Gang Violence inside Prisons

 

Gang Violence or Routine Prison Misconduct ?

By Carl R. ToersBijns, former deputy warden, ASPC Eyman complex, Florence, AZ

 

There appears to be an importation of a new prisoner model or ideology that gang violence inside prisons is merely an extension of antisocial behaviors developed on the streets. Opposing this model are those who deny gang activities are on the rise and that the main contributor of increased prison violence is the new youthful offender that does not respect or adhere to prison regulations like those before.

There are many publically / politically influenced commonalities in this way of thinking that justifies the lack of response and vigilance regarding this ever growing problem inside of prisons as it is being identified as an individual problem rather than a group or in this case, a gang problem. Surrendering [unknowingly or through passive direction] the prisons to known gang leaders is a strategy that has failed in the past and is making a comeback in some prison systems.

 
It is becoming clearer as every day passes on that prison population are becoming more violent by the moment. There also appears to be a direct correlation between gangs involved in street activities and prison gangs coordinating high risk gang activities from both ends of the fence line. Thus the model delivered attempts to indicate or reflect that one is the same as the other with the only difference being the razor wire that isolates the two versions of disruptive groups within our society and the prison world.

The connection also reveals prior inmate behaviors of those gang members out in the streets. These high risk persons handle predictive violent behaviors on the street as they did when incarcerated and involved in significant gang activities.

However, unlike the police officers on the street, there are some prison agencies that have chosen to ignore such threats and allowed these especially at risk [often repeat-offenders] persons rule and run prison yards as a condition to maintain peace and control without or minimal administrative intervention.

 
It appears that some prison officials feel that gang membership is a smaller threat to their authority thus considered it to be a smaller risk. Although aware of chronic offending and breaking of institutional rules and regulations, their vigilance and enforcement tactics resemble passive ignorance of such a major impact and receives scaled back controlled responses to avoid upsetting the delicate balance of gang controlled power inside our prisons.

On the other hand, other prison officials are actively and aggressively addressing gang influences inside prisons as they agreed that prison gang involvement has the same consequences and characteristics as street gang involvement and contributes negatively to prison violence, misconduct and other social maladjustments.

Some of those who accept prison gang mentalities and behaviors as a way of life, have thrown in the towel of surrender and allow individual criminality to exist as each prisoner may contribute to the overall prison environment or structural existence through situational dynamics of what is acceptable conduct inside prison and prison life.

They refuse to acknowledge that although an individual may be acting as their own criminal [anti-social] behavior dictates, the fact they are gang connected creates a more powerful force that impacts prison violence disproportionately and heightens the risks of violence and other forms of criminality or misconducts.

In the end, prison officials have to decide to what extent prison gang membership impacts their daily operation and how it compares to their daily threats of potential disturbances, harm to staff and other prisoners and the cultural settings of different prison yards throughout the system.

It would be most beneficial for prison officials to study the relationship between street gangs and prison gangs rather that ignoring this potent link in order to measure their impact related to gang activity, potential threats to the prison population and prison regulations. Ignoring prison gangs as organized and self-perpetuating groups is foolish. Refusing to address this hierarchy of leadership and their established chain of command is detrimental to establishing security and impacts their direct ability to rule and control prison conduct.

They should actively pursue the growth of gang activity through organized strikes and efforts to control these activities and minimize their power and influence on their respective yards so that the prisons are governed by institutional rules and regulations rather than gang like control [intimidation and fear] and violence connect behaviors resembling anarchist at work inside prisons.

In denial of such growing dynamics on their yards, officials refuse to admit or identify that gang members are more likely to commit criminal acts than non gang members inside prisons. They are also permitting gang members to commit major misconduct violations to occur such as murder, rape, assaulting of staff and other use of lethal force inside prisons to carry out their illegal enforcement of gang by rules and taxation programs.

Giving up social controls on gang members will release [or unleash] a most unwanted dynamic event that gang activity produces or induces into a prison environment. It is problematic and a most perpetuating condition that send a message that violence is condoned and the perpetrators will not be sought for justice or prosecution and that there will be no retribution for such misconduct or behaviors including homicides.

November 24, 2012

Another letter to Arizona legislators

Violence vs. Vigilance -The high cost of incarceration

By Carl R. ToersBijns, former deputy warden, ASPC Eyman, Florence, AZ

 

 

Arizona prisons, by reputation and demographics, have increased their tolerance for deadly violence exponentially in the manner it has been addressed and managed. Allowing willfully and deliberately the existence of organized gang violence to occur, they are setting up the public and the taxpayers for a huge demand of funding in future needs to secure our prisons that have been exploited by those who wanted to see them grow in size and need for profit making and mass incarceration agendas.

 

For all practical purposes, prison management is taking weak reactive approaches on the management of violence inside these state prisons. Through slow and “deliberate indifference methods” of blaming these events on individuals and not the gangs that are actually ruling the yards with orders coming from upstairs inside their maximum security units. Just like the outside world, taxes are up and the failure to pay them results in physical harm or assaults that often hospitalize men or women for weeks at a time. This philosophy of gang enforcement by boots and stomping has been a growing disease with no relief in sight. Since these acts are tolerated by the administration, it is likely to increase over the next few years before someone says enough is enough and attempts to retake control from the gangs will result in widespread violence throughout the state for a momentary conflict for control and power.

 

The strategy is simple and not complicated at all once you understand the mentality of creating a “gladiator” environment inside our prisons and how this impacts your political wishes to spend more money and control more power over a most ignored and invisible event such as managing prisons.

 

Their deliberate ignorance of such gang growth has allowed them to deny there is a growth in gang related violence within the prison setting as there are now more violent individuals incarcerated than ever before. This myth will eventually be dispelled by future leaders but until such a farce is revealed, the taxpayers and constituency base will suffer needless as more money is allocated for prison operations and programs.

 

For the longest time now, prison officials have turned a blind eye at the “beat downs” and severe assaults that have been occurring inside state prisons since the ideology has changed from rehabilitation to mass incarceration. Medical bills and hospitalization needs has jumped up the costs of associated treatment and care as there appears no end to the gang violence inside Arizona prisons.

 

The agenda is filled with expanding maximum security beds rather than providing a safe and secure environment for staff and prisoners to enhance and allow a peaceful coexistence and functionality and coping skills. Today’s standards are well within limits that allow only a small degree of humanity to exist inside prisons. This makes the majority of prison culture inhumane and torturous to many trying to co-exist under such vile conditions.

 

This concept is designed so that administrators don’t experience back-drafts of criticism for the ongoing violence from those that embrace anarchist ideology on both sides of the fence. Allowing such conditions to exist permits the agency to point the fingers at prisoners rather than their own miscalculations or moral and legal responsibilities of how to handle violence inside their prisons. It also allows a justification for resources to be used in a manner unquestioned by those top executives or legislators that make the rules but rarely see to it that oversight of compliance is occurring.

 

It is much easier to blame prisoners for their negative and often rebellious behaviors than to explain how the agency allowed such breeding conditions to occur and foster such a disruptive mood without intervention. After all is said and done, the agency, in its righteous tone of addressing the prisoner’s misconduct and assaultive behaviors will come out asking for more funding, more staff, more maximum security beds and more sympathy from the governor’s office, the legislature and the public.

 

It’s a strategy that has worked often elsewhere and is growing inside Arizona prison managers’ minds as a new tool to warrant current prison expansions based on the self created need and self fulfilling prophecy that prisoners are more violent today than ever before and that the expenditures requested are needed to calm the setting and manage violence that has been embraced through silence and inaction and used a means to attain and acquire more money for more prisons and beds.

 

November 24, 2012

 

 

 

An Old Timer’s Christmas Wish

An Old Timer’s Christmas Wish

By Carl R. ToersBijns

 

Life in the late 50’s and early 60's was simple as there was a limited amount of income coming in for a lot of families who lived on the minimum wage. The economy was fair and crime was low but the pay for those lucky to be employed was low. The cost of living was rising and the only way one could survive is to have both parents working so they can consolidate their income to meet their needs.  Only a few families could afford to celebrate the holidays and then, on a very limited level. The cold war was looming and the air raid drills were real in school and in the city.

 

The holidays were always celebrated with vigor and blessings of all that we were thankful for either during the holidays or the entire year. Thanksgiving is a special occasion where we could express our appreciation for the good things in life and the ability to pursue our own version of happiness down the road.

 

Anxiously waiting, we could hardly wait for the arrival of Christmas.  The economy was so bad, it was hard to earn a dollar and more stressful just to make ends meet as jobs were hard to find and parents were struggling to make ends meet. Living on meager wages, we stretched the food thus it was urgently important that we saved every bit of scraps we had and make a meal from the leftovers the next day's supper. Money tight and clothes worn out, we made sure we had what we needed to get by for Christmas as we wanted this holiday to be special as we just had a baby girl in the family and she was a treasure to say the least.

However, when it came, it was a simple celebration focusing on God, the birth of Jesus Christ, the Virgin Mary and the Holy Spirit.  Gifts were meager tokens of our appreciation for our blessings. We did not splurge or attempt to buy any more than we could afford. Times were tough and it was like that all over in America and not just in Ohio.

 

Growing up in the ghetto tenements of the south end of Columbus Ohio during the early 60's was ethnically challenging and a time for constant friction and controversy. Racial issues in our neighborhood continued to dominate our family's daily strife as the black and white environment we lived in was frequently falling short for reaching a harmonious relationship. Witnessing the racial wars and conflicts grew us closer together as we saw how cynical and ridiculous adults behaved related to the world being black or white. The deployment of the Ohio National Guard into our neighborhood heightened our awareness of how divided we really stood on life. Those who knew how to live in harmony were ridiculed and those who spewed hatred into every direction were martyred by their own in their respective neighborhoods.

 

Learning slowly the perils of mixing racial relationships in this side of town could end up inside a hospital emergency room waiting for the doctor to stitch you up after you just survived a razor blade attack on your body thinking to yourself "what did I do to deserve this".  

Thinking more of the offspring’s state of mind and personal wellness than the impact on adults, kids these days endured much harassment and bullying inside the school and playgrounds.

 

Life in the 70’s was not so simple as before as there was the end of the Vietnam war that left many homeless and traumatized because of the conflict and shock they were involuntarily inflicted by and sadly left untreated to fend for their own with no help from the government upon discharge of service. The music was rocking with big name bands and the mood was laid back as the world tried to find peace with the nuclear war still hanging over our heads and communism spreading like wildfires in Asia and Eastern Europe.

 

Life in the 80’s was much different from the 70’s as things began to come together and the world seemed to have settled down a bit. The economy seemed to have picked up and more jobs were available and more plenty in Ohio and other places. Moving to New Mexico to follow my parents, it was a new journey that allowed me to leave all my troubles behind and start fresh with a new mindset that allowed me to gather my thoughts and heal my aching heart for all the misery and pain I had left behind to start anew.

 

The 90’s brought more joy and the families I once knew to be far apart were coming together as we saw a new direction and new hope for changing some of the things that had happened in the past. Stability was a main ingredient and the ability to launch new ideas and new challenges grew into a reality unmatched by anything in the past.

 

The coming of the new millennium brought more opportunities and happiness. Children, my children, were growing into adults and having families of their own makes the heart fonder of the good things that happen in life with faith and hope coming from above. The world seemed to get better and the air was filled with fresh feelings of hope and prosperity for many.

 

But the happiness was short lived as the morning of 9/11 revealed that America was again engaged in war but this time, the war had come to New York City and the Twin Towers were assaulted by radical Islamic terrorist flying two large commercial aircraft into the gigantic and elevated skyscrapers making them easy targets to hurtle into with loaded fuel and innocent Americans unaware that danger had came from above and brought them immediate hell, death and disaster.

 

Recovering from the Twin Tower disaster was most difficult for Americans. Their own sovereignty had been endangered by small groups of radicals preying on large commercial ports of entry and landmarks that represented America’s power and influence throughout the world and Christianity. No longer safe inside the own territorial borders, the new Homeland Security Agency promulgated policies that would invade the privacy of our lives forever as new technology advanced body [scans] searches and the detection of weapons and other contraband determined by the TSA coming onboard aircrafts.

 

Moving to the Grand Canyon state in late 2005 brought a new element of hatred into our lives. The subject of illegal immigration had invaded Arizona politics and statutory legislation as well as regulations.

 

Suburban and rural neighborhoods were once again divided and many left to avoid the persecution of laws that focused on legal and illegal residence status that had been ignored by the federal government for years if not decades and now making a political impact for those running for elected office.

 

Families became divided under SB 1070 as the law demanded ICE detainments and eventual deportations and compliance with the laws of the land. Congress offered no resolution as states drafted their own immigration laws to control their sovereignty and borders within their control.

 

Then almost inconspicuously, some of the old ideology from the 60’s crept back into our lives and on television and newspapers. The country elected a black president for the first time and the world [as we knew it] inside America rocked with a renewal of racism as many could not understand, accept or conform to the new ideology created by those born in earlier decades that all men are created equal regardless of race, creed, color or nationality and that anyone could be president if they get the electoral votes to win the office.

 

The likes of the infamous Klux Klux Klan were reborn geographically and demographically as the hatred spewed up everywhere with provocation to incite racial hate crimes through written dialogues and detestable language and social media cartoons. Muslims sought shelter inside their mosques as they became targets of a new generation of haters and degenerates. Gangs grew inside our large cities and crime took a rise that would fill our prisons to the brim of hell’s own periphery of insanity and madness. Black killing blacks and inter-racial killings that had no boundaries or honor.

 

There was also a significant change in the way we celebrate our holidays nowadays. Compared to the old ways where we focused on Christ, the angels and the celebrated music as our means to find happiness and peace with God, we are losing the bonds we established so hard in the past. Commercialism invaded our ideology of celebrating the holydays focusing on gifts and other self fulfilling presents that were meant to please oneself rather than others. 

 

The spirit of giving had changed to the spirit of receiving and ignoring the giving aspect of a most worthy cause to celebrate the birth of Jesus.  It appeared the word “reborn” had taken a new meaning as it again divided our neighborhoods through extreme ideologies and biases. Xboxes and large screen televisions invaded the homes as the Holy Bible was put on pause and stashed away in a drawer somewhere collecting dust and ignorance by those who chose to cast it aside for personal pleasure and addictive entertainment. Technology was swallowing life into a vacuum that would be difficult to recover from if at all.

 

After every Thanksgiving after 2001, the mood on the street never changed, it was naïve to believe that with Christmas nearing and only a few weeks away, there would be peace and joy throughout the world and angels singing hymns to bring the faithful gathers together for a song or two. Caroling in our streets during Christmas used to be a common event but is hardly happening anymore, anywhere in America today.

 

The economy was so bad, it was very hard find a good job and to earn top dollar for good work done. Life was becoming more stressful just to make ends meet as jobs were hard to find and parents were struggling to make ends meet. Savings accounts depleted and Wall Street taking a deep tumble into corruptive practices and financial troubles, the earnings of a life’s savings disappeared for many Americans.

 

The newly elected president in 2008 ended one of the Middle East wars and promised to end another in Pakistan. These senseless wars have been fought for decades and as these fine and honorable young men and women came home, they found empty hearts and pockets leaving them at the mercy of a struggling economy and high unemployment rate. Many experienced PTSD from the war and received no assistance for such service as they were discarded and many left homeless for service to their country and injured in the line of duty. Many came home broken in spirit and mind as they suffer irreparable harm to their wellness

 

After the elections of 2012, fifty states have filed petitions to secede from the union. A re-elected president ponders how to heal the nation. The citizens’ viewpoints are different than those elected in Washington DC and wish to rule their own way of life began to appear in society just like it did before the start of the notorious American Civil War. Although symbolic in nature, they represent the truthful feelings of the many as they struggle with the social and political conflict that impairs them daily to be productive and gainfully employed as the economy and debt has faltered to a new low each day we go on.

 

The world appears to be riding on the shoulders of Satan and Judas as it has been turned upside down in morality and tranquility. The lyrics sung in the past have been replaced with slogans of war, violence, corruption and power as the government struggles to meet the solutions to its humongous debt and our burdensome fiscal cliff is ready to fall off into the ocean and drift towards the economically dominant Republic of China that today holds our debt as collateral and owns what we once had as our own. Our national security and defense at jeopardy, we pray change will come from Congress and reshape our journey to financial and economic independence once again.

 

The spirit of Christmas has dwindled down to a silent wish for hope. Hope that America will wake up from this nightmare and turn it around with those same ingredients our founding father had to birth this nation. A dire need to re-birth America will require strength and courage by those elected as leaders as we journey and navigate these dire straights to hell.

Negativity is ascending as hope dissipates into thin air. It appears the electoral vote is now in direct disagreement with the popular vote and people are upset their candidates lost. So in the end I have a Christmas wish that would end all the fighting and all the misery inside our country and in our neighborhood.

 

My wish is to restore the faith in God that built this great nation. Allow the pledge of allegiance to return back to the classrooms and stop banishing the words of in “God we Trust” from the lips of our children. Let us find the courage to again place our hands crossing our hearts as our Flag passes by and represents what is the greatest nation on earth, indivisible and under God. Reestablish patriotism as it was once before and bring home our men and women in uniform and keep them safe with support to assist them back into civilian livelihood and become good civilians again.

 

My wish is to rebuild and rekindle our spirits that allowed us to feel good about ourselves and others as friend and neighbor rather than enemy or foe.  Stop the fighting, the racism, and the hatred and become good neighbors again. Let our children live in peace and love each other unconditionally.

 

My wish is a return to good economics and stop sending jobs elsewhere around the world to allow us to prosper again and make us free. Free from the slavery that these conditions impose on us as we must follow involuntarily the whims of those in power that benefit from free labor of men and cheap products that need to be replaced often to increase the profits.

 

My wish is an end to these chains of entitlement feelings and give each man or woman an opportunity to work for a living and support those whom they love. Free those enslaved and dependent on government services and put them back into the hands of themselves so they may become self-reliant again and earn and learn the meaning of self-responsibilities, self-efficiency and self-support.

 

My wish is to heal America and bring us all back together again. Stop the violence and bring a level of sanity back into our lives. Allow each one individual the rights conceived by our Constitution and let no man or woman alter the meaning of our “Bill of Rights” to shadow and destroy the main fiber of our nation.

 

My wish is to stop the congressional bickering and unite this nation as a one party family that will heal all wounds and bring us together again and bring our nation back into a resolved condition and strength with reserves independent from foreign powers or influences.

 

My wish is to bring peace, hope and faith into our lives and allow us to be a nation whole once again and without the division we have today. Bring back contentment and allow us the bliss we so desire in God’s name and spirit and bring us together into one accord.

 

 

Proactive Policing vs. Reactive Policing in Corrections

Proactive Policing vs. Reactive Policing in Corrections

By Carl R. ToersBijns, former deputy warden, ASPC Eyman, Florence, AZ

In most cases, the Arizona Department of Corrections Officers and administrators have to react to a variety of critical incidents, situations and scenarios in an ad hoc manner due to lack of planning or preparation for such events. What we have when such events occur is total havoc of organizational resources misused and abused rather than efficiently or effectively deployed and able to manage the situation in a calm and orderly fashion.

Thus it is fair to say that there are minimal efforts made to avoid a proactive approach towards the prevention of criminal activities within the prisons and lack of effective measures implemented to prevent such criminal acts to occur. Although there are common approaches [best practices] available to deal with this issue, the ADOC chooses to manage by crisis as this is their main and only ideology to ineffectively manage crime, their prison’s security functionality, technology and the majority of their incarceration policies.

Rather than being proactive this current administration chooses to be reactive in nature and frequently fail the public’s trust in their efforts to aid both the public’s safety as well as the safety of those incarcerated and assigned to work inside of our state prisons today.

In Arizona some things remain constant since 2009. In policing there is no change. The Department of Corrections is not a focused group as it fails to learn from lessons in the past and continues to mishandle major flaws with little or no change in management styles. Only in those areas where there is a federal grants involved do they improve their services in order to gain access to this dangling carrot that provides them funding for essential services.

However, even in those federally funded programs there is room for improvement as it is merely set up to meet minimum standards and often weakly enforced to show nothing but the desired results on paper rather than making an intentional or practical change in operations or behaviors.

The PREA Act is one example as the ADOC continues to punish those who report sexual abuse or misconduct and allows the victimization of both lesbian and gay prisoners’ rights to be violated and ignored by staff. Not only is there a need for policy change but in a cultural change as well.

Another example of mismanagement is the manner the ADOC handles the severely mentally ill persons. It allows and condones a high number of suicides, self mutilations and death inside its prisons with no effective counter plan to intervene, reduce or prevent these events as it ignores the problem rather than handling it with today’s technology and methodology used by other states to create safer and more orderly therapeutic environments for those needing stability and programming for mental health treatment.

This agency has been unsuccessful particularly in learning and adapting to new correctional techniques and behaviors. Instead of focusing on a reduction in prison population, they plan for expansion of beds. Instead of hitting the bricks for prisons corrections, they ask for more prisons to be built.

Talking to people working inside these prisons, it is obvious that there is no priority in reducing spending and reducing the violence that is occurring on a daily basis by inmate gangs that are running open yards and charging taxes and other levies to those that are doing their time but have to either join a gang or pay to coexist on one of these yards. To refuse payment is a sentence for excessive physical punishment that often results in hospitalization or medical treatment for injuries often not reported for fear of relations.

Policies haven’t changed and it’s likely they won’t until the death count exceed those tolerable limits set by the directors in Phoenix as manageable and normal. In the meantime, drugs rule the yards and run amuck. Assaults are increasingly common and more severe as correctional officers risk being harmed or killed by those that enforce the gang rules inside our prisons.

This agency could be more successful if it adopted the guidelines of the S.A.R.A model that is considered to be a process that is workable and logical when applied to problem solving measures and it works. The main obstacle of this concept is the resistance by those who refuse to “buy in” on the concept and insist on doing it the old way of lessons learned and taking reactive measures to avoid dealing with it again but not taking into consideration other variances of other major problems that may occur.

The ADOC needs to implement a proverbial buy in order for it to work. Without this embracement of change policies will remain ineffective and antiquated in content and unable to provide guidance to those working the line and keeping the peace.

The bottom line is if you want the ADOC to be successful, the department has to implement this model in all their prisons and allow the process to exist, grow and expand to the levels it can reach if fully integrated into the policy making process that is lacking the right elements to fulfill effective policy making today.

The SARA Model

A commonly used problem-solving method is the SARA model (Scanning, Analysis, Response and Assessment). The SARA model contains the following elements:

Scanning:

• Identifying recurring problems of concern to the public and the agency.
• Identifying the consequences of the problem for the prisons and the agency.
• Prioritizing those problems.
• Developing broad goals.
• Confirming that the problems exist.
• Determining how frequently the problem occurs and how long it has been taking place.
• Selecting problems for closer examination.

Analysis:

• Identifying and understanding the events and conditions that precede and accompany the problem.
• Identifying relevant data to be collected.
• Researching what is known about the problem type.
• Taking inventory of how the problem is currently addressed and the strengths and limitations of the current response.
• Narrowing the scope of the problem as specifically as possible.
• Identifying a variety of resources that may be of assistance in developing a deeper understanding of the problem.
• Developing a working hypothesis about why the problem is occurring.

Response:

• Brainstorming for new interventions.
• Searching for what other communities with similar problems have done.
• Choosing among the alternative interventions.
• Outlining a response plan and identifying responsible parties.
• Stating the specific objectives for the response plan.
• Carrying out the planned activities.

Assessment:

• Determining whether the plan was implemented (a process evaluation).
• Collecting pre– and post–response qualitative and quantitative data.
• Determining whether broad goals and specific objectives were attained.
• Identifying any new strategies needed to augment the original plan.
• Conducting ongoing assessment to ensure continued effectiveness.

 

November 18, 2012