Corrections - Corruptive to the Core

Corrections - Corruptive to the Core

 

There is no doubt in anyone’s mind that Arizona prisons are falling apart. The attention to detail required to keep them running in good order has been appalling to say the least. In fact, there are only two benefactors for the condition it is in and that is a beneficent private prison industry and the inmates that are running the asylums statewide.  The Governor has obviously decided to allow what has been designed to be a corruptive machine to exist while she is in office and allowing nature to take its course as the impotent system devours human lives, and preys on the weak as an abundance of drugs, contraband and disruptive groups grow rampant without any intentions of control by the agency.

Government employee unions have grown impotent as well living parasitically on the unwary and less deserving full time contributors to their funds. The unions, all of them assimilate the features of a house of cards are ready to fall within an earshot of the director’s anger as they are targeted the main political asses. Let the truth be known, the prison system failed a long time ago. The current regime, in a reckless and almost unlimited fashion shaped their strategies for complete failures and proactively pursued an alternative that would give more funding and more control to the private prison industry. You might say that they bailed out a stagnant prison industry by offering them revitalized growth through subsidies and contractual promises.

For the corrections employees it has been an understandable minefield to tread very carefully and with caution. The current administration has haphazardly put more violence and less control on the grounds with their sparsely designed staffing patterns and buckling under the pressure to cut back even more resources than before. It has certainly become a circus atmosphere if were not for the serious injuries incurred by faithful employees put at risk and buckling under the weight of being outnumbered at least 200 to 1 at times when on the yard.

These cumulative follies are anticipated to continue to occur as the public has ignored these flaws with apathy and disinterest. The administration has been assured of one thing for sure by the Governor and the majority rule in the legislature as they carry the sign that states “where there is no admittance of failures or shortcomings, there are no penalties for failures” as failures are allowed to proliferate at a record rate with humans dying along the way.

Meanwhile the system is decaying and troubled and when public safety or trust is breached there will be an outcry from those that behaved ignorant of their surroundings and blame individuals rather than systems for the liabilities found. Leaders in the government will point fingers and deny culpability as they hustle to cover up their tracks for endorsing such behaviors tacitly and silently behind closed doors.  Jeopardizing every element of a democracy they impose jurisdiction with promises to fix the problem as heads will roll for those that did exactly what they were told to do by politicians in the pockets of lobbyist and the governor’s corner office.

Sometime soon, among the exculpatory alibis invoked to deflect blame from the political class and the docile politicians who empowered it, is the myth that this prison system is simply a victim of "lack of oversight” and that the solution is to simply remove the current administration with a new one that is in tune with the political machine’s wishes and demands even though it may be exactly a replica of what was in place before but given a new name, a new mission statement and the same deliberate strategies to continue on its journey of failures and corruptive practices. Time for change but change might never come unless we elect new leadership to steer us in the right direction.