A basic understanding of a simulacra or simulation of the truth

A basic understanding of a simulacra or simulation of the truth

In an attempt to seek the relationship between reality and symbols in our society, we have to understand what simulacra is and how it works as a means to simulate or copy the reality and transforms into a truth when in fact, it has no truth but rather conceals the truth. The only reality is this act of simulacra or simulating what was never original to begin with and is a mere imitation of the operation of a real-world process or system.

Basically, if you don’t attempt to seek the truth, you will chase these simulacra or a simulation that basically leads you on a wild goose chase as you will never find the truth you are looking for. Symbols are easily created by creative minds. It’s a means to demonstrate, illustrate or show something the illusionist wants you to see and accept. Charts are symbols or figures of identity and can be easily created without any reality of substance attached to them. One has to be cautious when viewing and interpreting a chart or symbol of any kind and ask, where did it come from and how was it created.

For the purpose of human experience, simulations of reality are deceptive tools for those who want to hoodwink or lull you into a stage of contentment of satisfaction. They are simply used to hide the reality and conceal the truth. The basis or backgrounds for such illusions are culture and media. If you can explain the culture and manipulate the media, you have the ability to acquire a simulacra which constructs a meaning with no real basis but offers a make believe solution to a proposed problem.

Most political reports are saturated with such simulacra and merely cast shadows on the truth. It is the saturation of these simulacra that projects the meaningless meaning but serve the purposes to fool the reader into believing whatever is read or printed before them. Other examples are photographs that are Photoshopped, and illusions of realities type of movies such as the Matrix that create dimensional existences of substances involving time and space.

There are four stages to simulacra or simulation:

The first stage is the faithful saturation of an image, or a copy of an image we believe may be a reflection of the profound reality.
The second stage is the perversion of reality where we become to believe this copy is an unfaithful copy of the reality but through saturation is made into a believable copy rather than a false reality.
The third stage is the absence of a profound reality, where the perverted image or simulacrum pretends to be the faithful copy but is in fact, not an copy of the original symbol or sign.
The fourth stage is pure simulation, in which the simulacra has no relationship to any reality whatsoever and is merely a reflected sign or claim to reality on the part of the images or symbols presented in the order of such claims.
The transition from signs which dissimulate something to signs which dissimulate that there is nothing, marks the decisive turning point.

My backyard - what a fracking mess it was

My backyard, what a fracking mess It was on an early Sunday morning, near the town of Lancaster, in the central part of Ohio, where my buddy Ethan, lived in a shack, a two room home built with his own two hands shack. This abode, as humble as it was, sat on a two acre piece of rolling grasslands with tree covered hills and a small stream running smack down the middle of it. Up above, you could see the birds making their nests in the trees as water was aplenty and the stream provided fresh spring water all year around. I suppose my friend was one of the lucky ones. He was in the middle of nowhere back in the days when people minded their own business and what he did or what he saw was totally his own and nobody else cared. It was fly-fishing country, with a herd of cows nearby and a field filled with dung that made you watch where you stepped when you went for a walk. His shack was rain proof and didn’t get wet inside even during the strongest storms. He got his groceries once a month as he loaded his Ford pickup truck and gassed it up to last him a week or two if he didn’t have any chores to do. Mesmerized by the unspoiled beauty of his land, he sat there at night, counting stars and watching meteors streak through the sky. Down the stream was a small clean and free-flowing river that linked up with the big one down the stretch. He got his water right here from the land. He was lucky to have a clean underground watershed that gave him fresh clean water as he pumped it out of the ground, every morning, filling up his barrels that gave him enough water to drink for weeks at a time. Unmistakably heaven, he drove these country roads to the city not as often as he used to but there were no reasons for him to do so since he retired and no longer worked. A retired prison guard, he worked in the city. He had so many years behind those stone cold walls, he often felt he was in prison even when he was off duty, so he found this piece of land and build himself a two room shack with the outhouse close by to give him comfort. Down the road there were large swaths of land-private land and public land. Filled with quail, pheasants, and other fowl, he took his shotgun out a few times a week to feed his desire for meat so he and his dog, Axel, could eat. Life was simple for a very long time. The dusty roads were empty most of the time and he didn’t have to worry about people stopping by. Why, a week or two would go by, before someone would stop and ask for directions. Ethan was a pleasant fellow, never said a bad word about anyone and he treated his dog, Axel, like it was a member of the family as all he had was him and the dog. One day, Ethan woke up to a loud and vibrating noise down the road. Annoying as it was, there was a lot of questions why such a convoy of trucks were coming down this road that passed the shack located about a quarter mile from the turnoff. Something told him there was trouble and as he looked with suspicion at the convoy traveling by, he found himself with a tear in his eye. He had moved from town to avoid the crowds and noises. He felt an intrusion that would leave him shocked and awed at what was happening nearby. A day or two passed by as he noticed his hand pump had run dry and the water he had relied on was no longer flowing as it did before the convoy of trucks came down the once empty road, now filled with dust a flying and deep ruts where the big trucks drove through the dirt as the rain caused the sandy wash road into a mud filled pond stretching a few miles before it became paved. The real shock came when his neighbor up the road stopped by and asked him if he had trouble with his water. Seems the problem was plaguing every house around and it appeared the underground aquifer had been tampered with for those who relied on the fresh water for everything they had including babies and livestock. Weeks went by and the water that had undergone a metamorphic state in smell and looks, was coming out brown, smelly and sometimes very distasteful when you drank it even in a cup of strong dark coffee. It didn’t taste at all like it did before. Then he noticed the duck were dying, the birds were leaving and the cows were laying down on the grass, like never before. Not long ago, a rumor was told in town, that the brown water had sickened a pregnant woman and that the horses, the pets and the chickens were losing their hair and feathers. Ethan was concerned about his dog, Axel, as he had not been himself for a while now as he slept more than usual and his eyes were getting glossy. Sensing it was the water, Ethan bought four cases of bottled water and loaded them in his truck as he went about his business to buy some groceries and head back home before dark. One day, a man came by and asked Ethan to sign a petition. It was a document that stated clearly the purpose was to have the trucks stop rolling, the water start flowing again and the land returned back to where it was before the trucks came down this road. His shack, his outhouse, his dog, and his land was all he had and today, he realized how close he was to losing it all. That man’s name was Charlie, a neighbor who carried a sign on his truck that opposed a thing called “fracking.” It seemed there was a process going on down the road situated about five miles down that impacted the entire valley and landscape. He started to talk about this “fracking” business and how this company, a natural gas and oil business was setting up shop down the road, using this fracking method to make the money as they were buying up mineral rights left and right up and down the road. Charlie asked Ethan, if he had signed a lease, and with wide open eyes and a very solemn face, he nodded no saying softly, “no sir, I haven’t signed anything and nobody has come by here to ask me to either.” Charlie started to explain the problem and told Ethan how this “fracking” works but what really got Ethan mad was when Charlie told him that if he refused to sign a lease, gas would be taken out from under their land anyway, since under Ohio law a well drilled on a leased piece of property can capture gas from neighboring, unleased properties. He added, they were offering the land owners a one-time fee payout of $3,000 dollars or $300 an acre whichever was more plus royalties on each producing well. “Fracking,” as it’s commonly known, involves injecting millions of gallons of water, sand, and chemicals, many of them toxic, into the earth at high pressures to break up rock formations and release natural gas trapped inside. Ethan was worried about his two room shack, his hand pump that was failing him on an occasional basis, the sometimes brown water and the landscape around him down the road was changing into a scarred, barren, square-shaped clearings, jagged, newly constructed roads with 18-wheelers driving up and down them, and colorful freight containers labeled “residual waste.” Drilling operations nearer to his property commenced in August of that year. Trees were cleared and the ground leveled to make room for a four-acre drilling site less than 1,000 feet away from his privately owned land. Ethan could feel the earth beneath their home shake whenever the well was fracked. Ethan knew, sooner or later, his shack and land would be worthless and unsafe to live on. All his neighbors were up in arms as their water had become tainted and contaminated. All the land around him, all of which sit atop large repositories of natural gas trapped in shale rock deep underground were targets of the drillers down the road. An army of concerned residents and activists marched in protest to show how fracking is an example of what can go wrong when this form of drilling is allowed to take place without proper regulation. Some are pointing to a wave of groundwater-contamination incidents and mysterious health problems out West, in Colorado, New Mexico, and Wyoming, where hydraulic fracturing has been going on for years as part of a massive oil-and-gas boom, and saying that fracking should not be allowed at all in delicate ecosystems. Conventional vertical drilling cannot retrieve shale gas in an economical way, but when combined with hydraulic fracturing, horizontal drilling—whereby a deeply drilled well is bent at an angle to run parallel to the surface of the Earth—changes the equation. Meanwhile, the returned fracking fluid, now called wastewater, is either trucked off or stored in large, open-air, tarp-lined pits on site, where it is allowed to evaporate. The other portion of the fluid remains deep underground—no one really knows what happens to it. Fracking is an energy- and resource-intensive process. Every shale-gas well that is fracked requires between three and eight million gallons of water. Fleets of trucks have to make hundreds of trips to carry the fracking fluid to and from each well site. In Ethan’s neck of the woods, there were more than 60 gas wells were drilled in a nine-square-mile area, all kinds of ugly things transpired after that drilling outfit came to town. Sadly, the shack was eventually abandoned as Ethan had moved back to town. His dog, Axel, had passed away from an unexplained illness and the water he once bragged about as being clean, pristine cool spring water, was now smelly, brown and filled with chemicals and contaminants, all approved by government officials who reaped the profits and lived in big stone walled houses far away from the smell, the shaking and the destruction of what turned out to be a fracking backyard mess.

Part II -Stanford Prison Experiment - are people evil?

Stanford Prison Experiment – Fake or Real?

– A purely conjectural perception

Part II

 

Changes –

 

The stage was set and the plot was established without any basis for setting it up the way they did it except for their own findings and without empirical evidence injected into the equation to set a stage properly equipped in all aspect of the desired environment. A stage that was meant to last longer than the fourteen (14) days of engagement and actually completed after only six (6) days of performing or acting out those roles designated to provide findings for the study and pass them on as being real and behaviorally factual in content. It is true, the study reached a critical point where termination was mandated. The study had spiraled out of control.

 

The tryouts was doomed to fail when the stage was left empty and the actors had blank scripts which were based on empty findings of prison conditions fabricated from theory and other means. No auditions, no real scripts and no authentic technical advisors prompted failure from the start. Even had the study run its full course, the defective materials captured or capsulated by these actors were going to be tainted as the well was poisoned to begin with by the lack of preparation and studies involved in the diversity of the environment.

 

Changes that would impact activities, behaviors, thought patterns, abuses and neglects. A domino effect that could hardly be captured in a mere two (2) weeks, when in fact, the average length of time an inmate serves is closer to one (1) in jail and at least a minimum of two and a half (2 ½) years under various penal confinement levels and custody circumstances.

 

No stage would be sufficiently produced, created or impact the environment without first taking into consideration how the stage is set and who is in control of the environment as well as the political will of groups that vary in color, age, race and ethnicities. Aggravated circumstances that would have included race, overcrowding, social injustices, staff abuses, organizational stigmas and disproportional administrative punishments, nature of offense conflicts with other inmates and of course the propensity of violence either on themselves or the guards portrayed by ill prepared actors / students.

 

How the stage is set, the mindsets of the actors or participants changes with each different level of energy infused, rejected or forced into a conflicting situation where tempers, emotions and other discerning forces can change the direction or flow or energy anticipated or desired by the professor or his cast. Mindsets which under real prison conditions can be altered by the possession or use of mind altering substances such as heroin, meth, marijuana, prescription drugs and other illicit controlled substances banned and considered contraband under most rules of voluminous prison settings considered to be a standard in the prison industry.

 

This study was about change. It was intended to document human behavioral changes created or evolved under different circumstances. This was a focal point on human beings having the ability to adapt or cope with adversity. In addition to those forces, it also brought to light the world of compliance and non-compliance, otherwise listed as obedience psychology.

 

Divided among two groups, prisoner and guard, the world was made essentially into a black and white situation that is unreal in any setting. How anyone can accept this as a legitimate study is beyond my personal comprehension levels thus I chose to write about this study for such reasons.

These inadequate obedience studies were created to show how people, ordinary people, prompted, provoked or stimulated by a trigger by an authority figure, were willing to exhibit defiance or compliance when told what to do and either chose to comply or suffer the “painful and potentially” lethal and non-lethal capabilities of a system designed to shock you into compliance.

 

Lethal being those guards who are armed with guns and other lethal weapons and non-lethal for those carrying mace or chemical agents, batons, or other impact weapons to gain compliance including their hands and feet. Changes which can underscore human responses that may fluctuate when a different approach is used.  Approach is defined to be verbal or physical in nature with the invested authority or power by such a person to impose their will on others. Approach may be singular or plural depending on the situational assessment of the event or activity.

 

The logic or rationale is the enforcement of institutional rules and regulations but by all means, this could include many other directives or motives given for such a direct order to comply even with unlawful directives. Approach also means whether the presence of force is lethal or non-lethal or in other terms, intimidating or non-intimidating to the prisoners who are subject to these orders.

 

So far, based on changing the stage settings, the Stanford experiment did not underscore or take into consideration these extreme but common environmental triggers. If seemed to focus more in a theatrical aspect of how people, “regular’ people would act if “given too much power, could transform into ruthless oppressors.” A fact that is based more on a desired predetermined outcome than a reality of most situations where the interactions have more variables or possibilities than a “yes” or “no” in the conflict or confrontation. In fact, since it is the guard’s first prerogative to avoid conflict, such escalations rarely occur on a routine basis.

 

There appears to be some connection between this study and the documentation of the extremely aggravated circumstances of Abu Ghraib. One cannot and should not connect the two as a “norm” since there were behaviors on both sides that are questionable and documented in an already sterile and yet, on the side of a different world and culture, a more volatile and brutal environment which was not the case on the Stanford experiment, which had no such dynamic working inside its cultural settings or expectations.

 

Comparing the two would be speculative that they are both the same setting and therefore, the behaviors are consistent with the study and research provided forty-five years earlier. Such a fallacy is easy to find and should be taken into consideration when comparing apples with oranges. However, focusing on the behaviors of the guards at Abu Ghraib, it was indeed, a travesty of justice; the epitome of American penal abuse and punishment towards a prison population which numbered thousands and that was involved in a war of terror and internal political strife in a civil war. Hardly nine (9) individuals arrested for armed robbery and burglary if you see the differences here.

 

Focusing on the Stanford experiment, the professor, the director and the cast attempt to cite it as evidence of “atavistic impulses.” They chose to use primitive as a means to impose punishment because the study lacked the ability to provide the most recent and best practices used inside jails and prisons at that time. Another gap that impacts credibility but needless to say, the focus was on these negative impulses that created regular people into “r.”

 

The fact is, we can all become tyrants if the conditions permit themselves to nurture such an environment. It isn’t that hard to attain if you know how to be a bully or otherwise inconsiderate person to the other persons’ dignity, respect and rights. This is what puzzles me so often as to why the Stanford experiment was done in such a fashion.

What did it accomplish and did it just confirm what we already knew. People can be brutal and cruel if allowed to be or given the authority to act that way? Certainly, we can read the history books and have a sufficient lesson learned there to avoid spending our time role playing prisoner –guard relationships for six (6) days.

 

So I agree with the writer, Maria Konnikova, who wrote, “The study has been haunted by ambiguity. Even as it suggests that ordinary people harbor ugly potentialities, it also testifies to the way our circumstances shape our behavior. Was the study about our individual fallibility, or about broken institutions?”

 

An interesting question as it may be universally applied to several recent prison disturbances where such brutalities were disclosed and demonstrated how “broken institutions” can impact public safety or incite riotous behaviors because of environmental conditions unaddressed and out of control.

 

Applying the findings of the Stanford experiment would not solve one problem inside today’s jails or prisons because it lacks credibility and evidence that such results were documented under legitimate research condition and controlled provocations. There is too much room for error in judgements and conclusions to nail it down to a certainty we could rely on as a reference material and evidentiary in nature.

 

The appeal of the study conforms to the appeal for a reality show on television. Turning a show like this into a reality episode likened to the “Orange is the New Black” series might peak the interest of the audience chosen for such reality shows, but not likely those who work in the profession.

 

I disagree the Stanford Experiment was conducted in a “heavy manipulated environment.” It does not even get close or resemble the realities of the level of manipulation present in a real jail or prison and should not be presented that way. The appeal was the setup, the stage and the actions of the players. However, there was no real value here because the environment was so out of control (the opposite of manipulated) and the research was so impulsive that the theories could not be applied in a credible or evidence-based presentation.

 

Whether these players were actors, students, prisoners or guards is totally irrelevant. They all acted outside the normal scopes of people trained to do this job. Role playing is far from real. Even if the script was real, the actions, mindset, emotional and psychological aspects of such staged events differ from the real thing. One can see how the study spiraled out of control so quickly as in a real setting, there are cultural and administrative parameters that are followed either by political means or peer pressure.

 

If their goal was to provoke thought, to deliver a message of brutality or oppression under the duress of being a prisoner under the supervision of a guard, they failed miserably because the authority, the setting and the entire plot was bogus from the beginning and adds nothing but a theatrical atmosphere to a brutal reality of real-life jails and prisons.

 

 

References:

http://www.newyorker.com/science/maria-konnikova/the-real-lesson-of-the-stanford-prison-experiment

 

 

 

The Stanford Prison Experiment - Fact or Myth? Fake or Real?

Stanford Prison Experiment – Fake or Real?

– A purely conjectural perception

Part I

 

There is a lot of excitement going around on this movie inspired by what I believe to be a grossly misaligned or misconstrued research study when comparing its contents with today’s facts as they have evolved since the experiment was conducted. Certainly not an expert in the field of psychology, my main objection to this perception it is real is based on my twenty five (25) years of experience inside our jails and systems in the Southwest, specifically New Mexico and Arizona, who are culturally different from those east of the Mississippi River and similar to the California penal system with qualified exceptions in some areas.

 

Certainly, in my opinion, if the research team had taken the time to organize their facts a little bit better, the study would have acquired or attained a higher level of credibility rather than the mediocre level of attention it is receiving now because of the current media craze on our prison systems and its flaws. From my own personal expectations, it is with regret that this study fell short or authenticity as it would have and could have been a valuable tool in training and psychological awareness of our penal world as it existed then and now.

 

The entire lesson plan or script, whichever applies best, was based on the team participants or the professor’s own vision, cultural and political awareness or educational guesses, how prisoners are treated or mistreated by what he refers to as prison guards in charge of the supervision and management of a real prison setting.  One must be cautious in translating such roles without the validity or evidence based procedures or conditions and thus any embossment of such dynamics, are either invalidated or false in actions and reactions.

 

In other words, it lacked the core values based on evidence gathered by various psychological profiles that impact the manner prisoners are evaluated and perceived by real guards or prison / jail administrators. You can’t pretend to engage in a role model behavioral unless you receive the same pre-existing conditions real trained guards receive during their tour of duty.  This is based on the theory of approach determines response in human behaviors.

 

The Genesis –

 

The Real Lesson of the Stanford Prison Experiment nine (9) individuals who were staged to be arrested, booked, processed and imprisoned in a most orchestrated manner that rarely resembles reality in the manner it is done by those trained to do so. It lacked innovative and creativity from the start.

First, to begin with, this study is encapsulated with nine volunteers willing to subject themselves to the rigors of the mindgames played under the pretense of incarceration.  This is the first key to the reality, nobody volunteers to go to jail or prison. At least no one in their right state of mind. Since the mind was at the core of this study, these actors should have been casted on the more “unwilling” side of the spectrum than volunteering for these roles. Making it mandatory would have imposed more anxiety and stress into the relationships and occurrences as they were planned or scripted to happen.

 

Second, the stage is bare and sterile. These players had no concept of the reality involved in running or managing a prison environment and did so on notions produced and projected for the sake of the outcome of the study, not reality or other variable that could have altered the outcome it the stage had been set right. Missing are the physical elements that makes jails and prisons despairing and filthy places to live or do time. These conditions play an important role on behaviors as it produces side effects of frustration, contaminated and communicable threats such as Hepatitis and often produces the negative subtleties that trigger negative responses to negative demands by those guards.

 

All nine actors were “arrested” on armed robbery and burglary charges. This taints the project from the beginning as these similar charges draw analogous inferences or cultural biases that do not cover the entire continuum of partialities if they had been charged with variable offenses such as murder, rape, aggravated assault, kidnapping, sexual molestations etc. these offenses all carry with them institutional prejudices that impact supervision and management levels for those in charge to manage them. If one is to conduct a real study, then the participants should also cover the continuum of offenders incarcerated.

 

Prison is a melting pot of criminals. They are all incarcerated, all dressed the same and all taken care of in a similar manner but they all carry special needs towards effective supervision and communication skills to maintain a safe and orderly environment. In other words, compliance has to be attained using various effective forms of managing behaviors but has to take into consideration their willingness to comply or refuse verbal orders given by authority figures.

 

Conducting this experiment is an honorable and worthy event. I can’t deny the fact, it does serve a legitimate purpose in our study of human behaviors and our prison world cultural phenomena as they really exist.  However, conducting this on a stage that is sterile in the usual biases, the usual influences and the grossly horrific negativities that such a dismal and ghastly place projects, does little justice to the reality of the study.

 

Had the professor, Philip George Zimbardo, a psychologist and a professor emeritus at Stanford University, done a little bit more of mental and physical preparation to set the stage accordingly, it could have reached epic proportions of credibility for others to benefit from. However, he overlooked the basic principles of the core values implemented in any correctional setting and failed to impose them at the right moments or places of this study to maximize the impact of how this treatment process could have been evolved and how revolution could have been created if it had done it with non-submissive actors.

 

It is a fact, all were prepared for the roles they were assigned to participate in this study. Quoting the words of a well versed writer, Maria Konnikova, a contributor to the New Yorker, the study consisted of “middle-class college students” who had previously answered a “questionnaire about their family backgrounds, physical- and mental-health histories, and social behavior, and had been deemed “normal.” Such a bold statement of finding nine (9) willing students who were normal defeats the psychological benefits of evaluating those who are either normal, below normal or exceeding mentally impaired.

 

There is no such class of inmates who are “normal” as they all carry with them their own psychological profiles which in turn develops into established cultural expectation of behaviors by the guards who stereotype, draw personal biases and impose discipline accordingly to their own profiles or perceptions of each offender. All these undercurrents work towards the compliance issues and is filled with pre-requisites on training and screening for being hired for such roles as prison guards.

 

Giving them no training voids their stereotyping based on cultural realities as they exist and draws on the imagination or pretention of motive rather than real-life situations inside our jails or prisons.

 

Artistic influences on hired prison guards differ from cultural influences of prison guards. This perception ranges from their own psychological profiles which is diverse and often include the educated and not so educated group of people selected for the job. Since this study was done back in the 1970’s with a remake in the millennium, these people projected to be guards, now evolved into correctional officers today, due to the evolution of their roles, training, experience prior to working as an officer e.g. college, military, blue collar or white collar occupations. This makes a major impact on treatment and supervisory methods used and performed for compliance of the rules. In other words, this changes the stage immensely and changes the outcome of respective behaviors or actions.

 

In this study, the selection between being a prisoner or a guard was based on a mere flip of the coin. A coin determined the roles played between what were perceived to be good guys versus bad guys. A real phenomena but rarely imitated or assimilated truthfully without some kind of preparation and study of real world dynamics. Facts play an important role here for the outcome – whether desired or not – it fabricates the dynamics of the stage.

 

Since the guards (actors) received no training, they began their ordeal of mistreatment and abuse based on their own myths and perceptions of what a prison guard does. A lore that has often been mislabeled and mischaracterized as Neanderthal in nature and accordingly, projected as guards with little training, education, instruction and how they imposed their personal will on those prisoners (actors) who were then humiliated and psychologically abused voluntarily and within a swift twenty four hours into the study’s start.

 

Putting this into perspective on today’s terms and realities, the evolution of corrections has rectified, satisfied and declared much of these earlier versions of brutalities and mindset changes to rest due to better judicial decisions since the 1970’s on constitutional rights, and prison living conditions of confinement that have been regulated and inserted into federal receiverships or consent decrees by the courts in various jurisdictions and authority bodies which regulate prison management.

 

 

 

 

References:

http://www.newyorker.com/science/maria-konnikova/the-real-lesson-of-the-stanford-prison-experiment

Changing Policies in a one billion dollar agency

Changing Policies

 

The headlines about the Kingman riots stumbled to bring any sense of urgency to the front page. After the media cooled down their coverage of the event, the captions disappeared, the interest unwearyingly dissipated and the agency is back to a business as usual approach managing our prisons. Even without the full disclosure of the Doug Ducey imposed “full probe investigation” into the Kingman riots, the narratives are gone.

 

This is not the first time nor will it be the last time, these kind of episodes appear and disappear within a short week or two. There is no fear out there, thus there is no wear in such stories. Damage control is always essential in minimizing collateral political damage and that is usually done within a day or two of the event and done well. Solutions to our prison disturbances have remained unsolved.

 

Solutions are there but the action it takes to make it happen are not. Will there be a string of riots this summer or it the crisis over? The answer lies in the prison population and how they react to minor superficial changes imposed to take the heat off the administration who failed to control the situation that began these riots by sputtering with lack of oversight and non-existent leadership.

 

Governor Ducey toured the Central Office area on Monday August 3, 2015, and was re-assured by the director that everything is under control. He reviewed compiled data shaped to sooth the soul and reassure him the damage done is nominal and the harm or fears were exaggerated. I for one can relate to such compiled data as I have been part of such hurried policy fixings in the past.

 

Fixing policies is like changing lanes without signaling. It’s based on lessons learned approaches that reveal not much other than the superficial on the surface causes and leave out the root causes of such disturbances. In practical terms, it’s a band aid instead of surgery for the problem and treats the symptoms, not the disease. There are no cultural advantages to such strategies, staff will not conform to changes without resistance or lack of interest in doing so. Tacit directions will continue to exist.

 

Is the agency more responsive and efficient today than it was pre-Kingman riots? Not hardly, it’s still the same mold, ideology and methodology to run the mission with preferred housing for private prisons such as Kingman. Patience is a virtue and Governor Ducey appears to have patience at this time. If this were to happen again, I venture to say his patience would be tested extremely hard and not easy for the agency to smooth over again.

 

By default, running prisons is brutal; it has no splendor or finesse of any kind that we know of. There are plenty of examples that show rapes, sexual assaults, physical assaults, homicides and suicides makes up most of the critical events on a daily or weekly basis. If one was to conduct interviews of such events, one could find the root causes but that’s not being done. There are better ways of policing our policies and protect our employees form harm but yet again, it is not being done. It is neither cost effective nor convenient to do so. This creates chaos, confusion, low morale and less understanding of the job and its expectations.

 

The theory is that employees, if given a slight margin or praise, will be more understanding and less fearful and fearful if they feel the policies are there to protect them. The same goes for inmates as they fear assaults from other inmates as well as alleged attacks by correctional staff. Either way, all sides are claiming victimization in today’s world and standards.

 

Business is good for Governor Ducey and his fellow private prison cronies. A great deal of money is yet to be made with future lucrative offers to expand the bed space. What appears to be an evenhanded situation on the surface is really an underhanded deal that will blow up in someone’s face when it blows. Although the state is littered with wrongful death lawsuits, they expect to either win them in court or allow risk management to pay them off in secret settlements. Either way, the taxpayers foot the bill; nothing comes back to any individual or entity that may be the gateway to this mess created due to political will to make doing time hard time. This might work in Arizona, as society’s culture is permissive and generous with civil rights and human right issues.

 

The bottom line is race-based policies might not work with violent crimes and criminals. The thought that we can treat every inmate the same is ridiculous and unreal. There needs to be core value established for the issuance of basic human rights and preservation of life through due diligence in the course to protecting civil rights. It is fair to wonder if Arizona can meet the challenge.

 

Prison management is a multi-functional concept and is a diverse culture. Inside prisons, culture rules everything including race and numbers. Diversity is the key to solutions. Equality is also a key element of social problems inside prisons. Relationships are strained and tempers are short. Living conditions are minimal and accommodations are few. Drug use and abuse is more rampant today than yesterday.  More training, better retention of experience and interpersonal communication skills need to be achieved.

 

Changing policies does not make good practice when our solution is deeper than that. Consistency by the agency is warranted. One prison should be run alike the others and management and staffing should be allocated to keep it safe. We can dream can’t we, I mean, it might get worse before it gets better but it will get better, one way or another. History always has a way of repeating itself.

 

 

The guiding force of Mother Nature

The Guiding Force of Mother Nature

Staring at the sky, I see a blue moon dancing spritely among the clouds gathering fast and furious

The wind speaks with force and tells me to find a place to seek shelter

My instinct told me to run inside and find shelter from the lightening and helter skelter

But in my mind, I wanted to stand outside, as I felt the raindrop fall and refused to hide

The tree branches are bouncing in rhythm to the whistling wind so fiercely blown

The world commands the gathering darkened clouds to rain, as it began to storm

 

This land is thirsty, it has not seen water for such a long long time

As I watched the sun go down earlier and dissolve its light on the horizon

The rains have finally come and for a while, the rain shall rule over all living things

The sun dried up the grass, the wildlands are bare and brown and prime for fire

The world needs action to wet this land with a thirst and appetite and make it right

So when the rain comes down, everything will be done with a guiding force and make all thing all right

 

I never challenge Mother Nature, she always wins as she throws every element into the wind

I have witnessed the power of nature, and what a stormy night can bring

The beauty of creation is only matched by the beauty of the morning after rain

At must, I glance at the soaking wet grass as water is flowing freely, trolling for a place to stand

A waterfall made from a pile of rocks, the water rushes into a cascading foamy wave of freedom

The water dances to the shimmering reflections of the morning sunlight

As the sunrise brings another glory, and stretches the sky wide open with heavenly arms extended

And with open arms, you can feel the warmth, my face is smiling as I can feel the grace

Of heavenly love, and purest thoughts, as the sunlight hits my face

 

So I am ready to face the world, I am willing to take a stand

I may not be as forceful as nature, but I know somewhere along the way, I will find a hand

It rained on me last night, and it soaked me up with a heavenly spirit

Standing there, in the darkness, I saw my mirrored face in the rushing waters

I heard the thunder, I watched the lightening with awe as it showed its power

It rained on me a gentle and heavenly shower.  I know up above, there is a power

               

An Open Letter to Governor Ducey, Arizona

An Open Letter - Dear Governor Ducey,

Dear Governor Ducey, ever since the recent Kingman riots, you, as our governor, have asked for full disclosure of the root causes of this disturbance. In a comment made when you toured the prison, you indicated an interest in the cause of the riot and how it happened on your watch.

At the same time, you indicated you would not change direction in your quest to fund private prisons to help the state systems with its current overcapacity. I can accept that as an option but not as a final option.

Right now, today, you, Governor Ducey, have the key opportunity to reshape the future of the entire state prison system, affecting tens of thousands of prisoners and their families. You could in fact, change the number of people who die, get assaulted or released properly with a chance to not return to prison.

The first thing you should do is ask for the resignation of the current director. He is due for retirement and his successor could be the positive catalyst this state needs to move ahead with prison changes whether in policies, best practices or reforms. Depending on your own agenda, change is still the best option.

The decision to change our state prison system is significant and means a lot to the public, as well as families and friends of those incarcerated. It also means safer workplace practices for employees in both the private and public sector. Leadership with focus on core values is a must. Change is a must. Arizona has never met any national benchmarks when it comes to prison management. Now is the time to implement change, positive change.

Under Charles Ryan’s era, the prison leadership has eroded. The state is has a dismal record of performance and public safety. The state has imposed unduly harsh conditions on prisoners, failed to prevent sexual abuse, and refused to exercise good judgment in workplace safety for their employees. 

Both in supermax and in other prisons, policies continue to expose far too many prisoners, including many who suffer from serious mental illness, to solitary confinement. Even if we deny solitary confinement, governor, we have too many inmates in maximum custody.

The state has also failed to mount a serious fight against sexual violence and abuse in its prisons. Not just against inmates but staff as well. The rape of a teacher and correctional officer, comes to mind. Arizona needs to implement better policies which include a comprehensive set of operational concerns in the areas of rules, training requirements and audit / public disclosure mandates to improve safety.

Arizona is no different from other states. It has many available tools and a good deal of discretion to better deal with its prison population, but it has used those opportunities far too sparingly. The state’s prison population is growing steadily, it is suffering from severe overcrowding and reasonable options are not being put on the table to ease suffering and unnecessary pain. Better programs result in keeping staff and prisoners safer and it reduces litigations by the inmate populations. I am not advocating the release of inmates; I am advocating better management of inmates and their preparation to return to society.

With congestion comes risks of violence, and less access to services such as jobs and programs. And as prison populations’ age, the costs of medical care go up. The list is endless.

We know Arizona can do better because many state correctional systems are making a variety of improvements in their approaches. Other state prison systems have reduced the population of those in isolation, created better inmate programming to suit the histories and challenges of those incarcerated and offered new work programs and improved mental health services like Arizona was on track to do and almost accomplished, prior to this director’s appointment in 2009.