Saturday, November 24, 2012

Open letter to Legislators about gang violence inside prisons growing


Violence vs. Vigilance -The high cost of incarceration

By Carl R. ToersBijns, former deputy warden, ASPC Eyman, Florence, AZ

 

 

Arizona prisons, by reputation and demographics, have increased their tolerance for deadly violence exponentially in the manner it has been addressed and managed. Allowing willfully and deliberately the existence of organized gang violence to occur, they are setting up the public and the taxpayers for a huge demand of funding in future needs to secure our prisons that have been exploited by those who wanted to see them grow in size and need for profit making and mass incarceration agendas.

 

For all practical purposes, prison management is taking weak reactive approaches on the management of violence inside these state prisons. Through slow and “deliberate indifference methods” of blaming these events on individuals and not the gangs that are actually ruling the yards with orders coming from upstairs inside their maximum security units. Just like the outside world, taxes are up and the failure to pay them results in physical harm or assaults that often hospitalize men or women for weeks at a time. This philosophy of gang enforcement by boots and stomping has been a growing disease with no relief in sight. Since these acts are tolerated by the administration, it is likely to increase over the next few years before someone says enough is enough and attempts to retake control from the gangs will result in widespread violence throughout the state for a momentary conflict for control and power.

 

The strategy is simple and not complicated at all once you understand the mentality of creating a “gladiator” environment inside our prisons and how this impacts your political wishes to spend more money and control more power over a most ignored and invisible event such as managing prisons.

 

Their deliberate ignorance of such gang growth has allowed them to deny there is a growth in gang related violence within the prison setting as there are now more violent individuals incarcerated than ever before. This myth will eventually be dispelled by future leaders but until such a farce is revealed, the taxpayers and constituency base will suffer needless as more money is allocated for prison operations and programs.

 

For the longest time now, prison officials have turned a blind eye at the “beat downs” and severe assaults that have been occurring inside state prisons since the ideology has changed from rehabilitation to mass incarceration. Medical bills and hospitalization needs has jumped up the costs of associated treatment and care as there appears no end to the gang violence inside Arizona prisons.

 

The agenda is filled with expanding maximum security beds rather than providing a safe and secure environment for staff and prisoners to enhance and allow a peaceful coexistence and functionality and coping skills. Today’s standards are well within limits that allow only a small degree of humanity to exist inside prisons. This makes the majority of prison culture inhumane and torturous to many trying to co-exist under such vile conditions.

 

This concept is designed so that administrators don’t experience back-drafts of criticism for the ongoing violence from those that embrace anarchist ideology on both sides of the fence. Allowing such conditions to exist permits the agency to point the fingers at prisoners rather than their own miscalculations or moral and legal responsibilities of how to handle violence inside their prisons. It also allows a justification for resources to be used in a manner unquestioned by those top executives or legislators that make the rules but rarely see to it that oversight of compliance is occurring.

 

It is much easier to blame prisoners for their negative and often rebellious behaviors than to explain how the agency allowed such breeding conditions to occur and foster such a disruptive mood without intervention. After all is said and done, the agency, in its righteous tone of addressing the prisoner’s misconduct and assaultive behaviors will come out asking for more funding, more staff, more maximum security beds and more sympathy from the governor’s office, the legislature and the public.

 

It’s a strategy that has worked often elsewhere and is growing inside Arizona prison managers’ minds as a new tool to warrant current prison expansions based on the self created need and self fulfilling prophecy that prisoners are more violent today than ever before and that the expenditures requested are needed to calm the setting and manage violence that has been embraced through silence and inaction and used a means to attain and acquire more money for more prisons and beds.

 

November 24, 2012

 

 

 

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