Arizona
Corrections ~ Ryan, Hoarding the Power
By Carl R. ToersBijns
If we were to look
into the future and look back how the Arizona prison system grew and floundered
under the leadership of Charles L. Ryan you will undoubtedly find a conclusive
description of what can be said is a compulsion to hoard power and build a base
of power within that resembles a dictatorial and adversarial method of prison
management. Unfortunately, he did this for the sake of evil rather than the
good for many. Surely this qualifies him to be unprecedented in such
accomplishments of power grabbing everything within his reach or span of
control.
This is happening as
the criminal justice system is cycling hundreds and even thousands of prisoners
through its prison system without any inquiries or curiosity by elected
officials nobody is asking how this agency spends its billion dollar budget.
Daily, he seeks ways
to set up control within every aspect of the agency’s individual departmental
responsibilities that ranges from custodial care to medical and mental
healthcare provisions ruled under one man and one rule.
In other words, Mr.
Ryan makes decisions for every aspect of custodial, medical and mental health
care as well as contractual services rendered and prison policies. He is the
sole decision maker that writes his Director Executive Orders whether he is
qualified to make these decisions or rarely seeking advice from others more
qualified in such special areas.
Working with what can
be described as an unprecedented amount of money provided by the legislature
and the governor, Ryan has managed to set up a power base that spans from
controlling and expanding public prison beds, commissaries, food and medical
contracts to private prison beds and other profit making schemes. One would
think this strategy was done for the best interest of the state but rather the
opposite is true.
The public has been
hoodwinked into thinking their prison system is well and intact but in fact it
is dilapidated and in dire need of attention. Nobody has noticed the growth as
they feel it is just and unworthy of criticism as well as oversight.
Ryan has hired and
re-hired former colleagues and hand-picked friends to control the tight niche
circle of power as well as maintaining a silent and firm control on all
internal environmental issues with effective damage control at the correctional
officers’ expense through unwarranted discipline and compromising their safety.
As their staffing
patterns dwindle, their bed capacity increased. Double bunking without adding
staff is a dangerous practice especially at level 5 units where the propensity
of violence and misconduct is the highest.
Mr. Ryan has abandoned
all practical and safe correctional practices for the sake of expansion and
more prison money allocated to a system that is already demonstrated to be weak
in security and public safety. Specific by-products of this management style
are more violent offenders, higher death rates, increased suicide risks and
continued staff assaults with and without weapons.
Correctional best
practices are waning as a thing of the past as good security is now rare and
vanishing quickly. Today, the prisons are run by those in orange jumpsuits
rather than those wearing the badge, the brown khaki shirts and BDU pants.
His latest project of
expanding maximum custody bed to construct a Special Management III in the
Lewis prison complex is the latest example of his expansion plans. Asking the governor for $50 million dollars
to build a complex for Level 5 inmates is hardly necessary if Ryan would allow
the prison management team to do what is called the inmate classification
process. Meddling with the risk assessment tool, he has altered the entire
population by ignoring risks and threats within.
Since day one he took
over, he has focused on locking up and locking down prisoners with
discretionary powers to hold them at the higher levels for reasons that are
based on repetitive misconduct charges that elevates the custody score and
increases risk to the general population setting.
He has effectively
manufactured a higher risk group through administrative means and justifies
asking for more Level 5 beds through his own self fulfilling prophecy of
increasing detention beds and max custody beds over the last three and a half
years.
He accomplished this
plan by executing a three stage process that first included segregating all
severely mentally ill prisoners at a higher custody level mixing them with anti
social behavioral prisoners so that the chaos and violence would increase and
the justification would show good reasons for such placements thus justifying
the means at the end. This method allowed him to classify Arizona prisoners as
more violent than ever before.
Second he destroyed
the inmate employment program and reduced both work hours and wages through an
austerity program leaving thousands of inmates idle and without a job to earn
their commissary or other costs. In other words, he effectively destroyed the
prison economy and created the same conditions that exist in the free world
where crime is based on the need or the greed of individuals with a criminal
mind. These created an unbalanced and predatory living environment to cope
within as it became the “only the strong survive” culture and the weak pay for
protection.
Lastly he eliminated
self help programs and substance abuse studies that effectively created an
uncontrolled drug infested prison environment unprecedented in modern penology
and Arizona prisons and allows the presence of drugs to maintain the instability
to keep the prisoners divided and the staff in danger. This created a drug
infested culture that became more violent and more addicted than ever before
posing threat to the staff that work there and the public safety.
He has facilitated
this growth in drugs through his permissive attitude of allowing prison gangs
to exist. He has forsaken good and effective searches to find the drugs and has
basically allowed the “inmates to run the asylum.” This reduction in the
inmate’s income resulted in more misconduct that included theft, assaults, gang
violence, extortion and other criminal behaviors.
His goal is simple;
infuse more money giving him more power. No matter. The taxpayers are picking
up the tab for this most volatile environment as the prison system, although
not managing what they already have, keeps growing and becoming more unstable
in unbelievable epic proportions statewide.
Taxpayers have no idea
how these “covert” ideas has fragmented the agency and don’t seem to care how
their tax dollars are being spent. In fact, it is safe to say even the
legislators haven’t the faintest idea what it actually costs to accommodate
Ryan’s plan and the governor isn’t interested in asking either.
In the meantime, you
pocketbook will continue to write blank checks and receive nothing in return.
At a cost of over one
billion dollars, you would think that somebody in Phoenix government would be
keeping an eye on how this money is spent and how many lawsuits have been paid
out to avoid bringing this horrific prison management situation to the
attention of the public.
December 11, 2012
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