Another AZ Regent profits from prisons: DeConcini and CCA

I posted details on the whole CCA board awhile ago, but this one bears repeating DeConcini is also (in addition to  Anne L. Mariucci) on the AZ Board of Regents, and will help select the next University of Arizona president...

---from Corrections Corporation of America---

 

Dennis DeConcini

Dennis DeConcini, the former U.S. Senator from Arizona, was elected as an independent member of CCA's Board of Directors in February 2008. Senator DeConcini currently serves as a Director of Ceramic Protection Corporation, a publicly traded company listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange.

He is a partner in the law firm of DeConcini McDonald Yetwin and Lacy in Tucson, Arizona, which he co-founded in 1968. DeConcini also is a Principal in the lobbyist consulting firm Parry, Romani, DeConcini & Lacy P.C. in Washington, D.C. Senator DeConcini served three terms, from January 1977 through January 1995, representing the State of Arizona in the United States Senate. As Senator, he served on the Senate Appropriations Committee, where he chaired the Subcommittee on Treasury, Postal Service and General Government.

He also served on the Subcommittees of Defense, Foreign Operations, Energy and Water Development, and Interior and Related Agencies. Prior to his service as a U.S. Senator, DeConcini served one elected term as the County Attorney for Pima County, Arizona.

He also is a member of the Arizona Board of Regents, a position to which he was appointed in 2006 by Arizona Governor Janet Napolitano, and serves on the Board of Directors of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.

Senator DeConcini received his B.A. from the University of Arizona in 1959 and his L.L.D. from there in 1963. He also is a member of the Arizona Board of Regents, a position to which he was appointed in 2006 by Arizona Governor Janet Napolitano, and serves on the Board of Directors of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. Senator DeConcini received his B.A. from the University of Arizona in 1959 and his L.L.D. from there in 1963.

 -----------from the Tuscon Citizen-----------

Here's the Tucson Citizens' Three Sonorans' reporting on the significance of DeConcini's role on the AZ Board of Regents from August: 

UA Presidential search committee headed by CCA board member and former SALC president

by DA Morales on Aug. 16, 2011, under Immigration news

The puzzle becomes clearer as more pieces are put together.

One co-chair of the UA presidential search committee is the former SALC president, and the other is a board member of CCA, the Corrections Corporation of America, member of ALEC and one of the groups behind SB1070.

Arizona’s plan for the future seems to be less education funding and more prison funding. We knew this was true of the Republicans, but also of the Democrats?

Consider Arizona’s former Democratic Senator, Dennis DeConcini, who has the Border Patrol’s port of entry in Nogales named after him.

Corrections Corporation of America, the nation’s largest provider of corrections management services to government agencies, announced today that Dennis DeConcini, the former U.S. Senator from Arizona has been elected as an independent member of CCA’s Board of Directors.
“Senator Dennis DeConcini has a distinguished career serving the state of Arizona and the U.S. government,” said William F. Andrews, chairman of CCA’s Board of Directors. “We are extremely pleased to bring Dennis onto our Board. His extensive knowledge and understanding of government, coupled with his experience with other directorship positions, make him ideally suited to help lead management’s initiatives to enhance government’s utilization of public/private partnership in corrections.”

The press release goes on to say:

Senator DeConcini, age 70, is a partner in the law firm of DeConcini McDonald Yetwin and Lacy in Tucson, Arizona, which he co-founded in 1968. DeConcini also is a Principal in the lobbyist consulting firm Parry, Romani, DeConcini & Lacy P.C. in Washington, D.C.

The law firm may look familiar as it is the same law firm that TUSD has hired to defend it against Huppenthal’s ruling which demands the immediate end of Ethnic Studies in Tucson or else TUSD will be faced with 10% budget cut.

Talk about a win-win situation. If the appeal goes down, the likelihood of making more profits for the largest private prison corporation in America increases, and Dennis DeConcini still wins.

Respected Arizona Democrats on the board of CCA, the Arizona Democratic Party having a policy of staying silent on SB1070 and immigration… makes you wonder if it really is a two-headed beast.

Erec Toso: "Life writing" at ASPC-Tucson

Neto's Tucson: Writing professor helps inmates find a purposeful voice

Ernesto Portillo Jr. Arizona Daily Star | Posted: Sunday, July 4, 2010 12:00 am

Every Saturday, University of Arizona English professor Erec Toso packs paper, books and pencils into boxes, and drives to the classroom. But before he enters, Toso walks through a gauntlet of armed guards and locked doors.

His classroom is in the Arizona State Prison on Wilmot Road, southeast of Tucson. He voluntarily teaches writing to inmates.

For the past year, Toso, 53, has taught poetry and prose through the creative writing workshops that retired UA regents English professor Richard Shelton and his wife, Lois, began in 1974.

With the exception of a couple of Saturdays, Toso has met every week with inmates, at two different units, not only teaching but helping inmates develop their writing skills. Since the privately funded workshops' inception, a number of inmates have had their poems and stories published in various journals, including Walking Rain Review, produced by inmates and ex-inmates of the state's prisons.

"What makes this work is trust," said Toso.

It's a trust that goes both ways. The inmates trust Toso to show up every week and Toso trusts the inmates, will focus on metaphors, haikus, narratives and other components of writing and genres.

Since its started, the creative-writing program has produced successful writers, even if they remain incarcerated.

A few of the graduates have become published authors, including Jimmy Santiago Baca and Ken Lamberton.

Shelton and Lamberton are editors of Ocotillo Review, the workshop literary journal that will replace Walking Rain. The Lannan Foundation of Santa Fe and the UA Poetry Center support the workshops and publication of the journal.

While most people outside the prisons' razor wire fences dismiss inmates because of their crimes, Toso welcomes those who want to learn and write.

"They made mistakes," said Toso. "But that's only a small part of who they are."

Writing gives the workshop participants the opportunity to "free" themselves through their writing.

"Some guys come to the workshops because their lives depend on it," he said - not literally, maybe, but figuratively.

Toso said they are all motivated, much more than many of his UA students. There is a waiting list for the prison workshops.

The workshop writers are hungry to write and to have others, through the workshop critique process, help shape and improve their work, said Toso.

The inmates don't dwell on their prison experience in their writing but take a wider, deeper view. Toso called it "life writing."

Toso was born in Sierra Vista, the son of a career Army officer. But by high school his family lived in Wisconsin, where he attended college.

He returned to the desert to earn graduate degrees at the UA. He taught English in Mexico, and at Tucson and University high schools before joining the UA faculty. Toso authored "Zero at the Bone - Rewriting Life After a Snakebite," published by the UA Press in 2007. He also has published works in literary journals.

This is not Toso's first entry to teach in prisons. In the mid-1980s for two years he taught in prison through the Pima County Adult Education program.

Teaching literacy is what Toso does.

And he believes teaching writing to inmates serves us in the long run. It gives inmates a positive purpose, even in their confined lives.

The writing requires participants to get honest and self-critical, with a goal of making better choices. And the writing experience, he said, offers them redemption.

"It's a life-changing experience," he said. "Even if they never publish anything, it's time well spent."

Ernesto Portillo Jr. is editor of La Estrella de Tucsón. He can be reached at netopjr@azstarnet.com or 573-4187.