Wasted Honor -

Carl R. ToersBijns is the author of the Wasted Honor Trilogy [Wasted Honor I,II and Gorilla Justice] and his newest book From the Womb to the Tomb, the Tony Lester Story, which is a reflection of his life and his experiences as a correctional officer and a correctional administrator retiring with the rank of deputy warden in the New Mexico and Arizona correctional systems.

Carl also wrote a book on his combat experience in the Kindle book titled - Combat Medic - Men with destiny - A red cross of Valor -

Carl is considered by many a rogue expert in the field of prison security systems since leaving the profession. Carl has been involved in the design of many pilot programs related to mental health treatment, security threat groups, suicide prevention, and maximum custody operational plans including double bunking max inmates and enhancing security for staff. He invites you to read his books so you can understand and grasp the cultural and political implications and influences of these prisons. He deals with the emotions, the stress and anxiety as well as the realities faced working inside a prison. He deals with the occupational risks while elaborating on the psychological impact of both prison worker and prisoner.

His most recent book, Gorilla Justice, is an un-edited raw fictional version of realistic prison experiences and events through the eyes of an anecdotal translation of the inmate’s plight and suffering while enduring the harsh and toxic prison environment including solitary confinement.

Carl has been interviewed by numerous news stations and newspapers in Phoenix regarding the escape from the Kingman prison and other high profile media cases related to wrongful deaths and suicides inside prisons. His insights have been solicited by the ACLU, Amnesty International, and various other legal firms representing solitary confinement cases in California and Arizona. He is currently working on the STG Step Down program at Pelican Bay and has offered his own experience insights with the Center of Constitutional Rights lawyers and interns to establish a core program at the SHU units. He has personally corresponded and written with SHU prisoners to assess the living conditions and how it impacts their long term placement inside these type of units that are similar to those in Arizona Florence Eyman special management unit where Carl was a unit deputy warden for almost two years before his promotion to Deputy Warden of Operations in Safford and Eyman.

He is a strong advocate for the mentally ill and is a board member of David's Hope Inc. a non-profit advocacy group in Phoenix and also serves as a senior advisor for Law Enforcement Officers Advocates Council in Chino, California As a subject matter expert and corrections consultant, Carl has provided interviews and spoken on national and international radio talk shows e.g. BBC CBC Lou Show & TV shows as well as the Associated Press.

I use sarcasm, satire, parodies and other means to make you think!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
































































































































Monday, September 28, 2015

Is Arizona a Police State? Communicating with Legislators to change the direction of school-prison pipeline today

Honorable Legislators and guests,

Some say Arizona is already a police state as there are advocates who preach such harsh police tactics and weaponry to beef up law enforcement. Some will say this is due to the immigration issues within the state while others will tell you it is to protect the citizenry from criminals and preserve public safety. Others will preach paranoia to justify their boosting of cops at public meeting places and our schools while expanding prisons saying we don’t need more Sandy Hook incidents and this is a means to prevent such mass shootings from occurring in the state.

Nothing is ever said about schools being one of the safest places to be for our kids and now they are boosting the schools to resemble a prison-like environment that in all practical sense duplicates the mannerisms of a prison.  In their zeal to crack down on guns and lock down the schools, these advocates for police state tactics in the schools might also fail to mention the lucrative, deals being cut with Para-military and military contractors such as Taser International [a locally situated vendor] to equip these school cops with tasers and purchase other special weaponry, closed circuit television systems and even shooting detection devices or systems.

For the past several years, this has caused a mass transformation of hometown police departments into extensions of the military that has been mirrored in the public schools, where school police or resource officers are outfitted with high tech weapons and other military gear. One Texas school district even boasts its own 12-member special weapons team.

In all reality, there is an underlying current flowing into the topic of the school – prison pipeline that has been described in many different articles today. The ramifications of this concept are far-reaching. The term “school-to-prison pipeline” refers to a phenomenon in which children who are suspended or expelled from school have a greater likelihood of ending up in jail. Sadly, studies have shown many of these kids come into contact with the juvenile justice system within the coming years before graduating.

Not content to add police to their employee rosters, the schools have also come to resemble prisons, complete with surveillance cameras, metal detectors, drug-sniffing dogs, random locker searches and active shooter drills. As a former prison administrator, I can honestly say that most of our state’s schools have become  an assimilation of our prisons. Nearly 40 percent of those young people who are arrested will serve time in a private prison, where the emphasis is on making profits for large mega-corporations above all else.

Private prisons, the largest among them being GEO and the Corrections Corporation of America, profit by taking over a state’s prison population for a fee. Many states like Arizona are under contract with these private prisons who sign contracts to agree to keep the prisons full, which in turn results in more Arizonians being arrested, found guilty and jailed for nonviolent “crimes.”

Even the governor has signed on with these profiteers to expand prison beds beyond the number actually needed anticipating a growth in the future based on this projection of making our kids, our future criminals. Only the legislature has the power to change the trend if the governor refuses to change the direction. He has bluntly stated, he will not change his business end with the private prison contractors. He will continue to expand prison beds through privatization.

The influence of private prisons creates a system that trades money for human freedom, often at the expense of the nation’s most vulnerable populations: children, immigrants and the poor.” This profit-driven system of incarceration has also given rise to a growth in juvenile prisons and financial incentives for jailing young people. Indeed, young people have become easy targets for the private prison industry, which profits from criminalizing childish behavior and jailing young people. Lessons learned here demonstrate the state is being imparted is that Arizonians—especially young people—have no rights at all against the state or the police.

The fact is when you promote prisons over school, you not only get what you pay for, but you reap what you sow. if you want a state of criminals, treat the citizenry like criminals like we are doing today. If you want young people who grow up seeing themselves as prisoners, run the schools like prisons.

On the other hand, if you, as an elected official want to stop this school – prison pipeline trend by raising up your hand in objection of such legislative agendas, you could in fact turn this ‘drifting direction’ around. I hope you are a person who still believes in freedom who will actually vote your social conscience with justice, fairness, accountability and equality towards each other and our government. We need to fund our school and drift away from the prison mandated path we are on today.

We can still operate and adequately fund our state’s schools without infringing on our freedom forums. We can selectively assess and evaluate schools for their case by case violence rates and determine adjusting the police’s role at those school and start treating our state’s youth like citizens of a republic and not future inmates in a police state.

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