, cleaning floors and raking the exercise yard.

“Rocks seem to float to the surface here,” Davis said. “We continually rake the surface and remove them so they do not become weapons.”

Inmates can stay in the exercise yard most of the day if their assignments are completed. They walk, use the fitness stations and sit on benches in the warm sunshine. Volleyball and horseshoes (plastic not iron) will be added to the basketball courts now available. “The average length of stay is four to six months,” Davis said. “They take a basic six-week program followed by 16 hours of DUI education and treatment,” Davis said. “They then enter aftercare and have basic education and will have classes up to college available.”

Management Training Corp., a Utah company, operates the prison as a private facility for the Arizona Department of Corrections. As deputy warden, Davis is in charge of the educational programs.

“The MTC mission is ‘Success for Life,’” he said. The motto is “Preparing offenders for re-entry to society.”

“I know of no other private of public prison operation than MTC with that mission,” he said.

Half the inmates come without a high school education. The Department of Corrections requires that those who cannot pass a basic test of skills at the eighth-grade level to take basic education courses.

Davis said inmates who get some college classes or vocational training during first incarceration seldom return. With a college class, the return rate is 3 percent. With a vocation skill or trade, the return rate is 12 percent.

Without either, 85 percent of the inmates will return within five years. On average, those will spend 10 of the next 20 years behind bars at a total cost to the state of $250,000 for prison. By age 40, many stay out of prison. MTC now employees 120 people at the Kingman site. Another 150 employees will be added by April when the full 1,400 inmates are housed. Mohave Community College is recruiting employees for MTC and conducts training academies to train new employees.

Most of the employees live in Mohave County.

ASPC Kingman Escape: Heads up Yellowstone.

(FYI: McCluskey and Welch arrested in AZ 8/19/10 post)

Police: Arizona escapees may be in Yellowstone area

By the CNN Wire Staff

August 8, 2010

(CNN) -- Authorities believe two Arizona prison escapees and their alleged accomplice may be in the Yellowstone National Park area of Montana and Wyoming, based on recent information, the U.S. Marshals Service said Sunday.

John Charles McCluskey, 45, and Tracy Province, 42, are described as armed and dangerous. They have been at large since fleeing an Arizona prison on July 30. A third escaped inmate, Daniel Renwick, 35, was arrested the day after the escape in Rifle, Colorado, where he got in a shootout with police.

McCluskey was serving 15 years for attempted second-degree murder and other charges. Province was serving a life sentence for murder and armed robbery.

A female accomplice helped Province, McCluskey and Renwick, escape by throwing cutting tools over a prison fence, according to Charles Ryan, director of Arizona's Department of Corrections.

Authorities have identified the suspected accomplice as Casslyn Mae Welch, 43. Welch is McCluskey's cousin and fiancee, CNN affiliate KTVK reported.

"Information developed within the past two days indicated the escapees may be hiding in the Yellowstone Park area within Montana and Wyoming," U.S. Marshals said in a statement Sunday. "It is believed Tracy Province has separated from John McCluskey and Casslyn Welch."

A U.S. Marshals team from Arizona has been in the Yellowstone Park area since Sunday morning, spokesman Thomas Henman said. The team is working with U.S. marshals in Montana and Wyoming, as well as the National Parks Service.

Henman wouldn't divulge the source of the information that has led authorities to Yellowstone, but said it is believed to be very credible. Although the case was featured on "America's Most Wanted" Saturday night, the information did not come from a viewer, Henman said.

A $40,000 reward is being offered for information leading to the escapees' arrest, Henman said.

The New Mexico Department of Public Safety said Saturday police have forensic evidence linking Province and McCluskey to a couple found slain in New Mexico last week. Two burned bodies were found in a camper Wednesday in Santa Rosa, New Mexico, according to Peter Olson, spokesman for the department.

New Mexico police have yet to positively identify the burned bodies, but believe they are Linda and Gary Haas of Oklahoma, whose truck was found 120 miles away in Albuquerque, New Mexico, according to Olson. He would not elaborate on the nature of the forensic evidence.

Earlier Saturday, authorities arrested McCluskey's mother and charged her with aiding the escape. Claudia Washburn, 68, was arrested in Jakes Corner, Arizona, and faces charges of conspiracy to facilitate escape and hindering prosecution, Deputy U.S. Marshal Thomas Henman told CNN.

Washburn, who is Welch's aunt, allegedly provided "financial and other aid" to McCluskey, Province and Welch. A search warrant was executed, and Washburn was being held on $250,000 bond at the Gila County Jail in Globe, Arizona, the U.S. Marshals said.

In an interview with CNN Arizona affiliate KTVK, Washburn's husband said that he'd shoot his stepson McCluskey if he saw him again.

"I told the U.S Marshals I haven't got that long to live," Jack Washburn said. "(I'd) serve my time."

"You think you're Bonnie and Clyde," he continued, referring to the two escapees. " You're not. No comparison."

After the break, the inmates and the accomplice abducted two truck drivers at gunpoint on Interstate 40 outside of Kingman, Arizona, and hijacked their 18-wheeler, according to the Mohave County sheriff's department in Kingman. The truck drivers and the rig were released five hours later in Flagstaff, about 135 miles to the east.

The fugitives were later believed to be driving a 2002 silver Volkswagen Jetta purchased last Saturday in Phoenix. They were later spotted on a security camera in a bank inside a grocery store in Goodyear, Arizona, according to

Barrett Marson, spokesman for the Arizona Department of Corrections.

Henman said Sunday he didn't know what transportation the escapees were thought to have taken to the Yellowstone area.

CNN's Chuck Johnston contributed to this report.

ASPC-Kingman Escape: Medium security killers still loose.

(FYI: McCluskey and Welch arrested in AZ 8/19/10 post)


This is a fascinating article from Kingman. Here, by the way, is the ADC record of a state-held, non-violent prisoner (who was given a ludricrous 52 years) and is currently assessed as a medium security risk. His threat level is such because he's a jailhouse lawyer, not because he's really "dangerous". Now compare him to Province and McCluskey. The ranking system seems designed to protect the prisons first, not the communities who host them.

So, if you're entertaining CCA, GEO, MTC, Corplan, or Cornell in your neighborhood thinking they'll bring good jobs and being told that your new prison is just going have non-violent offenders, forget it (check out these guys out if I missed you local prison profiteer). The pay is dirt, the security is poor, and rehab - at both state and private facilities - is really a thing of the past. We may put more into them than we do for education here, but Arizona prisons are just warehouses where they throw the vulnerable in with the deadly, evidently spending our resources covering their own asses, not protecting ours. They sure aren't spending it on their prisoners' well-being...

117 killers housed in Golden Valley

Erin Taylor

Kingman Daily Miner Staff Reporter

8/8/2010 6:01:00 AM

KINGMAN - Johnathan Doody was found guilty 17 years ago of killing nine people at a Phoenix-area Buddhist Temple. The victims were robbed, lined up and shot execution-style.

Doody was one of two men convicted in the 1991 killings, which remains one of the worst mass-murders in Arizona history. Since June 30, he has been housed at the Arizona State Prison Complex-Kingman in Golden Valley.

As of the end of June, there were 117 murderers serving out life sentences at the Kingman prison. Of those, 57 have been convicted of first-degree murder.

Statewide, some 1,400 inmates are serving time for murder in medium-security facilities. Of those, 796 are serving life sentences.

Much of the anger over last week's prison escape came from the fact that the three men who escaped were all violent offenders convicted of either murder or attempted murder. Residents said that when the prison was built in 2004, they were told that it would house only DUI and other low-level offenders. That belief was officially debunked after it was learned that the three inmates who escaped more than a week ago all share violent criminal histories.

John McCluskey was serving a 15-year sentence for attempted murder after shooting at someone through the window of a Mesa home in 2009. He reportedly told police that he would have killed the man, along with the arresting police officer, if his shotgun hadn't jammed.

Tracy Province was sentenced to life in prison for first-degree murder and armed robbery after stabbing a man 51 times in 1991.

Daniel Renwick, the inmate captured in Colorado two days after the escape, was serving two consecutive 22-year sentences for shooting and killing his 19-year-old ex-girlfriend and her father in 2000.

The Kingman facility, which opened in 2004, is one of four privately-run prisons in the state. The Arizona Department of Corrections operates 10 others.

The Utah-based Management and Training Corporation operates the Kingman and Marana prisons.

The Kingman prison is classified as a minimum-to-medium security facility. Many individuals are unaware that someone serving out a sentence for murder can be classified as medium custody, a practice common not only in Arizona but also in neighboring states California and New Mexico, according to Barrett Marson, public information officer for the ADOC.

Marson said that it's possible for inmates to work their way down the levels of custody based on good behavior and how many years of a sentence have been served.

According to the ADOC, inmates sentenced to death are classified as "maximum" and can never reduce levels.

Inmates sentenced to life must serve at least two years in maximum custody, then three years in "close" custody before they are eligible for medium custody. Close custody is one level below maximum and just above medium custody and is reserved for those inmates who pose a high risk to prison staff.

Those serving life sentences can never be reduced to below the medium custody level.

Inmates with more than five years to serve or those with a felony sex conviction can also never be placed below medium custody.

Inmates who have been determined to be a security threat are classified as maximum custody.

Marson said there is a specific department at ADOC devoted to determining when and how an inmate is reclassified from level to level, but he didn't know if a representative from that department meets with the inmate in person, or if the process is all done through paperwork.

Only minimum-custody inmates are allowed to work outside of the prison on community work crews. Medium-security inmates are not allowed to leave the facility but can participate in other programs, such as the Friends From the Pen dog-training program, in which both McCluskey and Province worked.

It is believed that the escaped inmates took advantage of the unlocked doors between their dormitory and the outside dog run used for the dogs in the program. McCluskey's fiancée, 44-year-old Casslyn Welch, was waiting in a getaway vehicle and tossed the men a pair of wire cutters over the perimeter fence.

ADOC Director Charles Ryan has said he suspects that "lax security" on the part of prison personnel contributed to the escape.

Ryan met Wednesday with MTC officials.

"We have been assured that MTC is committed to addressing and correcting the security deficiencies that contributed to the escape," he said in a news release. "An Arizona Department of Corrections security team is at the private prison conducting a comprehensive operational evaluation."

Attempts made by the Miner to speak with Ryan have been unsuccessful.

The officials will meet again next week. MTC has deferred comment on the escape to ADOC.

Province and McCluskey are still believed to be with Welch. Marson said authorities believe the trio have left Arizona and are headed east.

As for Doody, he is appealing his 281-year sentence. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals earlier this year threw out his confession on grounds it was involuntary and forwarded the case to the U.S. Supreme Court, where it awaits ruling.

Kingman escapees suspected in N.M. murders.

(FYI: McCluskey and Welch arrested in AZ 8/19/10 post. All escapees back in custody.)


This is one profoundly sad and gruesome answer to my question about whose expense the profit for the private prison industry comes at. For those just tuning in, I'm including the background to this AP story, as narrated in an e-mail by my friend from the Private Corrections Working Group, where you can find more information about the for-profit prison industry. They have me on a list-serve to keep us posted about these things. Even the people of Kingman and the families of these men's victims can't seem to count on the industry or the state to inform them.

Thanks for the heads-up, Frank. Look out America - they're still on the run.

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This is unbelievably tragic.

The MTC for-profit prison in Golden Valley (near Kingsburg) Arizona had an escape on Friday, July 30th, some time after 4:00 p.m. Although alarms signaling a cut fence went off, an incredibly brutal trio, two murderers and an attempted murderer, were not missed until the 9:00 p.m. count. The prison further delayed notifying the Mojave County Sheriff's office until 10:19. MTC only notified the state Department of Corrections at 11:37 p.m.

A perimeter guard had come upon the escapees' woman confederate, Casslyn Mae Welch, who is thought to have tossed wire cutters over the fence. She diverted the guard's attention from the escape by asking for directions to Flagstaff.

Sometime around midnight Friday, two escapees John (Charles) McCluskey, Tracy Province and Welch hijacked a semi with two drivers and drove it to Flagstaff, 150 miles away, arriving around 5:00 a.m. on Saturday. They left the terrified drivers unharmed and fled via unknown means.

Early on Saturday morning, I was notified by a reporter who had heard about the escape from a family member of another inmate. She had searched the Internet in vain for any mention of the incredibly brutal escapees. It wasn't until over 12 hours after the men fled that some broadcast media began to pick it up on their websites.

The neighbors of the prison in Golden Valley and Kingsburg were not notified, many not becoming aware that they might still have the escapees in their midst until seeing it on television on Sunday morning.

The third escapee, Daniel Renwick, who had split off, was captured after a chase and gun battle in Rifle, Colorado on Sunday.

The Payson, Arizona mother of McCluskey, one of the pair who remained free was arrested today for her alleged part in the escape. She is the maternal aunt of Welch, who was engaged to marry McCluskey, her first cousin.

Meanwhile, the three continued on through apparent changes of vehicles to New Mexico where they kidnapped and murdered a 61-year-old couple from Tecumseh, Oklahoma, stealing their car and abandoning it in Albuquerque, and cremating their bodies in Santa Rosa, New Mexico, near highway intersections to Kansas, Texas and Oklahoma.

No further information has been received about what direction they may have taken from there.

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Arizona prison escapees linked to N.M. killings

By AMANDA LEE MYERS

The Associated Press (As reported in the Salt Lake Tribune)

August 7, 2010 09:26PM

Phoenix • Two men who escaped from a private Arizona prison and a woman thought to have helped them have been linked to the investigation of a couple’s killing in New Mexico, authorities said Saturday.

New Mexico State Police spokesman Peter Olson said Tracy Province, John McCluskey and Casslyn Welch were linked through forensics but he declined to provide specifics.

He declined to say whether police believe the three were responsible for the killings, adding that “we don’t know how involved they are.”

Province, McCluskey and Daniel Renwick escaped from the medium-security Arizona State Prison near Kingman on July 30 after authorities say 44-year-old Casslyn Welch of Mesa threw wire cutters over the perimeter fence. Renwick was arrested in Colorado on Aug. 1. The prison is managed by Management & Training Corp. of Centerville.

The badly burned skeletal remains of Linda and Gary Haas, both 61, of Tecumseh, Okla., were found in a charred camper on Wednesday morning on a remote ranch in Santa Rosa in eastern New Mexico.

Olson said a car belonging to the couple was found 100 miles west in Albuquerque on Wednesday afternoon.

The Arizona Department of Corrections says the three men escaped by cutting a hole in the prison’s perimeter fence and later kidnapping two semi-truck drivers at gunpoint and using the big rig to flee. The group left the drivers unharmed in the truck at a stop just off Interstate 40 in Flagstaff and then fled.

Province was serving a life sentence for murder and robbery out of Pima County. McCluskey was serving a 15-year prison term for attempted second-degree murder, aggravated assault and discharge of a firearm out of Maricopa County. Renwick had been serving a 22-year sentence for second-degree murder.

A nationwide search was under way for McCluskey, Province and Welch, and “America’s Most Wanted” planned to air a segment about the group. The group may be using a 1997 platinum gold Nissan Sentra with Arizona license plate 6-2-0-P-F-V.

Thomas Henman, supervisory deputy with the U.S. Marshals Service in Phoenix, said the group should be considered “extremely dangerous,” and urged the public to be very careful if they spot them and call authorities immediately.

“These are hardened criminals, and they’re armed,” he said. “And the longer they are out there, the more desperate they become and the more dangerous they become.”

He said the Marshals Service is working feverishly to find the group.

“Eventually they will be caught,” he said. “Obviously we want that to be sooner rather than later.”

Meanwhile Saturday, the Marshals Service arrested McCluskey’s mother in Jakes Corner south of Payson, Ariz., after authorities suspect she gave financial and other types of support to help McCluskey, Province and Welch on their flight from authorities.

Claudia Washburn, 68, was arrested at her home and place of business on charges of conspiracy to commit escape, hindering prosecution and facilitation to commit escape.