Sun sets on Chuck Ryan at ADC Legislative Review.

Above is the recording of public speakers;

*** Here is the link from the full report and committee meeting ***

I made it to the early part of this meeting yesterday, which was a joint session of the Senate Committee on Public Safety and the House Judiciary Committee. The purpose of the meeting was to receive the Auditor General's Sunset Review of the Arizona Department of Corrections - a process which poses the question as to whether the institution is serving the public and rehabilitating offenders as it is intended to, or whether it is an ineffective waste and should be abolished.

More precisely:

"Established by Laws 1978, Chapter 210, Arizona’s sunset review process requires the Legislature to periodically review the purpose and functions of state agencies to determine whether continuation, revision, consolidation or termination is warranted. Sunset reviews are based on audits conducted by either the Office of the Auditor General (OAG) or a Committee of Reference (COR). Following the audit, a public hearing is held by the COR to discuss the audit and receive testimony from agency officials and the public."

I didn't expect the department to be abolished, of course, but felt it was important to be there anyway. Unfortunately, I learned of this last minute so did a poor job getting folks out for the public hearing section. I was able to log in some of my written comments, for the record, but had to leave before the floor was open to the rest of us to speak. Several folks remained long enough to raise the matter of medical neglect, at least, according to this Cronkite news report below. I don't know if anyone mentioned the high suicide and assault rates, or the fact that the ACLU National Prison Project is about to file a class action lawsuit seeking an injunction to immediately improve the level of medical and mental health care in AZ prisons. It was the matter of security at the private prisons that dominated, though, due to the Kingman escape last summer.

Listening to ADC Director Chuck Ryan give his spiel about how great a job they're doing and how noble his employees are made me more angry with the legislature for failing to do oversight than with him - I expect to hear that kind of propaganda from him. Had I been able to speak, I would have recited the names and stories of the prisoners who died unnecessarily in his custody...perhaps I'll have to save that for another time. I certainly didn't expect that anything I or others might say would result in the abolition of the AZ Department of Corrections.

July 2011 Artwalk: Phoenix, AZ

What was covered by the AG's report, at least, were recommendations for alternatives to adding more prison beds, support for a sentencing commission to review prison alternatives and sentencing reform, and a reassertion of the expectation that a complete cost-analysis is done on the pros and cons of contracting with private prisons before the state proceeds to do more (which the Quakers are having to sue to get compliance on).

But those are just recommendations - I believe it is up to the discretion of the ADC director as to how to proceed, and I haven't seen either of these committees show much leadership in making performance demands of Director Ryan - who not only runs his own ship, but steps in the way of efforts made by our good Rep. Cecil Ash to assemble a sentencing review commission by promoting propaganda designed to frighten ignorant politicians and the public into favoring mass incarceration. If Chuck Ryan and his cronies on the Arizona Criminal Justice Commission threw their support behind Rep. Ash's sentencing commission bill (HB 2664) last session, it would have easily passed the house and senate and been signed into law. Instead the judiciary committee wouldn't even bother to hear it.

As things stand at present, it's entirely up to the ADC Director to study and implement report recommendations for alternatives to incarceration, such as early release for low-risk prisoners, community-based programs for drug and alcohol offenders, build more capacity to have prisoners on home-arrest, and so on. Ryan, unfortunately, has consistently articulated and demonstrated his contempt for prisoners and their families through his policy changes, and that his philosophy for corrections is simply punishment by incarcerating as many people as possible for as long as possible, during which time they have scant opportunities to participate in substance abuse treatment, vocational rehabilitation, mental health, or educational programs (many were abruptly dismantled when he took over).

Anticipating continuing criticisms about deaths in his custody this time, Director Ryan did proudly announce that in the course of two months the department has trained over 8,000 employees in suicide prevention...but that just leaves me wondering how good such mass training in such a short a period of time can possibly be. They train them all in first aid every year, but corrections officers have repeatedly failed to use those skills to prevent the loss of life - as in Tony Lester's and Dana Seawright's cases, when guards just stood passively around watching those young men choke on blood as they were dying. The closest they seem to come to touching a suicide or homicide victim is practicing their CPR on prisoners who are already dead or very near death.

Still grossly lacking from the AZ legislature is a commitment to provide meaningful, ongoing oversight of the Department of Corrections. They seem to be in denial of (or ignorant of) the impending class action suit against them, and of the real shortcomings of leadership that have resulted in arguably thew most horrendous prison conditions in Arizona in the past three decades. They are oblivious or indifferent, it appears, that by failing to keep on top of matters in their own house, they have forced prisoners, their families and advocates to seek help from outside entities - from the ACLU and Amnesty International to the media to the FBI - to investigate their poor conditions and high rates of violence and suicide.

If the state legislature had been conducting oversight all along, lives like Tony Lester's and Dana Seawright's may have been saved despite the incompetence of this administration. Unfortunately, nothing that comes out of this hearing yesterday is likely to stop the prisoner body count from continuing to grow. The rising tide of violence under Chuck Ryan's administration will similarly take a greater toll on ADC employees, who voices are also silenced here. At least two ADC employees have already taken their lives on prison grounds under his administration - one at Perryville, soon after the death of Marcia Powell, and one at Yuma this summer. God knows how many more have died more quietly that way, or have been seriously injured from assaults already as well.

The following are the legislators on the respective committees that heard the auditors' Sunset Review; though not all were present yesterday, all are nevertheless responsible. These are the legislators we should be addressing further concerns about the prisons to, and holding accountable for the consequences of failing to form a sub-committee which would take testimony from prisoners, families and advocates, recommend and empower the department to make reforms, and provide closer legislative oversight of the ADC. Instead of orchestrating meaningful prison reform from within, the state has now set up a situation where changes will have to be ordered by the federal court system - sadly, that is only likely to make a difference after more prisoners and staff lose their lives...

Judiciary House of Representatives Standing Committee
Members	Position
Cecil P. Ash	Member
Tom Chabin	Member
Eddie Farnsworth	Chairman
Doris Goodale	Member
Albert Hale	Member
Jack W. Harper	Member
David Burnell Smith	Vice-Chairman
Anna Tovar	Member
Ted Vogt	Member

Public Safety and Human Services Senate Standing Committee
Members	Position	Staff
Nancy Barto	Member
Rich Crandall	Member
Linda Gray	Chairman
Leah Landrum Taylor	Member
Linda Lopez	Member
Rick Murphy	Vice-Chairman

AZ Department of Corrections' Auditor General Sunset Review

Some of the women prisoners who have died from suicide and/or gross neglect
under the current administration, since January 2009.

Memorial at appx. 1017 N. 1st Street, Phoenix AZ
(November 18, 2011)

On Tuesday, November 22, in Senate Hearing Room 1 there will be a hearing on the Sunset Review conducted by the Arizona Auditor General on the Arizona Department of Corrections (ADC). This is the third in a three part series of reports on the ADC. The links to the reports are below:

Department of Corrections—Sunset Factors (September 2011, Report No. 11-08)

Department of Corrections—Oversight of Security Operations (September 2011, Report No. 11-07)

Department of Corrections—Prison Population Growth (September 2010, Report No. 10-08)

The most recent report covering sunset factors addresses whether or not the ADC is meeting the needs of the public or should be dissolved. Of course, the department is not about to be dissolved. The report contains some fascinating information about how different departments are staffed and what mandates the ADC is expected to follow on everything from assuring fair pricing schedules for prisoners purchasing from prison stores/concessions to the recommendation that the ADC assures that the privatization of services yields a cost-benefit to the state without compromising on public safety, as noted here on page 21:


"Going forward, potential privatization areas should be carefully evaluated to ensure the benefits of contracting outweigh the costs. Information from the other states auditors interviewed point to the importance of evaluating the costeffectiveness of privatizing a service or function versus performing the service or function in house. For example, a North Carolina official indicated that the state no longer contracts for prison maintenance or private prison beds largely because it cost more to contract for these services than for its corrections department to perform them. Security issues were also a factor in eliminating North Carolina’s contract for private prison beds. Similarly, the September 2010 Office of the Auditor General report on prison population growth recommended that the Legislature consider directing the Department to further study and analyze the costs for the State to build and operate prisons compared to contracting with private prisons to determine which option would be more cost-effective while still ensuring public safety (see Report No 10-08)."


Presently, the ADC is being sued (see statement from the ASPC-Tucson on this matter) to assure it completes an investigation and report demonstrating that the proposals to privatize 5,000 new prison beds would in fact save the state money before awarding those contracts - though they have delayed the decision to award private prison contracts until at least December 22, 2011.


Prior ADC studies comparing the cost of state-run vs privately run prisons show that private prisons actually cost more to operate - and that's not even considering the cost of the security lapses that allowed three prisoners to escape from ASP-Kingman in August 2010. The cost of that private prison failure included an extensive, nationwide manhunt and the lives of an elderly couple. Unbelievably, despite the escape, Arizona was expected to pay MTC, the prison operator, for it's empty beds in the aftermath.


Also of interest in the report is the re-assertion of the mission of the AZ Department of Corrections:

"The Department’s statutory purpose is to serve as the correctional program for the State and to provide staff and administration relating to the institutionalization, rehabilitation, and community supervision functions of all adult offenders. Consistent with its statutory purpose, the Department’s mission is “to serve and protect the people of Arizona by securely incarcerating convicted felons, by providing structured programming designed to support inmate accountability and successful community reintegration, and by providing effective supervision for those offenders conditionally released from prison.”"


The Department has five goals in carrying out this mission:


•" To maintain effective custody and control over inmates in an environment that is safe, secure, and humane.
• To require inmate participation in self-improvement programming opportunities and services, including work, education, substance abuse treatment, sex offender treatment, and spiritual access designed to prepare inmates to be responsible citizens upon release.
• To provide cost-effective constitutionally mandated correctional healthcare.
• To maintain effective community supervision of offenders, facilitate their successful transition from prison to the community, and return offenders when necessary to prison to protect the public.
• To provide leadership direction, resource management, and support for department employees to enable the Department to serve and protect the people of the State of Arizona and to provide comprehensive victim services and victim–focused restorative justice programs that hold offenders accountable."



I do not see that the Auditor General has evaluated how "safe" or "humane" the environment is in which prisoners are kept, or how well the department's medical care meets constitutional guidelines. In fact, the suicide rate under the current administration has doubled, and assaults and homicides have skyrocketed - suggesting that the most fortified and well-funded law enforcement agency in this state can't keep their own prisoners safe. The ACLU National Prison Project and the Prison Law Office have been investigating the ADC and are also poised to sue the state over serious deficiencies in the ADC's medical and mental health care, which fails to meet constitutional standards of care.

Furthermore, when Ryan took over, many of the prisoner's rehabilitative programs were eliminated - including one that trained prisoners to be suicide prevention aides. A number of those that were eliminated were prisoner-run and low-cost. Nothing suggests that the ADC's remaining programs and policies are currently modeled to be consistent with evidence-based practice in the field of corrections - which would yield far better outcomes in re: both staff and prisoner safety, the culture of the prisons, and actual rehabilitation and recidivism rates.

Rather, major decisions appear to be made based on the director's personal biases (which are hostile to prisoners, their families, and prisoner-run programs as evidenced by new fees for medical care and visitation approval, gouging of families for phone calls, resistance to early-release programs or sentencing reform, and elimination of effective and empowering rehabilitative programming). Director Ryan justifies his actions by perpetuating propaganda and public myths such as privatization saves money, that early release would compromise public safety because the vast majority of AZ prisoners are repeat and violent offenders (even though over 15,000 prisoners are so "safe" that they're rated as minimum security), that the ADC provides meaningful rehabilitation programs, and that lower crime rates depend on maintaining high incarceration rates (which they do not).

The AZ Auditor General's office appears to give the ADC a passing grade, nonetheless, and - not surprisingly - doesn't call for the department's dissolution. In light of the horrendous lack of medical and psychiatric care for prisoners, and in the wake of highly preventable suicides, grisly homicides, and escalating overall violence under his watch, however, there remains a huge call in the community for Director Chuck Ryan to be removed from his post or step down... and those particular calls are coming from people who have worked for him.


Anyone wishing to echo a demand for Ryan's resignation or to submit complaints about the way our billion dollars are being spent by the AZ Department of Corrections should contact Governor Brewer's office here or by snail mail here:

The Honorable Janice K. Brewer, Arizona Governor / Executive Tower / 1700 West Washington Street / Phoenix, AZ 85007

Please cc all copies of correspondence on the matter to myself , Peggy Plews (arizonaprisonwatch@gmail.com), or to AZ Republic reporter Bob Ortega by email at: bob.ortega@arizonarepublic.com. He can also be reached via snail mail at:

The Arizona Republic Newsroom/ 200 E. Van Buren St. / Mail Code NM19/ Phoenix, AZ 85004.

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

Citizens may order full printed copies of the 2011 Auditor General's Reports on the Department of Corrections from:

Report Orders
Arizona Auditor General
2910 N. 44th Street, Ste. 410
Phoenix, AZ 85018

Please include your complete return address as well as the report name and number you are requesting.

You may also fax this information to 602-553-0051.

All reports are also available from the Arizona Department of Library, Archives and Public Records.

If you need help, please call 602-553-0333 or e-mail the Webmaster.