Private Prison hearings coming up fast...

PRISON PUBLIC HEARING ALERT 

from our Friends at  AFSC-TUSCON

URGENT! Hearings scheduled for proposed for-profit prisons.

Folks,

 

We just learned that a new round of hearings has been scheduled for proposed private prisons in AZ. The first hearing was last night in Coolidge. The second is scheduled for Thursday IN ELOY. Details below.

 

We desperately need people to attend these meetings and speak out against the prisons. It is always preferable for these to be local people who live in the community. But since these prisons “belong” to everyone in AZ (and will be paid for with your tax dollars), anyone has the right to give their input.

 

We will be organizing carpools to the next two hearings (Eloy and Florence), so please contact me ASAP if you can go. The last two are in Yuma and Winslow, and I doubt we can get people together to go from Tucson, so if you know ANYONE who lives in these towns, please send them the info and encourage them to speak out.

 

Finally, if you are not able to physically attend, please consider submitting written testimony to the Department of Corrections. Please explicitly state that you are submitting formal testimony and you want it included in the record.  Also be sure to reference the solicitation in your letter or email: 

 

 

 Proposal No.: ADOC12-00001388 / ADC No. 120088DC - Medium Security Prison Beds, up to 2000

 

And send to:

 Denel Pickering, Chief Procurement Officer, ADC

1601 W. Jefferson

Phoenix, AZ 85007

 

Email: Dpicker@azcorrections.gov

 

We need your help! Thanks,

Caroline

 

 

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

 

August 9, 2012

 

Contact:  Caroline Isaacs, 520.256.4146; cisaacs@afsc.org

 

 

Public Hearings Scheduled for Proposed For-Profit Prisons in

Coolidge, Eloy, Florence, San Luis/Yuma, and Winslow

 

The Arizona Department of Corrections is considering final bids from five private, for-profit correctional management corporations for the construction and management of an additional 2,000 state prison beds.

The Department of Corrections will be holding public hearings in each of the towns under consideration for a new prison or prisons.  The public is encouraged to attend and voice their concerns about having a private prison as a neighbor. 

Here is the schedule of the hearings:

1.   Coolidge:  Management and Training Corporation (MTC).  The public hearing will be held Thursday, August 6^th, 5-7pm at the Coolidge City Council Chambers, 911 S. Arizona Blvd., Coolidge. *

 

2.   Eloy:  Corrections Corporation of America (CCA).  The public hearing will be held Thursday, August 9^th, 5-7pm at the Eloy Junior High School Auditorium, 404E. Phoenix Ave., Eloy. 

 

3.   Florence: GEO Group. The public hearing will be held Monday, August 13^th, 5-7pm, at the Holiday Inn Express & Suites, Grand Ballroom, 240 W. Hwy 287, Florence.

 

4.   San Luis (Yuma):  There are three corporations vying for a contract for Yuma: 

 Management and Training Corporation (MTC), GEO Group, and Emerald Corrections.  The public hearing will be held Tuesday, August 14^th, 5-9pm at the City of San Luis City Parks and Rec Cesar Chavez Cultural Center, 1015 N. Main St., San Luis.

 

5.   Winslow:  LaSalle/Southwest Corrections.  The public hearing will be held Thursday, August 16^th, 5-7pm at the Winslow High School Performing Arts Center, 600 E. Cherry St., Winslow.

 

* Our apologies for the late notice, but the Department of Corrections announced the hearings on August 6, the day of the first hearing.

 

The American Friends Service Committee condemns the decision to build more private prisons as unnecessary and deeply irresponsible given the state’s economic crisis and the dismal safety records of all of the corporations involved. 

 

Arizona’s prison population is decreasing, and the Department of Corrections projects negative growth for the next few years. Yet, the Governor and state legislature appropriated $16 million for new prison beds. Arizona’s annual corrections budget is over $1 billion, consuming 11% of the state general fund.  The Department of Corrections was the only state agency whose budget saw an increase this year, even as education, social services, and health care funding was slashed. 

 

In February of 2012, AFSC of Arizona released Private Prisons: The Public’s Problem, a comprehensive report on the for-profit prison industry in Arizona that presented damning evidence that these facilities do not save the state money, have serious safety problems, and are not accountable to the taxpayers of Arizona: http://afsc.org/resource/arizona-prison-report. 

 

 

 

####

 

The American Friends Service Committee is a non-profit organization that works for justice and human rights both nationally and internationally.  The Arizona office, based in Tucson, advocates for criminal justice reform.

 

 

 

Caroline Isaacs,

Program Director,

American Friends Service Committee, Arizona Area Program

103 N. Park Ave., Ste. 111

Tucson, AZ  85719

520.623.9141

www.afsc.org/tucson

 

Check out our blog:  www.tucsoncitizen.com/cell-out-arizona

And join us on facebook:  http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=177122610652&ref=ts

 

Private Prisons: Race, Criminalization, Cooptation and the Profit Motive

This well-researched video was produced by a comrade ("sally darity"), who blogs at Chaparral Respects No Borders - she's a brilliant, thoughtful area activist and artist. Any community considering building a prison in their hometown should first give some thought to what you learn here...

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

Big Daddy comes to town: ACLU National Prison Project

ACLU-Arizona: "Demolish the Prisons"

Ringed by the names of those who have died in AZ State custody

of neglect, suicide, and violence since Jan 2009.

Phoenix, AZ (April 25, 2011)

The National ACLU's David Fathi and the Prison Law Office's Don Specter are in Phoenix this week, finally. As I write, they should be wrapping up interviews of prisoners at the AZ state supermax facility in Florence, ASPC-Eyman.


The National ACLU had already made the misuse of isolation and detention for managing symptoms of mentally ill prisoners a national priority, so this shouldn't be a surprise for the ADC...nor should the fact that they're interviewing some of my correspondents. Apparently their arrival is causing quite a stir, though - the guards are the ones who called Fathi "Big Daddy". They had a bit of cleaning up to do for their arrival, I imagine.




No deal is done yet - they're still just exploring the evidence and talking to possible litigants and witnesses, as far as I know. They need to see that there's a social movement here that will support their intervention, so step up with the actions and agitation. Remember to come to the following events:

Today, April 26, 2011

5:30-7:30

MI in the CJ System Roundtable:

Punitive or Restorative Justice?

ASU Art Museum
1th St/Mill Ave
Tempe

Sunday, May 1: May Day Rally.

REALLY, REALLY FREE Store 11:30

Speakers 1:30

Margaret T. Hance Park

south of the Phoenix Public Library, Central St, Phoenix

PRISONER RIGHTS ARE WORKERS RIGHTS!!!

Thursday, May 5, 2011

5:00 pm

ANGELA DAVIS

Neeb Hall, ASU-Tempe

Those of you in prison but not at Eyman, take heart - we've got a whole lot going on both out here and behind bars now, and you won't be left behind. Be persistent keeping me posted about how things are in there - but by all means, direct your eyewitness correspondence about conditions of confinement to the ACLU-AZ (PO Box 17148, Phoenix, AZ 85011), not me, right now. I have the ACLU's assurances that they won't lose any letters, and they'll no doubt try to help me find solutions to the things they can't address, to the extent that such a role is appropriate for them.



Learn to grieve things properly, and keep the frustration and violence down. Help each other out more than usual; you need to not only get through this, but you need to be vocal and visible, now that there's a light shining in there, and responsible with your complaints.




Thanks go out to the prisoners willing to put themselves out there for the rest of the folks right now, as well as to Dan Pochoda and Darrell Hill at the ACLU-AZ, and Mary Lou Brncik, Carl Toersbijns, Patti Jones, and Ken Jacuzzi, especially, for being such aggressive advocates for prisoners with serious mental illness.

Prison town eats troubled youth alive: The "profitable operation" of Walnut Grove.

This wasn't just Cornell's or the GEO Group's responsibility - this is the doing of the people of Walnut Grove, Mississippi. That's the problem with being a "successful" prison town: if you aren't careful, you'll be so busy raking in the profits that you lose your soul...

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

Town Relies On Troubled Youth Prison For Profits

By John Burnett

National Public Radio
Fri., March 25, 2011 2:12pm (EDT)

The Walnut Grove Youth Correctional Facility houses 1,200 boys and young men
east of Jackson, Miss.

First in a two-part series on private prisons


Prisons are filled with stress and violence; without proper supervision they can revert to primitive places. That's what happened at Walnut Grove Youth Correctional Facility in Mississippi, an NPR news investigation has determined.

As the nation's largest juvenile prison, Walnut Grove houses 1,200 boys and young men in a sprawling one-story complex ringed by security fences about an hour's drive east of Jackson. The State of Mississippi pays a private corrections company to run the prison.

NPR's investigation found that allegations swirling around the prison raise the fundamental question of whether profits have distorted the mission of rehabilitating young inmates.

An Environment Of Violence

Walnut Grove "started out and it was formed to be something good for youth, but somewhere down the line it took a turn for the worse," said former inmate Clayborne Henderson, 27. He spent two years for kidnapping in "the Grove," as they call it, between his 19th and 21st birthdays. Now he's working at a car wash and taking community college courses in Jackson, trying to straighten out his life.

He and other former inmates describe an environment of violence inside the youth prison as so pervasive it became entertainment.

"It'd be like setting up a fight deal like you would with two dogs," Henderson said. "I did witness twice while I was at Walnut Grove, they actually bet on it. It was payday for the guards."

The Southern Poverty Law Center and the ACLU National Prison Project have filed a class-action lawsuit on behalf of 13 inmates against the prison operator, GEO Group, the prison administration and state officials. The complaint describes rampant contraband brought in by guards, sex between female guards and male inmates, inadequate medical care, prisoners held inhumanely in isolation, guards brutalizing inmates and inmate-on-inmate violence that was so brutal it led to brain damage.

"When we began investigating conditions inside this facility and seeing how these kids were living with the beat downs and the sexual abuse and violence and corruption, it became a no-brainer. It became something we had to do," said Sheila Bedi, the lead attorney on the case and deputy legal director for the SPLC.

Earlier this year, the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice launched its own investigation into some of these charges. A spokesperson in Washington, D.C., said the probe is ongoing and declined to comment.

Questionable Prison Guards

Several former inmates who spoke to NPR say guards are a big part of the problem. Justin Bowling, who spent 17 months in the Grove in 2007 and 2008 for marijuana possession, says the prison is overrun with gangs, whose members include correctional officers.

"A lot of times, the guards are in the same gang. If the inmates wanted something done, they got it. If they wanted a cell popped open to handle some business about fighting or something like that, it just pretty much happened," Bowling said.

There's also a problem of too few guards. A state audit in 2005 and another one last year noted that staffing at Walnut Grove decreased even as the prisoner population increased.

According to the audit, in 2009 there were three inmate injuries a day. In the first six months of 2010 there was more than one fight a day, an assault on staff at least every other day and nine attempted suicides.

The Council of Juvenile Correctional Administrators, whose members represent youth facilities in all 50 states, reports that a guard-to-inmate ratio of 1 officer to 10 or 12 juvenile prisoners is common. The state audit of Walnut Grove found the guard-to-inmate ratio to be 1 to 60. Salaries are the largest expense of a correctional budget, and reducing staffing is typically a way to keep costs down.

Pablo Paez, vice president for corporate relations for GEO Group, based in Boca Raton, Fla., declined repeated requests by NPR to give the company's side of the story. He cited the pending lawsuit. GEO, which is traded on the New York Stock Exchange, is the nation's second largest prison corporation and had more than $1 billion in revenue last year.

Mississippi Corrections Commissioner Chris Epps also declined repeated requests for an interview, citing the litigation. In a brief email in January, he wrote, "If staff ... abused inmates they should be punished. However, I have no knowledge of them abusing inmates."

He added that the facility has improved since GEO took over last August. Two months later, his spokesperson confirmed in an email to NPR that the Department of Corrections had hired an independent consultant, experienced in fixing troubled lockups, to review operations at the Grove.

Ethel Heard is one of 100 parents who have banded together to pressure the state to make reforms at Walnut Grove. Her 21-year-old son, Tyrone, is serving time there for armed robbery.

"We know that our children have made mistakes," she said. "We're not asking that they open the cell doors and let our kids out. We're asking for them to have better treatment."

Creating A Distinct Youth Facility

When Walnut Grove opened 10 years ago it was a model youth facility. The idea was to get teenaged felons out of the notorious Parchman penitentiary and away from hardened criminals. As one young inmate said, "An old fool has lived his life, but a young fool can change."

But that's not how it has turned out, says state representative John Mayo, a member of the corrections committee that oversees Walnut Grove and other Mississippi prisons.

"To me, in my mind, it's just a prison," he said. "It's another adult prison."

Mayo says the Legislature kept raising the age of inmates sent there from 18 all the way up to 22. He says he voted against the age increases.

Today, Walnut Grove is the only juvenile facility in the country that locks up 22-year-olds with 13-year-olds.

"Initially, it was to be 13- through 18-year-olds," Mayo said. "And then, quite frankly, that did not populate Walnut Grove to what I'm going to call a 'profitable operation.'"

Two years ago, Walnut Grove added 500 beds to accommodate all the new prisoners. According to the 2008 and 2009 annual reports for Cornell Companies, the prison operator at the time, the expansion created an extra $3.4 million in revenue. GEO acquired Cornell last year.

George Cole, a career educator who served as principal of the prison school for four years, was at a legislative hearing held in January to look into alleged abuses at Walnut Grove.

"I thought when I went to Walnut Grove I was going to a place that was really interested in the rehabilitation of our children, but I found out quite the opposite. And I guess as a private facility they had to make money," Cole testified.

The hearing was heavily attended by inmates' parents, most of whom are black, and all of whom wore bright orange T-shirts that read, "Friends & Family Of Youth Incarcerated At Walnut Grove." Though invited, neither GEO nor the state corrections department sent a representative to the hearing.

Taking Educational Grant Money

NPR examined thousands of pages of public records associated with federal grants paid to the Walnut Grove Youth Correctional Facility. Records show that Warden Brick Tripp and his deputy wardens already paid by GEO have been receiving checks for $2,500 to $5,000 as "supplemental salaries" for administering federal Title 1 education funds.

"The warden and deputy warden had no dealings whatsoever with educating students," Cole stated emphatically in a phone interview.

The warden declined an interview request. Jeff Webb, the lawyer who represents the five-member Walnut Grove Correctional Authority, which writes the checks, says overseeing the grants is part of the warden's job, though he did not say why deputy wardens receive paycheck bonuses.

GEO Group's Paez was also asked why the prison administration was receiving supplementary paychecks from federal education grants, which have nothing to do with the civil rights lawsuit or Justice Department investigation. He said he had no comment.

NPR forwarded the paycheck supplements to the U.S. Department of Education and asked if this was normal. Chief of Communications Justin Hamilton said the agency is concerned and has referred the matter to its Office of Inspector General for investigation.

Support For Walnut Grove

Despite all the controversy, the youth prison has staunch defenders.

Dennise Jones-Putnam, municipal clerk of the town of Walnut Grove, says her nephew is in the prison boot camp program. "He will be one of the first ones to tell you that's the best thing that's ever happened to him. It's turned his life totally around," she said.

As to why the kids are frequently placed on lockdown and fight with staff?

"Walnut Grove is not a day care," said the Rev. Justin Chaney, the prison chaplain there from 2007 to 2010. "I'm afraid a lot of people think it might be just a little detention center. It's maximum security. So yea, you do have those that can be rough."

Grady Sims, mayor of Walnut Grove, says he visits the prison frequently and knows the staff well. "I wouldn't interfere with the way they're operating it," he said. "They've done an excellent job."

Why The Prison Matters To The Town


The town of Walnut Grove is so small there's no stoplight or supermarket. In fact, inmates outnumber citizens 2 to 1. The prison just about saved this town from extinction. The 200 prison jobs helped fill the void when a shirt manufacturer and a glove maker closed and moved overseas several years ago.

The mayor's own vending company has 18 snack machines inside the prison.

"It's been a sweet deal for Walnut Grove," Sims said. Indeed, every month, the prison pays the town $15,000 in lieu of taxes which comprises nearly 15 percent of its annual budget.

"For a small town, that's a lot of money," the mayor said, "and it helps us maintain a full-time police department that we wouldn't be able to afford without that income."

There's more.

GEO pays the Walnut Grove Correctional Authority which sends the prison all of its grant money $4,500 a month. Webb, the authority's lawyer, says the money is kept in escrow and rarely spent.

Finally, there's a full-time state corrections employee whose job is to monitor how the prison is run. His salary is reimbursed by GEO.

All of this raises the question: Is oversight of the Walnut Grove Youth Correctional Facility negligent because it's a golden goose?

"All this community is just making so much money off Walnut Grove that no one wants to upset the applecart. Then that means they're not gonna make their money anymore," says State Representative Earle Banks, chairman of the state Juvenile Justice Committee. He called the recent hearing to investigate Walnut Grove. Banks, a plaintiff's lawyer, is suing the prison for wrongful death of an inmate.

That hands-off policy might be about to change.

"If there's mistreatment going on at Walnut Grove and the Justice Department finds that it is, they ought to sue the hell out of somebody," Mayo said. "I can't understand why we have to be sued to do what's right."

Aarti Shahani contributed to this NPR News investigation and report.

Special Management Unit: Prisoner suicide at ASPC Eyman

Not many people will think this fellow is a big loss, given his convictions. But his suicide is an indicator of a huge problem with the ADC: namely, that their prisoners are killing themselves at an astounding rate. I could be wrong - I'll check my stats later and correct myself if I am - but it seems as if ASPC-Eyman is especially bad...so much for the ADC's "special management" capabilities.

If I was a judge, I'd refuse to send anyone else to prison in this state until the DOJ investigates all these suicides.

(The following notice is from ADC News Releases for November 1, 2010)

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

ARIZONA DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS

JANICE K. BREWER
GOVERNOR

CHARLES L. RYAN
DIRECTOR

1601 W. JEFFERSON
PHOENIX, ARIZONA 85007
(602) 542-3133
www.azcorrections.gov

NEWS RELEASE
For Immediate Release

For more information contact:
Barrett Marson
bmarson@azcorrections.gov
Bill Lamoreaux
blamorea@azcorrections.gov

Nov. 1, 2010
Inmate Death Notification

Florence, Ariz. - Inmate James Galloway, 54, ADC #233906, was found unresponsive in his cell on October 26. He was pronounced dead by the emergency medical responders just after midnight Tuesday from an apparent suicide.

Galloway, sentenced out of Maricopa County, was serving 18 life sentences for multiple counts of sexual conduct with a minor. He came to ADC Sept. 10, 2008, and was held at the Special Management Unit of ASPC-Eyman.

The death is under investigation by the department.

Florence Central: Witness to an execution wanted.

Back to business as usual. I wonder if it even occurred to the ADC before posting this notice that they just had two suicides in this unit. In fact, this notice was issued the day the last one occurred there. Now they can't wait for the execution. This is what they're really good at.

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

ARIZONA DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS
1601 W. JEFFERSON
PHOENIX, ARIZONA 85007
(602) 542-3133
JANICE K. BREWER, GOVERNOR
CHARLES L. RYAN, DIRECTOR

Media advisory

For more information contact:
Barrett Marson
bmarson@azcorrections.gov
Bill Lamoreaux
blamorea@azcorrections.gov

Sept. 30, 2010
Execution witness requests

Phoenix, Az – The Arizona Supreme Court has ordered the execution of inmate Jeffrey Landrigan, #82157, on Oct. 26, 2010.

Members of the media may submit a written (email) request to witness the execution to the Media Relations office. Each request must include the name, social security number and birth date of the journalist requesting access. Witnesses will be selected 15 days prior to the execution. Five members of the media will be selected to represent the media pool.

The execution is scheduled for 10 a.m. on Tuesday Oct. 26 at the Central Unit of ASPC-Florence.

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

Ironically, retired Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens was recently interviewed about the death penalty...

From the Arizona Death Penalty Forum:

Retired Supreme Court Justice Regrets 1976 Vote Upholding the Death Penalty

Posted: October 04, 2010

In a recent interview on NPR, newly-retired Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens said he particularly regretted one vote during his 35 years on the high court--his 1976 vote to uphold the death penalty in Gregg v. Georgia. Stevens remarked, "I thought at the time . . . that if the universe of defendants eligible for the death penalty is sufficiently narrow so that you can be confident that the defendant really merits that severe punishment, that the death penalty was appropriate." But, over the years, he added, "the Court constantly expanded the cases eligible for the death penalty, so that the underlying premise for my vote has disappeared, in a sense." Justice Stevens also said that the court has made death penalty procedures more sympathetic to prosecutors: “I really think that the death penalty today is vastly different from the death penalty that we thought we were authorizing.”

The interview was conducted by NPR correspondent Nina Totenberg. She wrote more about Stevens's views: "The court, he notes, has become more permissive in allowing prosecutors to object to seating jurors who have qualms about the death penalty. The result is that instead of getting a random sample of jurors, jury panels are more supportive of the death penalty. In addition, the court now allows the relatives of crime victims to testify during the penalty phase of a capital trial. These so-called victim impact statements were once ruled too incendiary to be permissible, but four years later, a more conservative court reversed the decision. All of this, says Justice Stevens, has changed the nature of the death penalty as he and the court envisioned it in the 1970s."

(N. Totenberg, "Justice Stevens: An Open Mind On A Changed Court," NPR, October 4, 2010). See U.S. Supreme Court. The vote upholding the death penalty in Gregg v. Georgia in 1976 was 7-2. Among those in the majority were Justices Blackmun and Powell, in addition to Justice Stevens. Since then, all three Justices have said they had changed their minds about the death penalty and no longer believed it was constitutional. If those Justices had voted differently in Gregg, the death penalty would probably have been ended by a 5-4 vote in 1976. It had already been struck down 5-4 in 1972 in Furman v. Georgia, and Gregg was the test case to see if it could be reinstated.

Florence's Fields of DREAMS: a Prison for their kids.

Arizona: CCA moves for zoning change

http://www.trivalleycentral.com/articles/2010/04/08/florence_reminder_blade_tribune/top_stories/doc4bbce6d8dbd9f774173336.txt

Rezoning could help CCA land big prison contract

By MARK COWLING, Editor

Thursday, April 8, 2010 8:13 AM 

"Rezoning measures that could eventually bring as many as 5,000 more state inmates and up to 875 full-time jobs to Florence are now pending before the Town Council.

At Monday’s regular meeting, the council held a public hearing on Corrections Corporation of America’s (CCA) application to rezone 183 acres behind its current facilities from “AG” Agriculture to “LI” Light Industrial. The council also heard the first reading of an ordinance to approve the zone change.

The council could vote to approve the ordinance, along with a Conditional Use Permit that would allow prisons on the land, at its April 19 meeting. CCA is buying the acreage from Delbert and Sharon Lewis..." (finish article)

-----------------------------to the Youth of Florence, AZ-------------

Maybe most of you are into all this, but I'm sorry this is the big promise your elders and leaders have for your future in terms of jobs and guaranteed "housing". More and more prisons. They just don't know what else to do there now. Maybe you can give them some better ideas for how to use that land, so it's not used to profit off the misery of so many more who will be brought to your town to suffer their punishment, just or not, and perhaps die in a cell from a treatable illness, a murderous thug, or their own despair.

Good luck to the Resistance that I know must still be there. This isn't over yet. Let me know if I can help.

- Peggy Plews

AZ Prison Watch

Another Inmate Overdose: Florence

Inmate Dies At Florence Prison

KPHO.com

POSTED: 11:12 am MST August 31, 2009

UPDATED: 11:32 am MST August 31, 2009

PHOENIX -- One inmate at the Arizona State Prison Complex in Florence is dead after a suspected drug overdose, authorities said.According to the official Inmate Death Notification, Douglas Nunn, 33, died Saturday.Before his death, Nunn told staff that he took some pills, the notice said. When he started having seizures, officials took him to Casa Grande Regional Hospital where he was pronounced dead.

His death is under investigation.

Nunn was serving a seven-year, six-month sentence out of Yavapai County for aggravated assault and aggravated driving under the influence.