Corrections – a House of Cards

It is becoming clear by the chain of events that have occurred since the beginning of 2009 the Arizona Department of Corrections has been on a slippery slope resembling a house of cards that has been identified to have a flimsy and instable structure and a very fragile internal arrangement of management that is undependable and ineffectively put together that is definitely in danger of collapsing or failing public safety and the safety of those employees that work there.

Without targeting or identifying any specific position or person it is fair to say that its entire performance records has demonstrated ill and poor prison management principles that have cost the state taxpayers excessive amount of money due to its inability to control prison bed growth and its lack of using and implementing innovative sentencing alternatives within the community.

Applying the funds provided by the legislature that total well beyond the sum of one billion dollars and with the realization that the prison population has not grown in the past year and more plans are in place to expand beds, it would behoove the agency to re-allocate some of those funds and fix these systems that are barely kept together with a thread of hope that they don’t break down completely. Realistic assessments of the DOC will reveal weak infrastructure in many of their systems that have been neglected now for years. Specifically we need to address funding and attention to the following systems:

·         Information network system

·         Inmate classification system

·         Security perimeter alarm system

·         Fire alarms system

·         Staffing pattern and deployment system

·         Personnel retention system

·         Preventive maintenance system

There are many other sub-structured systems that are impaired or fragmented but essentially, these are the core systems that provide the public safety for our citizens. The fact of the matter surrounding such weaknesses is the necessity to fund restoration programs and prioritize capital layout funds to address these immediately if Arizona public safety is going to be taken serious. The reason for such dereliction is the lack of financial and administrative attention paid to these systems and the lack of funds directed at these important functions that keep the prison system as a whole accountable and secure in its mission.

Lawmakers should immediately draw up a plan and ask the current administration a preventive maintenance plan that will avoid a systematic failure or partial shutdown of essential operational elements in the near future that may cause the entire prison operation to be interrupted and have a cause and effect that could impact the safety of the public, the safety of the employees and inmates and the safety of visitors that enter these facilities on a regular basis.

Using the house of cards metaphor should illustrate vulnerability that exists today after years of neglect. Small house of cards are easy to rebuild but when a large house of cards fails, removing one card could make everything collapse. There is too much interdependency on these systems to risk such failure with such various individual systems. The large house of cards where the independent systems form above, are at the bottom and the integration layers are built on top. Here we also need reassurances to repair as you can see one card being removed and where the house of cards have collapsed.