Yesterday, House Minority Leader Chad Campbell called for the immediate resignation of Arizona Department of Corrections Director Charles Ryan. Today, the American Friends Service Committee has asked Gov. Jan Brewer to create an oversight committee over the ADOC.
The Phoenix Democrat has been a vocal advocate for prison reform and private prison issues alongside AFSC. His call for Ryan’s resignation follows a recent Buckeye prison inmate death.
“Director Ryan has exhibited a pattern of mismanagement and a lack of leadership resulting in an unsafe corrections system in our state,” Campbell said in a press release. “Under his direction, our corrections system has wasted tax dollars, jeopardized people’s lives and damaged the state’s credibility.”
Campbell said he’s seen reports that Arizona’s prison suicide rate was 60 percent higher than the national average between the years of 2010 and 2012.
“In addition to this, the attempt to cover up what happened to an inmate allowed to bleed to death in front of prison guards is a gruesome consequence of Ryan’s negligence,” Campbell said, adding that he believes Ryan has failed to properly supervise private prison contracts, such as a private facility in Kingman, where three inmates escaped in 2010 and committed murder and armed robbery. “Following this incident, Ryan admitted that the DOC didn’t properly monitor this facility. This is a community safety issue.”
Campbell also said that private prisons cost more than state-run prisons and the DOC has failed to hold the private prison companies accountable for the terms of their contracts with the state. He complained that the state awards contracts in a manner that is not transparent and seems indicative of cronyism. An example of this occurred earlier this year, when the DOC terminated a contract with Wexford Health Sources, a private company that provided healthcare for inmates statewide.
“The (DOC) contracted with a company that has a controversial record of service. In fact, one of Wexford’s employees exposed more than 100 people to hepatitis C in a prison in Buckeye,” Campbell said. “The DOC terminates that contract and replaces Wexford with Corizon, another company surrounded by controversy that also happens to have ties to people who are close to the governor. This situation reeks of patronage.”
And Campbell used the taxpayer argument—specifically, that for-profit, private prisons are misusing taxpayer money.
According to Campbell, last year, Republicans repealed a state law in the budget requiring a comparison of state and private prisons every two years to ensure that private prisons were providing the same quality of services as state prisons at a lower cost. DOC Per Capita Cost Reports compiled over five years consistently show that the state is losing money on private prisons, and security audits show serious safety flaws in all of Arizona’s for-profit prisons, including malfunctioning cameras and alarm systems.
In a letter to Brewer, the AFSC asked the governor that the oversight committee they are asking for be meaningful and independent.
“Such an oversight committee would allow for better institutional transparency and substantial responses to grievances of inadequate medical and mental health care within the ADC facilities,” says AFSC Program Director Caroline Isaacs.
Here is the AFSC letter to Brewer:
AFSC also asked that Brewer investigate the charges against Ryan and determine whether he is fit to serve.
Isaacs points out that while it is important to hold ADC Directors accountable for the gross failings of their tenure, “putting a new Director into an old and failed system won’t change the outcome.” She added, “Ryan’s failures reveal a total lack of public oversight over our prisons.”
The oversight committee that AFSC Arizona proposes in the letter to Brewer must have the ability to hold the ADC accountable in a meaningful way, and must include individuals outside of the framework of political influence.
In the letter, AFSC cites overuse of solitary confinement in maximum-security units, a reliance on private for-profit prison companies, and lack of adequate medical and mental health care as prime examples of the need for such oversight. It reads, “[T]he numerous issues raised in Rep. Campbell’s letter are extremely serious, costing taxpayers millions of dollars and undermining public safety as well as the safety and health of prisoners and corrections staff.”
This article appears in Jul 18-24, 2013.
About time! How do we end up with all these managers that are deficient in leadership, derelict of duty, and inexcusably negligent to public safety? Where was OSHA and their legal department anyway? Add them to the investigations list with the other un-accountables running the probationary community college and the crooked cover-up water district. Gov. Brewer did a great job and really set the example at ASDB. Please keep up the good work and restore some accountability to these scoff-law institutions, they are costing the public millions in money and trust. Thank you to Jan and Chad for being having the will it takes to clean up the filth.
“The (DOC) contracted with a company that has a controversial record of service. In fact, one of Wexford’s employees exposed more than 100 people to hepatitis C in a prison in Buckeye,”
WTF is up with this criminal negligence – Who will bring charges before they do more irreparable damage?
Is adosh upholding their safety standard regarding bloodborne pathogens in this case with Ryan? Do the victims have any legal recourse? – a personal injury lawyer phone is ringing somewhere… or is this the new standard for private prison conduct?
Lawyer’s don’t want to sue their own state.
Director Ryan is a bully. Governor Brewer is a Bully. Between the two, they are a couple, therefore, your questions are answered.
When someone in this state attempts to voice opinion of his (Director) policies, they (the whistleblower) are brought to his office, with 4 other administrators, and, straight out bullied, for two hours. With a landline, secretly hooked to the Governor’s office. All over an “e mail” that was written regarding safety within the prisons system.
Criminal negligence at the very least. Who will sue? Seems the calcium within the bones of Arizona’s personal injury lawyers is turned into “jelly”. ACLU don’t even want to address the “suicide” issues that, are the highest with incarcerated and “staff”. I wonder why “staff” has suicide issues. After all, is it “normal, reasonable, and prudent to bring a “CO” to the office of the Director for two hours for a non productive, meeting that consisted of nothing but “lateral violence”? Or, the office of the Governor’s deputy chief of staff, calling his home over an e mail written to the Governor, regarding the “illegal” operations of the prison system? That employee has been flushed out. He has severe issues with the operations, both personally and professionally, of this Director and Governor’s attention to how the prison system is run.