Incarceration is Violence: snapshots from ASPC-EYMAN/Meadows.

I recently took AZ DOC Director Chuck Ryan to task about sending the sex offenders to Red Rock to decrease the over-crowding on those units before the other medium security yards where race riots are breaking out, simply because I so seldom hear about violence coming out of places like ASPC-EYMAN/Meadows. I also accused him of making a big deal of "routine" staff assaults of late in order to justify continuing to build his totally unnecessary $50 million Supermax prison at Lewis complex. I stand corrected, now, sorry to say, in light of what has recently happened. Besides, no assault is "routine" to the person who is the victim of one. I know, having survived quite a bit of violence in my life myself.

I've been hearing from employees and former employees of the AZ DOC in the wake of the sexual assault of a teacher on the Meadows unit at ASPC-Eyman this week- they are livid. There's some contention over what "fully-staffed" means. Some officers seem to feel as if not only is Meadows under-staffed, this teacher never should have ended up alone in a room with these particular prisoners. Meadows is the unit designated for housing about 1100 medium security sex offenders, about 330 of whom appear to be in "temporary" beds. That means the yard is a bit full. 

The opening of Red Rock didn't help relieve pressure on staff and prisoners at Meadows much, unfortunately, though I don't know how directly that would have impacted this situation with the teacher's assault. It appears they moved prisoners from Cook to Red Rock first, as that was the most over-crowded yard. Meadows should be next, I would think.

In any case, my apoligies if I have seemed to minimize staff assaults. No one's safety in prison is more or less important than another's by virtue of whether they wear orange, brown, or civies. The assault rate on staff appears to have been decreasing at the same time it's actually increasing among prisoners, nevertheless the staff are still so upset about the way the DOC has failed to address their safety concerns that one of the officers' unions, the Arizona Corrections Association, has dragged Judicial Watch into it - they're demanding records for an investigation. 

What I hear most from the sex offender yards, actually, is not how vicious the other prisoners are or how violent the gangs are (they really don't seem to run the SO yards), but how cruel some of the officers are.  Here's an excerpt from a man who was homeless, mentally ill, and an easy target for police when arrested and prosecuted for the rape and murder of an 88-year old woman over a decade ago. Even the Arizona Justice Project tried to get the DNA evidence re-examined because they believe he was wrongfully-convicted, for some reason the judge wouldn't allow it. 

" i have been There hrassed and ThreaTed by STaff and inmaTes asaltied  by STaff and ThreaTing black and blue marks on my arm For 30 Days and  For whaT because I senT in a inmaTe LeTTer or a grievance on STaff or  a inmaTe. No Help with it. My Cell maTe Said noT to Say any Thing  abouT. Time I am mad and and write a inmaTe Letter or grievance about  it All it dose is geT STaff mad a you and Then Tell everyone To Harass you They mess up your mail or your indigent or HNRS inmate LeTTers They are LosT or ? you donT geT your RefiLL meds. your Food is mess with They spit in it or mess it up They put some Thing in you Food. mae Time I did NoT EAT because of it. you donT get yourr maiL They Throw it somewhere and maybe if some one funds it you met get it Back. your maiL, or your mail is being given To a inmaTe ? He dans whaT He want with it He reads your maiL and Throws it away. ? or when They Take you To The Shower. They go in your Cell and Take Things or brake Things of yours your T.V. your Radio.... 

I wanT no more of This I wanT Peace. To be in Peace. I am Sorry. I want to go home. or. I want to go home soon I Pray I go home, I am innocent of this crime. Look at it. "


So here sits this possibly innocent man in prison, and yet most Americans would look at his crime, and say "good riddance" in response to his grievances - and the officers perpetrating this garbage on him know it. That kind of relentless abuse meted out to certain prisoners by guards who think they deserve torture on top of imprisonment isn't uncommon, nor is it limited to the sex offenders. 

Never mind that an estimated 8-15% of  convicted sex offenders, in one DNA-based exoneration study, may well be innocent. We too often presume that the "truth" comes out in the prosecution process and no one is in prison unless they're definitely guilty. Not that the possibility we are punishing "the innocent" in prison too harshly should be the only reason not to torture prisoners in America - torture should be banned regardless of the status of one's guilt or inocence.

Some officers I hear about over and over again are exacting their own kind of justice from prisoners, only it seems their abuse can never be "substantiated" when formal complaints are made, so they remain in positions of power - some even get promoted. I believe the heirarchy in those places encourages brutality by consistently failing to substantiate it. They know they can get away with hurting those guys, too, as there will be no public outcry in their defense.

As another example, last April the Meadows' Tactical Support Unit was called on to do a shakedown (thorough search for contraband) of the unit, during which several of the prisoners allege that that the TSU officers pushed them around aggressively and used racial epithets. Several prisoners from that yard also reported that a deaf prisoner was beaten by guards because he couldn't hear the orders being barked at him and respond fast enough. According to one witness, when the officers took him to medical to treat him for the injuries they inflicted on him, the nurse naturally asked what happened. "He fell," the TSU officers laughed.  Of course, in their own  incident reports - amended after the prisoners complained - the guards assert that they used the "least amount of force necessary to gain compliance" from the deaf guy, and mention nothing about him going to medical. The DOC asserts every one of their officers conducted themselves professionally. That kind of unjust treatment of prisoners can cause serious resentment and thus endangers all staff, ultimately.

Meadows was also recently the subject of concern about how the prisoners' mental health needs are being attended to - they were essentially rounded up, chained like animals, and taken to a mass video-psych eval this fall, which sounds like its a coomon practice, actually.  I often hear complaints from there about poor health care access as well.

In any case, my thoughts and healing wishes do go out to this teacher who was so brutally assaulted, and to the rest of the staff and prisoners at the DOC who have been victims of violence behind bars. If we counted the crimes perpetrated against people in prison with the community's statistics, the crime rates of those communities would be much higher and we might have to address them differently - like redistribute victim assistance resources, among other things. In fact, if crime against people in prison was reported as such, the USA would have the highest male-on-male rate of rape in the world. Think about that as you contemplate how necessary prisons are to contain and rehabilitate young drug offenders, check bouncers, or people who smuggled themselves into the country to find a decent job and support their family, for example. 

Bottom line is that prisons are heteropatriarchal, misogynistic institutions run entirely on violence and the threat of it. Prisons are designed to inflict harm on people's minds and lives without leaving a mark on their bodies, hidden in the shadows and margins of our social fabirc so the rest of us can sleep at night, certain that only the purest system of Justice is what lets Freedom ring in America for the rest of us. In truth, the US justice system works only for the privileged few, trials are contests between opposing attorneys, not effective methods of discovering truth, and prisons are essentially horribly dangerous places to both live and work. Those of you who clamor for a new prison in your town may want to reconsider how much these jobs are really the kind you want your children and grandchildren to grow into.  

In light of the above, our judiciary should really reconsider how many more drug addicts, sex workers, and homeless mentally ill people they want to throw into the lion's den. Many will simply be further victimized and traumatized, few will be able to afford to pay to get their GED or pursue other educational options in state prison, only 4% will ever get any kind of substance abuse treatment in there to rehabilitate themselves, and over 40% of prisoners are coming out infected with Hep C, a good many with new addictions to boot.
(See Corrections at a Glance for stats on substance abuse treatment, HEP C, and the reasons people are in prison)

Overcrowded? Don't build new prisons: Send low-risk elders home.

Vikki Law is the author of several publications, including Resistance Behind Bars: The Struggles of Incarcerated Women." and "Don't leave your friends behind: Concrete ways to support families in social justice movements and communities." She also compiles art and literature from women in prison for a zine, "Tenacious". Here she examines some of the different strategies being used to address the large number of elderly people behind bars in America. I wish AZ legislators would take a lesson from this. AZ DOC director Chuck Ryan himself has a lot of discretion right now to release certain low-risk prisoners and suport sentencing reform - his preference is to build more prisons, instead.

And no, neither the governor nor the legislature has shown they have any intention of implementing an early release bill or modifying the Truth in Sentencing law this year, sorry to say. Vote in a new batch next year and we might have better luck.

--------from Truthout.org-------

"If the Risk Is Low, Let Them Go": Efforts to Resolve the Growing Numbers of Aging Behind Bars

Sunday, 19 January 2014 00:00  
By Victoria Law, 
Truthout | News Analysis

Imagine your grandparents and great-grandparents in shackles or dying behind bars. By 2030, the prison population age 55 and over is predicted to be 4,400 percent more than what it was in 1981. Some state and federal prison systems look at alternatives.
 
The recent release of 74-year-old Lynne Stewart has made headlines. Stewart, who was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2005, was granted compassionate release December 31, 2013, after a protracted struggle by Stewart and supporters across the country. Stewart, whose cancer has spread to her lungs, lymph system and bones, will spend her remaining months with her family in Brooklyn.

But what about the aging and infirm people incarcerated nationwide who lack Stewart's fame and support? The United States has some 125,000 prisoners age 55 and older, quadruple the number in 1995. Various human rights groups, including the ACLU, Human Rights Watch and the Vera Institute of Justice have issued warnings about the increased numbers of aging, elderly and incapacitated behind bars. In response to these increases, several states, such as Kansas, Mississippi and Tennessee, are in the process of building hospice and geriatric units within their prison systems.

But what other solutions are there?

"If the Risk is Low, Let Them Go"

In New York, advocates - including formerly incarcerated people - have launched the Release Aging People in Prison (RAPP) campaign. More than 9,200 people (nearly 17 percent) imprisoned in New York are 50 or older. While the state's prison population dropped this past decade - from 71,466 in 2000 to 56,315 in 2011 - the number of people 50 and older has increased by 64 percent. Lead organizer Mujahid Farid knows the obstacles facing people seeking parole. Farid was arrested in 1978 and sentenced to 15 years to life for an attempted murder. By the time he was eligible for parole in 1993, he had earned four college degrees as well as certificates for numerous other programs. None of these accomplishments mattered. He was denied parole based on his 1978 conviction. Farid appeared before the parole board ten times over the next 18 years before he was granted parole in 2011.

"I realized it wasn't personal," he told Truthout. "They're not looking at your personal development. They're simply looking at your conviction." After his release, Farid met with advocates, including other formerly incarcerated people, to discuss how to overcome the hurdle within the parole system. Out of these discussions came RAPP.  Under the slogan "If the risk is low, let them go," RAPP mobilizes to change the routine in which parole and compassionate release are denied to those who have spent decades in New York's state prisons.

Laura Whitehorn spent 14 years in the federal prison system. "I've had friends who have died in prison," she told Truthout. "It's heartbreaking." Because the federal Bureau of Prisons is under no obligation to house prisoners close to their communities, family members often are unable to see dying loved ones incarcerated across the country. Those able to make the journey have limited visiting - and always with an armed guard in the room. "Kids need to be pat-searched to visit their parents and grandparents," Whitehorn remembered.
Farid and Whitehorn note that, in New York state, releasing many aging prisoners does not require new legislation. A 2011 executive law directed the parole board to begin using risk-assessment tools when making decisions, but the Division of Parole did not post new regulations complying with the law until December 18, 2013. "The risk of committing a new crime is about 5 percent for older people, compared with an overall recidivism rate of nearly 40 percent," Farid stated. "If the parole board followed the law, many of the men and women would safely be released, saving millions of dollars a year in unnecessary medical and custodial costs."

One of RAPP's first initiatives has been a public education campaign. "A lot of activities going on with parole are so outrageous, but [parole board members] get away with it because the public doesn't know," Farid said. RAPP volunteers have visited churches and community boards. The response has been positive. The Queens Federation of Churches has agreed to support RAPP's campaign. Churchgoers have attended RAPP's monthly meetings and invited RAPP volunteers to theirs. Whitehorn approached her local community board, which has a committee on aging. "I thought they'd say, 'Oh, no! Not another thing to take on!' But they jumped at it," she recalled. Another time, she spoke about RAPP at a panel on the Affordable Care Act at a geriatric home. People flocked to her table to sign RAPP's petition to the parole board. Whitehorn distinctly remembers one woman with a cane, who told her, "I don't like the idea of people like me being in prison."

The California Elderly and Elderly-Lifer Alternative Custody Program

In California, Jane Dorotik has been pushing for an elderly alternative custody program. Inside its prison system, prisoners age 55 or older increased by more than 500 percent between 1990 and 2009. According to Human Rights Watch, that number is projected to increase to 15 percent of California's prison population by 2019.

In 2012, having seen the effects of keeping aging people in prison, Dorotik, who has been incarcerated since 2001, drafted a proposal for an elderly and elderly-lifer alternative custody program. Dorotik notes that lifers (those serving life sentences) now represent one-fifth of the state's prison. She also notes that many, particularly those in the women's prison population, have been sentenced for a single action committed many years ago and that lifers have an 18 percent chance of being granted parole.

Unlike RAPP, Dorotik is not pushing for parole. Instead, she is advocating that people 55 or older be released under supervision, including ankle monitoring. They remain under the custody of the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) and can be returned to prison at any time. Dorotik proposes a pilot program at the California Institute for Women, where she is housed, for those age 55 and older. In addition to age, women must:

- Have been incarcerated for at least seven years or 50 percent of their sentence (whichever is greater).
- Have no previous history of felony convictions.
- Have had no serious disciplinary actions against them in the last five years.
- And have secured placement in the community.

Dorotik notes that nearly 140 people at CIW are over 55. Each costs $138,000 per year to keep behind bars. The vast majority of these "Golden Girls" meet the above criteria.

But it's not just the financial cost that concerns Dorotik. She's seen the human cost of keeping the aging people imprisoned. In 2006, Dorotik wrote an open letter to state legislators urging them to expand the use of compassionate release. "Compassionate release is an available alternative to dying alone and isolated behind prison walls," she wrote, "but it is almost never granted by the CDCR bureaucracy." She pointed to the (then-recent) death of 63-year-old Annie Castiglione, who had been sentenced to Life without the Possibility of Parole. "She was a model prisoner and spent her years behind bars helping others. She died the other evening alone and overlooked in the prison's skilled nursing facility. ...

"Take a moment now and remind yourself how it must feel to die alone," Dorotik urged. "In fact, take only slightly more than a moment - take 93 seconds of silence. That is one second for every day Annie waited hoping compassionate release might be granted."

More recently, Dorotik has described other women languishing behind bars in their 70s and 80s. Seventy-one-year-old Doris, for example, recently spent 61 days in administrative segregation (a punitive form of solitary confinement) after an officer found an additional two to three rolls of toilet paper in her cell. "As Doris got up to placate the yelling [correctional officer], she may have touched the CO's arm. After all," Dorotik reflected, "balance at age 71 is sometimes a problem. All the women in the hallway verified there was no 'assault,' and the CO continued to search for excess toilet paper for another ten cells and half an hour before alleging the assault." When he did, Doris was sent to segregation. An assault charge was placed on her record.

That assault charge now eliminates any chance that Doris may have had when appearing before the parole board, increasing the chance that Doris may die behind bars. Dorotik also recounted the story of Helen, another Golden Girl whom the parole board refused to release. Sentenced to life for transporting money for her son, Helen spent the last years of her life with failing kidneys. "She was taken out twice a week for dialysis treatment, hands and feet shackled, a guard on each side of her." When Helen, at age 85, appeared before the parole board, the board deemed her a risk to public safety because she "didn't have firm enough employment plans." The following year, at age 86, Helen died alone and unnoticed in prison.

Unlike RAPP's efforts, Dorotik's Alternative Custody Program will require new legislation. She has reached out to and been working with advocacy groups such as Californians United for a Responsible Budget, JusticeNow and Legal Services for Prisoners with Children to push her proposal. Advocates from these groups have met with California legislators, including Senator Carol Liu, who drafted California's first Alternative Custody Program.

How Connecticut Is Addressing Its Aging Prison Population

Currently and formerly incarcerated people and prisoner rights advocates are not the only ones pushing for releasing elderly people in prison. As of January 6, 2014, Connecticut's Department of Correction (DOC), which is responsible for its local jails and state prisons, held 387 people ages 60 and over. "Many have cognitive impairments," described Dr. Kathleen Maurer, DOC's director of health services, at the Health Behind Bars conference in October 2013. Some require round-the-clock care.

Instead of building assisted-living or nursing homes within its prison system, Connecticut lawmakers passed legislation in 2012 allowing the DOC commissioner the discretion to release the severely incapacitated for "palliative and end-of-life" care. Faced with the challenge of where to place people whose lengthy sentences had eroded family ties, the state's Department of Corrections (DOC) and Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services (DMHAS) partnered to contract with a privately run home specifically for their populations. The result was 60 West - a 90-bed nursing home in Rocky Hill, a city south of Hartford.

Although 60West accepts patients only from DOC and DHMAS, Maurer is quick to point out that 60West is not a prison. "It's not run by DOC," she emphasized during her presentation at the October 2013 Health Behind Bars conference. "A parole officer supervises the people [released from] DOC, but there are no correctional officers. It's run exactly like any other nursing home in the state."

To qualify for release into 60West, an incarcerated person must meet one of these criteria:

- Be at the end of his or her sentence with no other option for housing or care.
- Have a prognosis of six months or less.
- Have served half of his/her sentence and have a terminal or incapacitating illness.

Each person also must pass several assessments, including a medical evaluation and a criminogenic risk assessment, including a review of the need for a nursing-home level of care with the expectation of requiring long-term placement; a review of historical factors requiring placement at 60West; and the ability to be safely managed in a nursing home. The DOC commissioner makes the final decision on release. "Once they leave the facility, they're not prisoners. They're residents of the nursing home," Maurer said.

In addition to allowing people to live their last months or years outside of prison, 60West has enabled the state to transfer the cost of care from DOC to Medicaid. "Eighty to 90 percent of our incarcerated population would be Medicaid-eligible," Maurer stated. However, because jails and prisons are required to provide medical care, incarcerated people are not eligible for Medicaid coverage unless they undergo treatment in an outside medical facility for 24 hours or longer.

Beginning in April 2010, Connecticut extended Medicaid benefits under the Medicaid for Low-Income Adults (LIA) program. "Eligibility for LIA was 56% of the federal poverty level and there was no asset test," Mary Mason, the DMHAS public relations manager, explained in an email to Truthout. "Since April 2010, many individuals being discharged from prison were able to access expedited LIA eligibility. This allowed Connecticut to receive 50% reimbursement for services that had previously been 100% state funded."

Given that the patients at 60West are no longer incarcerated, Connecticut is able to apply Medicaid funding to their care. "The level of care being provided by DOC in infirmaries can be more appropriately and less expensively provided in a nursing home setting," Mason pointed out. Since its opening in spring 2013, 30 people have been released from Connecticut's prison system to live their last days at 60West. There are currently ten patients who had been DOC prisoners at 60West. Despite concerns of Rocky Hill locals, Maurer added, there have been no incidents.

"By 2030, the prison population aged 55 and over is predicted to be 4,400 percent more than what it was in 1981," Laura Whitehorn pointed out. "Everyone should picture their grandparents and great-grandparents. Now imagine them in shackles. Imagine them handcuffed to their walkers. Imagine them dying behind bars."

Build communities: NOT prisons OR jails!

 The AZ DOC only provides substance abuse treatment to 4% of prisoners a year, 

though, according to them, 75% of prisoners are committed to their care due to drug-related crimes.

We could just stop throwing people in prison for BS like prostitution, addiction, and mental illness, and we wouldn't need new prisons OR fatter jails. In fact, we could even start tearing some down - it's really astonishing how many people are in prison for smoking pot and selling blow jobs. Consider the waste of resources that represents, at over $20,000/year per prisoner - not to mention the violence we are doing to those people's lives for such petty crimes.

Unfortunately, the AZ DOC wouldn't be guaranteeing 90% occupancy if it wasn't for Arizona's mandatory minimums and "truth in sentencing" laws. The DOC director also has a lot of discretion to release people early that he seldom exercises - plenty of minimum security prisoners could be safely monitored in the community who he just won't facilitate more early release for.

It appears that the AZ DOC definitely prefers incarceration over correction, too, as only 4% of their prisoners are able to access any substance abuse treatment while in custody. That's problematic, given that the yards are flooded with heroin these days (devastating in light of the Hep C epidemic). For the most part, the state prisons are being pretty violently run by racialized politics and gangs. 

Even though 25% of their prisonrs are receiving some kind of mental health "treatment" (most often subtherapeutic levels of psychotropic drugs, by all appearances), treatment of the seriously mentally ill is being neglected, and many turn to street drugs to self-medicate When they get caught, they aren't placed in a dual diagnosis treatment program - they're thrown in the hole and lose their vistiation and phone calls with those who would otherwise help them stay sane. There they often begin to self-destruct...some guys actually set themselves on fire after too long in solitary, which is where most suicides occur.

All that's to say that if the AZ Judiciary really wants anyone to  stop using drugs or "get well", they'd better do everything they can to keep from sending them to our state prisons. And if the AZ public wants to save money on incarceration, its time we drop the mandatory minimums and truth-in-sentencing laws.

-------------

Arizona sheriffs assail costs of private prisons

Officials: County jails cheaper option

By Craig Harris The Republic | azcentral.com  

Sat Jan 11, 2014 10:30 PM

 

Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio and other Arizona sheriffs’ offices say the state is needlessly spending money to move inmates to a new private prison when they could be held in county facilities for millions of dollars less per year.


Arpaio and sheriffs’ offices in Apache, Pinal, Cochise, Navajo and Santa Cruz counties said they would be willing to take Department of Corrections prisoners after The Arizona Republic reported that the state this month would begin housing inmates at the privately held Red Rock Correctional Center near Eloy. The state guarantees owner Corrections Corporation of America a profit with an occupancy rate of at least 90 percent at the new facility.

CCA has become the third private-prison operator for Corrections, which has received direction from the Republican-controlled Legislature and Gov. Jan Brewer to use private facilities to ease prison overcrowding.
But in the continuing debate over private prisons, critics — including Arpaio and other sheriffs — say those facilities are a waste of state resources and funnel tax dollars into the bottom line of companies that pay their top executives seven figures.

“The state should be supporting the counties and not try competing against them,” said Brannon Eager, the Apache County sheriff’s chief deputy. “It’s obvious the existing sheriffs’ jails could house inmates cheaper than private prisons.”

Arpaio says he has plenty of room in Tent City, but he wouldn’t make available individual TVs for inmates, which is one of the state’s requirements.

“I’m totally against private prisons. Private prisons want to make money. If they could get more people in by giving them ice cream and cake, they would do it,” Arpaio said.

The six sheriffs said they could provide at least 1,750 beds, which exceeds the number of beds the state has contracted with CCA in Eloy. But the Department of Corrections said it’s not interested in spreading its inmates in county jails around Arizona.

Corrections spokesman Doug Nick said it’s unlikely jails can provide the same kind of education and rehabilitation programs. He also said all able- bodied inmates have work opportunities in state and private prisons.

“Our job is to incarcerate prisoners. If we can work with the counties, we will, but we need to manage our inmate population with our programs,” Nick said. “A county sheriff’s office is not designed to be a mini Department of Corrections. They have mostly people who have not been convicted of a crime as they are going through a trial process.”

A spokesman for Nashville-based CCA agreed.

“Long-term felons have much different needs than those in a jail,” said Steve Owen. “They are talking about three hots (meals) and a cot. ... But those offenders are not going to get the same level of rehabilitation.”

But Navajo County Sheriff K.C. Clark said Corrections wasn’t providing jobs for 50 state inmates before they were housed in Holbrook for about seven months. Clark said he put the inmates to work. He also complied with the Corrections mandate that state inmates be offered individual TVs in their cells with cable access.

“They have more rights than a county inmate,” Clark said.

Clark said he was especially upset when those state inmates were transferred from his jail late last month, just days before the new Red Rock facility opened, taking away a revenue source. Nick confirmed that the state inmates were taken from Navajo County because Red Rock opened, freeing space for hundreds of prisoners within Corrections’ facilities.

“Now that we have capacity at Red Rock, we no longer needed the temporary contract,” Nick said.

The sheriff said the state is paying CCA 32 percent more than the $49.44 daily per-inmate rate that Navajo County received.

“The bottom line is when the state says it needs more money, then why is it paying more?” Clark said. “It’s wrong.”

Nick countered that the cost at Red Rock is higher because of the education, work and substance-abuse programs being offered there.

But Arpaio said counties can provide those programs at less cost.

“I have the best drug-prevention program in the United States, and I have a high school. My rehabilitation program I will stack with DOC or anyone around the country,” Arpaio said.

Easing overcrowding

The Legislature expanded the state’s reliance on private prisons in August 2012, when Corrections awarded a contract to CCA to house up to 1,000 medium-security inmates at Red Rock.

At the end of last year, Corrections said there were about 5,000 inmates sleeping in temporary beds in state facilities.

The state, within six weeks, plans to have at least 500 prisoners at Red Rock. Corrections Director Charles Ryan said he will seek legislative approval to fill the remaining 500 beds in 2014 instead of next year, as previously planned, to alleviate overcrowding elsewhere in the system.

CCA is the third private-prison operator for Arizona, which has about one-sixth of its 40,938-inmate population in private prisons across the state. The other operators are the GEO Group Inc. and Management & Training Corp.

CCA and GEO are publicly traded companies, required by law to disclose the compensation of executives. Management & Training Corp. is privately held and does not release such information.

Damon Hininger, chief executive of CCA, has a total annual compensation of $2.7 million, while George Zoley, chairman and chief executive of GEO, has a total annual compensation of $5.9 million.

Corrections guarantees occupancy rates of 90 to 100 percent for all private prisons, meaning it will transfer inmates out of state-operated facilities and into the private prisons until the minimum occupancy is met.

Arizona taxpayers, for the fiscal year that ended June 30, 2013, spent $133.8 million on five private minimum-security prison facilities and two medium-security prisons. Taxpayers spent $816.9 million on nine public- prison complexes and three specialized units that house minimum- to maximum-security inmates.

Cost savings claimed

Gov. Brewer’s office and some lawmakers say private prisons save taxpayers money by having lower operating costs. They add that the companies cover the up-front construction costs for the facilities, which are turned over to the state after 20 years.

“It’s not exactly breaking news that the private sector can provide public services in a faster and less-expensive way than a government bureaucracy,” said Andrew Wilder, Brewer’s spokesman. “A private correctional facility provides a good option for the state. The state can quickly obtain long-term (private) correctional beds, programming and security that the jails don’t have.”

But private prisons house only minimum- and medium-security inmates who typically are healthy and don’t have mental-health problems, which lowers their health-care costs. The state, meanwhile, has higher health-care costs because it houses some inmates with serious and chronic health-care problems.

When the health costs are equitably factored, the state’s costs at medium- security prisons are lower than private prisons, according to a Corrections analysis.

Clark questioned how valuable a private prison will be for the state after 20 years of operation.


“Those facilities are running 24 hours a day, seven days a week. The infrastructure will break down and the technology will change,” the sheriff said.

A Corrections study found it was less expensive in 2008, 2009 and 2010 to house inmates in state-run, medium- security facilities compared with similar in-state private facilities.

As critics of private prisons used those statistics to show it was less costly for the state to house inmates, the Republican-controlled Legislature and Brewer in 2012 repealed the law that required the Corrections Department to conduct such a study.

Rep. John Kavanagh, an influential Republican legislator from Fountain Hills, said the studies were stopped because they were misleading.

Clark and sheriffs from four other counties said they could provide similar services to the state for less than the $65.43 daily rate per inmate being paid to CCA for prisoners at Red Rock. Pinal County Sheriff Paul Babeu said his county’s cost would be higher because of additional programming requirements for state inmates.

Sheriffs from Coconino, Graham, Gila, Greenlee, Pima, Yavapai and Yuma counties either do not have space or are not interested in housing state inmates. The La Paz and Mohave County sheriffs could not be reached.

“It’s a whole different beast when you are dealing with people who come from prison,” said Yuma County Sheriff Leon Wilmot. “We don’t have the programs the DOC does nor do we have the resources and time to do that.”

Reach the reporter at craig.harris@arizonarepublic.com or 602-444-8478.

Morrison Institute: Less Prison, More Probation.

This from an unexpected place: The Morrison Institute. Thank you folks, for speaking up. Please do more work on this issue in the coming year in the community - don't just keep it to your academic newsletters and blogs.

--------------

Bill Hart: Time to open the prison gates?

Dec. 23, 2009

Bill Hart, Senior Policy Analyst

Another fine mess. That’s one way of describing Arizona’s overcrowded, billion-dollar prison system, so many of whose graduates — apparently uncorrected — go on to commit more crimes. “Train wreck” is another useful phrase. But it’s worth keeping in mind the one thing Arizona’s prison crisis is not: It’s not a mystery.

Nor is its solution.

Consider the twin basics of Arizona’s prison policy over the past 30 years: First, pass a bunch of laws requiring lots more convicted criminals to be sent to prison (e.g., mandatory minimum sentences); second, pass other laws making most prisoners stay inside longer (e.g. “truth-in-sentencing”).

What did we think would happen?

Arizona for years has ranked among the top 10 states in its incarceration rate, measured as the number of people locked up per 100,000 state residents. Meanwhile, in the past 30 years corrections has run up a larger percentage increase in operating spending than any other Arizona agency. Since just fiscal year 2004 we have added more than 11,000 inmates at a cost of more than $400 million.

Why the rush to lock everybody up? Some say Arizonans simply have a lust for punishment. Fans of incarceration, however, are quick to point out that crime in Arizona has declined since the 1990s. They are less quick to note that America’s leading criminal justice scholars do not agree that incarceration deserves all or even most of the credit for the crime drop. Or that crime has gone down in both states with harsher justice systems and those with milder ones. Or that Arizona continues to hold down first place among states in the rate of property crime as measured by the FBI.

In any case, we’re left with two unpleasant alternatives: Either let substantial numbers of prisoners out early, or continue to struggle through the budget mess hobbled by this billion-dollar ball and chain.

Like it or not, it’s time to open the gates. 

What about the nightmare of wanton violence that opponents warn of? Most inmates in Arizona prisons are locked up for non-violent crimes (though they might be repetitive offenders). Their most common offense by far is drug crimes, which accounted for 8,388 inmates in November, or about one-fifth of all prisoners. Next in frequency come the expected categories: assault (4,976), robbery (3,485), burglary (2,959), and murder (2,606). Then, however, comes aggravated DUI, which requires 2,188 prisoners to serve a total of four months behind bars.

 Which raises another question: Why are we going to all the trouble and expense of sending thousands of drunk drivers to prison (as opposed to jail or home arrest) for only four months? 

In fact, 39% of the total FY2008 inmate population was locked up for less than six months. Most of these are convicts who were granted probation or parole — that is, they were deemed low-risk enough to remain free or be released. Many of most were then locked up for “technical” violations, meaning they didn’t commit a new crime but perhaps missed a meeting with their probation officer or otherwise broke the rules.

It’s hard to see how releasing some of them early — and diverting many more incoming inmates to probation or jail — would pose a threat to the survival of civilization. It’s easier to see the upside: Keeping an inmate in an Arizona prison for a year averages out to around $22,000. Keeping someone on probation for a year runs slightly more than $1,000. 

No mystery here.

California Prison Riot

This riot occurred in California over the weekend, but some of the same underlying concerns are present in AZ prisons: over-crowding, limited space and opportunity for productive activity, racial/ethnic tensions, and gangs. Something for us to be mindful of here; our little melees have been nothing compared to this.

I know we're building more prison space in AZ to reduce overcrowding, but that's also to account for a similar rate of incarceration as the general population grows (1/100 adults is in jail or prison in AZ, which is about the national average).

More beds really aren't the solution; we need to decarcerate. We should just commute sentences of those in minimum security (who really aren't dangers to society) to be completed on probation, close down those beds, use some of the savings to hire PO's/train CO's as PO's to do community supervision for those released, use some of it to supplement community-based drug treatment and mental health programs for former prisoners, and use some of it to improve the remaining prison facilities.

Sounds way too simple, I know, but it can't be worse than our current trajectory.
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The Chino Prison Riot

New York Times Editorial

August 11, 2009

Around 200 inmates were injured, 55 seriously, over the weekend in an 11-hour prison riot in California that appears to have had strong racial overtones. Officials are still investigating, but a major cause is already clear: 5,900 men were being held in a facility designed for 3,000. The violence should serve as a warning to officials across the country not to try to balance state budgets by holding inmates in inhumane conditions.

California has already ignored too many warnings. In 2007, a state oversight agency declared that “California’s correctional system is in a tailspin.” That same year, a prison expert warned that the California Institution for Men in Chino, the site of the recent riot, was “a serious disturbance waiting to happen.”

Last week, just days before the riot, a three-judge federal panel ordered the state to reduce its prison population of more than 150,000 by about 40,000 within the next two years. That was the only way, the panel ruled, to bring the prison health care system up to constitutional standards.

The 184-page order painted a grim and alarming picture — with some state prison facilities at nearly 300 percent of intended capacity and some prisoners forced to sleep in triple-bunk beds in gymnasiums. “In these overcrowded conditions,” the court said, “inmate-on-inmate violence is almost impossible to prevent.”

California’s problem — like much of the nation’s — is a mismatch between its harsh sentencing policies and its willingness to pay to keep so many people locked up for so long. A few years ago, it went to the Supreme Court to defend its right, under the state’s three-strikes law, to sentence a shoplifter to 25 years to life. (that's insane!!!)

Given the serious budget problems that California is facing, there is not a lot of extra money available. The state could, however, divert offenders into drug-treatment programs and other non-prison environments, which are less expensive than incarceration and better at rehabilitation. It could also do more to give prisoners job skills and help them re-enter society — so they don’t end up back behind bars.

The riot in Chino and the federal court ruling contain the same message for state officials everywhere: they must come up with smart ways of reducing prison populations and they must do it quickly.