Saturday, August 29, 2015

Facts, Excuses, Counter-cultures in the Kingman Report - ADOC vs. MTC



Fact: Arizona monitors missed all negative information related to the conditions of confinement at Kingman prison.  NO apology from the Director for such most unfortunate oversight.


The director never said once he was responsible, and willing to hold himself accountable as the report reflects omissions in reporting facts. Director Ryan’s initial response was anger – disappointment – disgust – for something that he was not directly responsible for or was he? 

The director offered a solution to the governor to sever the ties with the prison contractor and the governor agreed with no blame pointing towards the ADOC for failure to report these failures. All the finger-pointing was directed at MTC. There was no the “buck stops here” by director Ryan – he shifted the buck to MTC as the responsible party for the failures. As a director, he makes all the final decisions and signs all the relevant policies. He hired five monitors to ensure it was done so where does the buck really stop and end up?

There was no sign of humility or humbleness – just arrogance and anger towards MTC. No nobility of spirit – no full acceptance of the failures as the director of the agency – no acknowledgment of responsibility.

What should the director have done?

1.     Admit that he was wrong and that he is sorry for letting the state down. He should learn to really own up to what we did or failed to do,
2.      
Show us he understands the effect it had on all of us, the taxpayers and constituents in this state. He showed no empathy - Hint – maybe no empathy because he surrounds himself with slip-shod sycophantic double dipping underlings who tell themselves solely positive news and their own propaganda praise releases.

3.     Tell them what you are going to do differently in the future so that it doesn’t happen again. Of course, that might not work since they failed to do the same thing in 2010 when three murders escaped this prison complex.

Excuse # 1

Director Charles L. Ryan told reporters when a report on the riots was released Wednesday: "When you take into consideration what they are to be doing primarily statutorily, and if information is being withheld from them, I don't know how you can expect the monitors to read the crystal ball that they're supposed to know if people are non-communicative,"

Excuse # 2

A report shows five senior Arizona Department of Corrections officials assigned to monitor operations at a private prison in Kingman were apparently unaware of brewing discontent among inmates or massive guard overtime and understaffing before riots broke out in July.

Excuse # 3

The officers apparently spent little time interacting with prison staff or prisoners, and when the officers did, they didn't pick up on the problems. Instead, they spent the majority of their time inspecting the facility, dealing with inmate classification and discipline and doing paperwork, jobs required by law that kept them from picking up on operational issues, according to the report.

Excuse # 4
Corrections Director Charles Ryan had boosted oversight of the prison in 2010 after three prisoners escaped, assigning more state staff to oversee operations. He said the department will now assess the role its monitors play in overseeing its six private prisons.

So what is the real motive for cancelling the largest bed contract with MTC? Does this give CCA or the GEO group (heavily favored by Rep. John Kavanagh) the upper hand and control the majority share if the bed contracts?

What is leadership?
How can leadership be so blind?
Does good leadership make excuses for themselves and refuse to accept responsibility for part of the blame?

This report is one culture blaming another culture. MTC (Kingman) is inundated with former ADOC employees - A counterculture is a group of people whose values, norms, and behavior clash with those of the prevalent ADOC culture e.g. slip-shod sycophantic double dipping underlings totally supported by the director’s personal preferences.

A counterculture is a kind of subculture, a culture within a culture; however, not all subcultures are countercultures. I believe in this ADOC vs. MTC concept of counterculture there are significant signs of antagonistic feelings to a dominant culture resulting in resistance to comply or communicate.

A classic example of a counterculture is the double-dipping personally re-hired groupies by the director as well as MTC as a perfect example of counterculture; members of this counterculture advocated greater executive freedom, political desegregation, and more rights for themselves than when they were an ADOC employee.

Today, members of the double-dipping ADOC culture groups exemplify a counterculture because such groups favor much stronger administrative power than mainstream culture does putting them above others. Countercultures sometimes meet with passive resistance from the dominant culture.

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