McCluskey Murder Trial - Kingman Escape - Albuquerque

My friend Frank Smith left this feedback below at the Tri-Valley Central/Casa Grande Dispatch, and similar feedback at the Cody, Wyoming paper.

I drove to Albuquerque twice and listened to the testimony among many others, of the hijacked East Indian driver and McCluskey's ex-wife last week, and Charlie's fellow escapee Tracy Province this week.  Lots of law enforcement officers testified.

This case has already cost taxpayers over a million dollars and will cost millions more.

McCluskey and his fellow escapees should never have been sent to Kingman, one of many shoddy spec prisons built by hustlers from Oklahoma.

It was patently unsafe, poorly built, horribly maintained, and staffed by guards whom the warden admitted were "80% new, or newly promoted." A single fence, burned out yard lights, alarms that hadn't worked in years and guards who couldn't count stood between the convicts and the public.

The Arizona DOC provided only a fig leaf of oversight for the incompetent operators, Management and Training Corporation of Utah.

Jan Brewer and DOC director Chuck Ryan sent murderers, rapists, kidnappers and member of security threat groups to Kingman.

Her relationship with the for-profit prison industry got her elected governor.

Province, a lifer, and McCluskey who was doing 15 years and had a parole hold from Pennsylvania, were members of the Aryan Brotherhood gang.

A flood of campaign contributions kept the flow going to this crackerbox presenting to be a secure facility.

It took many hours for the escape to be discovered, still longer before outside law enforcement was notified but even then, the prison didn't know which prisoners had gotten out. The ensuing search would have embarrassed the Keystone Kops.

The bungling continued for three weeks as the escapees hijacked, robbed, shot it out, kidnapped and murdered their way across the west.

FBI Agent "Mac" McCaskill seemed to see an opportunity for career advancement as he had Province, the second escapee, retrace the steps of himself and his companions, and he partied with Tracy. There was audio played at the trial of the two laughing it up in state after state, with an abundance of promises for leniency made to Province even before McCluskey and his accomplice cousin were captured.

When the nationwide chase came to an end in an eastern Arizona campground, there was still more million dollar bungling. McCluskey admitted his guilt, but only after asking for an attorney and not being provided with one. All his admissions were consequently thrown out.

Now the District Court in Albuquerque is expected to be jammed for four months after McCaskill and another self-promoter, U.S. Attorney for New Mexico, Kenneth J. Gonzales went forward with the death penalty trial McCaskill had plotted for from the beginning.

Gonzales has already gotten his reward. Eric Holder, who refused plea mediation offered by a retired judge signed off on the capital trial, then got Gonzales appointed to a federal judgeship in New Mexico two weeks ago.

Taxpayers need to be told why no one seems to be both literally and figuratively minding the store

A Cup of Coffee in Corrections

A Cup of Coffee in Corrections

 

First of all not everybody drinks coffee so you must make a rule that if you don’t care for coffee, it is likely you have another favorite drink whether it is tea, bottled water or an energy drink but regardless what it only matters that you can apply this “coffee or drink” as a metaphor to what is about to be explained to you as a correctional supervisor or mid-level manager working in a high stress place like a large jail or prison. 

One has to wonder what a cup of coffee has in common with working in field of corrections and prison work. It has everything in common. One might say there is a direct relationship between a cup of coffee, its contents and its purpose. If you look at it from another point of view and be open minded enough to see the benefits within the drink. Prison work is not rocket science profession as everything you are taught lays out the foundation of the job and only requires you to take in a few simple things that will make your job easier and safer. Having said that let’s get down to having a cup of coffee and relax a little to understand how it helps you get the work done.

First of all a cup of coffee represents the respect you and your employees deserve while doing this most danger job within the criminal justice system.  You may want to discuss your business matters in your proper setting using mutual respect issues and common sense so you can learn something from someone else. Listen and really listen to the other person. Keep your mouth shut and your ears open as you look for useful information from your employee. As you become aware of crucial concerns, you are able to motivate your employees to participate in problem solving and manage the issues effectively. In return for such deliberate attention towards your staff you will be rewarded with a mutual level of respect that is earned by the manner you do your job.

Along with respect comes a cup of motivation as the two come together and makes it work out like a little bit of magic in the air. When you treat your employees like adults there are benefits and gives them the confidence they can handle the truths of the job. Trying to shelter them with lies only backfires and serves no other person but hurting them in the long run as they are never really protected from the workplace where issues are harsh realities of the job itself and the potential dangers that lurk around every corner. 

Yes, you can use the coffee cup metaphor as a management and motivation tool. Having a “cup of coffee” with your staff gives you the opportunity to sit down, listen and learn with them. Your conversation with your personnel over coffee can be a powerful employee motivational tool. You can gain valuable information about yourself, your staff, the company and your workplace culture as you share coffee or the time to get to know each other better.

That leads you to the cup of time and wisdom for managing our resources and employees effectively. Meetings are great for those that have the time to do them but working alongside while on the job gives employees a feeling of worth and value that is more important when it is shared with respect and motivation. Showing you are never too busy to work side by side can do more to maximize your effectiveness than anything else in the leadership manual. It gives you a rare opportunity to walk the walk and talk the talk that is so important for credibility.

You can never make up for lost time but you can schedule quality time with your staff just by taking a few minutes out of your busy schedule and taking your employee out for a cup of coffee. Simply said, buy a soft drink or a cup of coffee for the person you are meeting and sit at a table and talk. Set aside the phones or cellphones at the moment and enjoy the moment of opportunity to get to know your staff.

Frank Smith speaks out on McCluskey Murder Trial in Albuquerque

This case is a poster child for why inmates shouldn't be sent to for-profit prisons.
Management and Training Corporation (MTC) understaffed this Kingman prison with employees being, according to the warden, "80% new or newly promoted."

It was built on the cheap by Dominion of Edmund, OK, and like most or all of their speculative prisons, was grossly substandard. The state claimed it would only send minimum security offenders there, mostly those doing short terms for drunk driving offenses.

The alarms hadn't worked properly in years, some seven yard lights were burnt out, staff had no control over inmate identification and basic security procedures.

It happened because state regulators were uninterested in professional operation.

It grossly failed to oversee its operations and sent hordes of inappropriate prisoners to a place that could never expect to hold them securely. This included many lifers incarcerated for homicides, escape risks, members of security threat groups (STGs) such as neo-Nazis, and those with parole holds from other states.

As long as the campaign contributions kept rolling in, supposedly conservative legislators, executives and bureaucrats championed the nonexistent "savings" they provided. As long as the revolving door spun at a dizzying pace, no department of corrections official was likely to insist on delivery of anything remotely near the level and quality of contract performance that the state required.

Not that long afterward, Arizona did a research study that estimated that contract prisons cost the state 16% more, per prisoner, than did professionally managed state prisons handling matched populations.

On the evening of July 30th, 2010, the chickens came home to roost.

Three long-term inmates broke out with the assistance of the ringleader's girl friend, who reconnoitered the prison, then drove to its rear after sundown and threw small bolt cutters and other tools to breach the fence, as well as bags of pistols.

She had been arrested not two months earlier, for bringing drugs and other contraband into the prison. However, the Mohave County sheriffs offered her a deal: She could give up her suppliers, whom they said she claimed were neo-Nazis, and they would let her go free.

Of course, had she followed through, her fiancée would have been targeted after he got out of solitary for being on the receiving end of the smuggling.

On the fateful night, she had forgotten where she had parked the ringleader's Chevy Blazer, out there in the desert, so the four split up to search for it. One, Daniel Renwick, who was doing 44 years for a particularly cruel robbery-murder, quickly found the SUV and absconded with it, abandoning his confederates in the desert.

The accomplice and other two, John "Charlie" McCluskey, who was doing two 15-year sentences for attempted murders and who was a white supremacist, and Tracy Province, who was doing life for two murders, began walking through the desert like Moses, looking for a vehicle to steal or hijack.

It took over 100 minutes for the staff to discover the inmates missing from their dorm, but they weren't sure who was gone. Instead of reporting the escape to outside law enforcement and the Department of Corrections, they fiddled around, looking for them for another hour. Their motorized guard who had been making regular rounds, somehow repeatedly missed the huge hole in the outside perimeter's single fence.

The fugitives had by then walked miles before a helicopter showed to try to locate them in the sparsely vegetated desert. Unfortunately, it was operated as incompetently as the prison, and just circled the prison in tight circles, far from the escapees' location.

At last they arrived at an eastbound 18-wheeler that had stopped for a brake check miles south of Kingman at an I-40 exit. They took its East Indian drivers with them and drove to Flagstaff, stopping to call for assistance from friends and relatives along the way. Eventually, the ringleader's ex-wife agreed to pick them up and drove to meet them in Flagstaff.

At that location, they waited for their ride and the drivers agreed to wait 15 minutes after it arrived before sounding an alarm. They had taken $60 from one and $40 from the other, but rejected more, leaving each with more than half their cash.

McCluskey even turned down an offer by the owner/operator to go to an ATM to furnish them with more money.

The ex-wife dropped them off after stopping in Payson, then went on to Mesa. There they got another car and took off for a hideout in Southeast Arizona, only to find it occupied. They continued on toward their destination, Gentry, Arkansas, stealing a license plate from a car in Moriarity, New Mexico, on their way east.
Unbeknownst to them, their fellow escapee who stole the getaway car, had gotten into a shootout with a Garfield County sheriff's deputy and City of Rifle police, and spilled the beans on his erstwhile companions.
He is now doing 60 years for that shootout, at Colorado taxpayers' expense.
The three remaining fugitives heard news of his capture and squealing on them on the radio as they were going through Texas. Knowing their plans had been revealed, they quickly reversed direction. When they arrived at the New Mexico I-40 welcome station, they picked up maps and then noticed a couple who were pulling an RV with a crew cab pickup. They approached them and warned the driver not to go for one of his many handguns that was within reach.
That, unfortunately, sealed the fate of the hapless couple who were kidnapped.

Now a two-car convoy, they continued, going west toward Santa Rosa, when they were ordered to pull off on a frontage road. They were forced back into their trailer, allegedly by the ringleader, while the lifer drove the pickup and his girl friend followed in the beat up grey sedan they had bought in Arizona.

According to his indictment, the ringleader shot the couple, then when the truck stopped for gas, they noticed that the victims' blood was pouring out of the trailer onto the ground. They sped off, then exited to an unpaved country road, where the trailer was unhitched, splashed with liquor and set afire.

Eventually, the lifer, intent on suicide, changed his mind, going to a church in Meetetse, Wyoming and singing with the congregation. The minister gave him a jacket and $40 for mowing the church lawn, and he cadged a motel room floor to spend the night. The next morning, after a church member saw his picture on TV news and called police, he was captured while hitchhiking to Casper.
The fleeing couple had already gone on to Billings, Montana, then to Gentry, Arkansas, a week later. There they held up a beauty salon, but thanks to law enforcement dithering, the pair continued on their nationwide flight.

A week after that, they were spotted by an alert forest service employee at a campground and a swat team descended upon them to capture the pair.

Now the federal government is prosecuting the ringleader, hoping to get a death penalty conviction from a jury that will have to endure a four month trial. Federal, Arizona and New Mexican taxpayers will be footing the bill for millions for this search, apprehension, Arizona and New Mexico trials, and continued imprisonment.

McCluskey, being 48 years old, suicidal and in poor health, is not likely to ever be executed. There have only been three federal executions in the last 50 years and three Virginians have been on death row for over 20 years. Appeals of death sentences cost the public fortunes.

If McCluskey makes it that far, he will join Sherman Lamont Fields, who promised a bribe to a Texas for-profit prison guard in exchange for a key to his prison, escaped and promptly kidnapped and murdered his ex-girl friend.

The U.S. Attorney who decided to seek the death penalty, Kenneth J. Gonzales, was perhaps awarded a federal judgeship for this sort of grandstanding, and was sworn in last week.

Unfortunately, no one seems to be really talking about the whole picture.

Somewhere, just as they did in Kansas five to ten years ago, corrupt officials are no doubt meeting with industry executives and cooking up more plans to expand their leaky, for-profit American gulag.

Who will tell the people?

Correctional Officers – Working with Fear - Earning Respect

 

When we engage in a profession such as law enforcement or public safety we agreed to work with fear. Seeing how fear impacts our practical ability to work day in and out in such a vulturine setting we must see or manage to find ways to control or fear around us so we can focus on those this that we are tasked to do. Fundamentally speaking we can’t let fear run or ruin our lives or how we do our jobs. We must be motivated to overcome the feeling of fear and minimize its effects of anxiety, stress, worry or distrust. Fear is real in many cases. It is built-in in the job we signed onto do. What we need to do as correctional officers is identify its debilitating effects and keep them from inhibiting us. We have to approach fear directly and at least stun those influences it creates so we can deal with what it is we fear while on or off duty.

Our job as penal practitioners is to meet the challenges what are in front of us inside large jails or prisons without complications. We have to learn how to react according to our training and experience and set aside or minimize the fear of harm, failure or even guilt for doing a most difficult job under difficult conditions. The more we accept fear as being a natural part of our job the stronger we get. However, in doing so, we must make sure we have the right mindset, tools and approach to do this safely and effectively.

Certainly I am not proposing you meet fear directly in a reckless manner especially when it may be dangerous to do so or too overwhelming to conquer. What we need to do is fight the fear with calmness and understanding that it can be controlled through the mind if you allow the mind to engage with each deep breath you take conditioning your calmness along the way. The calmer you are, the less fear you have. Remaining calm will keep you from becoming controlled by the grips of fear. The calmer you are the more fear loses it power over you. It should not be your intention to get rid of your fear but rather to subdue it to a point of self-control and explore it and understand it better. Seeking such resolution creates a practice that brings confidence to the forefront and lessens the emotions associated with fear such as anger, embarrassment, dissuasion or guilt.  Hence we reduce the dominance of fear within ourselves that allows us to function near normal in getting things done.

The symptoms of fear are common. There may be butterflies or twisted pain in the stomach feelings, sweating or rapid breathing along with a sense of vulnerability to pain or other emotional sensations. The main thing is to focus on your ability to remain calm and breathe deep while undergoing the discomfort fear brings to you and your body. Much of the tension, tightness and constriction will begin to unravel as you control your self-awareness through self-control.

Certain kinds of wisdom arise only through seeing something happen repeatedly. Commonly referred to as lessons learned we often have to become very familiar with something in order to be free of fear. I found this to be the case with worrying as I seem to worry more about something or someone when I saw others around me worry validating my own fear through the eyes and thoughts of others. Had I questioned their fear I would have taken some power away from my own fear as I realized that it may have been worrisome at one point but not all the time.

Go back and investigate the fear when things are passive around you and reflect what has happened or occurred and validate its origin or significance. Trust develops, not from willing ourselves to trust, but from discovering for ourselves that we can learn our experience and not over- whelmed by it. If you investigate fear you will reduce it.

Source: https://www.myptsd.com/c/threads/working-with-fear.13790/

The New Orange – Not Working Well

 

There are major differences between the convict of yesterday and the inmate of today. Dressed in the new orange these new type of offenders are not a fraction of the kind of convict prisoners were in the days of past when a man would work for a day’s pay and no handouts. It is with high certainty that there were cookie cutter convicts back then as they all had their own personalities and their own characteristics but back then, even crooks had honor.

Today’s prisoners are apples and oranges compared to the past and come with multiple personalities, characteristics, habits and mandates that makes treatment most complicated and diverse as some hang onto their own culture to show them the ways to live in their own distinct politically and socially impacted world and backgrounds even if it is in conflict with their current placement or prison setting. It is likely that the old orange had these same issues but kept them under control and dealt with them in their own ways instead of being a burden to those around them. Each had their own self pride and esteem to take care of business the way we call ‘old school’ and that was up personal and close yet confidential and private.

First of is to denote the differences in the penology theories there is a significant difference between old style rehabilitation and the new version of rehabilitation.  The old way every prisoner underwent into cookie cutter programs and whether they needed it or not, it was determined to be beneficial for them to be educated and worn out at the end of the day for working a job that was manual labor and considered hard labor even on chain gangs. Here there were no cultural divides or territories.  Everybody worked and pulled their weight.

Prison wardens had three easy choices, educate them, work them or let them sit idle and do nothing. Most wardens made sure that the prisoner engaged in at least two out of three with idleness being the least option in the book. A weary or worn out prisoner is a well behaved individual and keeps the peace much easier than those that do nothing all day thinking about how they can disrupt their world.

Today’s rehabilitative programs offer so many different programs that the list is too extensive to list. The fact is if they weren’t court ordered most of them were optional in nature thus often not offered or available. This includes substance abuse programs and other treatment programs that gives them a chance to quit an addiction or manage their anger more constructively and stay out of trouble in the future. Programs are selected like one was in college and if it’s one thing a prison isn’t is a campus or college driven environment.

The old system focused on self-esteem and character traits that counted and provided a person with good moral guidance and ethics to change their ways. The new system ignores the inner self and focuses on rethinking and retraining behavioral issues rather than morality of their character. The new style is holistic in nature and departs from the old style of faulty thinking and worthiness.

Contrary to the new whole person concepts taught, there is a distinct conflict between the two teaching styles for the new orange prisoners are given options in their sentences that were never offered before and allows them to balk at the project to stay busy and learn something.

Many are lazy and take no initiative to attend school or classes for self-improvement unless made to do so by court order or mandatory rules of classification and treatment plans. Rehabilitation only works if the person is receptive to the concept and work to change. Changing behaviors and not the person is a difficult approach. When I compare the two styles it is my opinion that the old style was more practical and more applicable than the new approach of trying to change the persons.

Everyone knows sociopaths can’t be treated and remain to be one of the most rapidly growing populations which are unpredictable and volatile while housed inside our jails and prisons. Thus these type of individuals require a stern hand and structured behavioral modification approach that builds incentive for good thinking and takes away incentives for bad thinking patterns.

The other rapidly growing population are the mentally ill and treatment programs for them are severely limited as well. Since psychotropic medication is very expensive and mental health providers are scarce and untrained in the prison setting, there are many challenges facing this group of new orange that are under the influence of a psychotic breakdown or mental illness diagnosis.

The old types of programs are no longer accepted because they do not cause the person participating to believe they are faulty but rather their behavior is faulty. It is the way of the new that has stifled the practices of the old. The new orange does nothing in the way of making people attend programs or school.

There are too many loopholes that keeps this from being enforced.  Participation is the only way rehabilitation has a chance at working so I believe the changes are not good and unnecessary and under the new rules, participation is rarely mandatory like in the old days. It is up to the prison administrators to ensure the new orange carries out their own self-improvement programs and attend treatment that would benefit them greatly.

The sad part is that today’s administration is just as lazy and weak as the new orange regime. They have no empathy of the setting and take no ownership in how well it is being run and administered. They rely on others less skilled or trained to their dirty work and are fast to point blame when things go wrong and quick to take the credit when something goes right.

They think they are an army of one and do nothing to help or support the correctional counselor or officers in their jobs and stand by to criticize them readily and never once ready to praise them when they do their jobs like they are supposed to and without any fanfare.

Many are college graduates that have never worked inside a prison before applying for the management positions. They are good at counting beans but lack the skill to manage people. They have no loyalty to the workforce and communicate in terms that are difficult to understand as they are often given without preparation or explanation of goals or objectives desired with a mission statement or strategy provided.

 

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Trust me

Trust me

 

How many times have you heard this expression and make you either feel at ease or very uncomfortable. These two words can mean so much to some and taken for granted by others. The meaning of “trust me” goes deeper than most realize and should be taken with a grain of salt or pessimism as it does not always mean what it says.

Today we use abuse this word way too much. We say “trust me” like it’s a common word that we all understand and know what it means. In all reality what is trust? Trust is something of value and dependability.  Trusting someone is relinquishing control over something or someone and providing yourself with the predictability that everything is fine and things are under control and done in the manner or expectation or responsibilities implied. Although rarely seen in this light, trust is an emotion. It conveys feelings that are suitable for openness and willingness to expose yourself to vulnerabilities that others may take advantage of if given to the wrong person.

Trust is given by being logical about your decision making and choices in life. When you trust someone there is always a risk involved but based on your emotional bonds and your common sense that tells you have made a good decision it takes in considerations of probabilistic elements that tells you that there will be something positive come about on this decision and give you a level of confidence you can deal with ease.

Basically speaking most people can feel trust when they associate it with special persons such as family, friends or other companions in their lives. Associated with this feeling of predictability and comfort are satisfied feelings that reflect agreement, relaxation and comfort with the act of finding someone or something trustworthy of your confidence.

Life has taught two things for certain. The greatest average rate of risk is 50 per cent in most cases. It is either a good or bad decision or it is either a reasonable or unreasonable decision. It will either work out as planned or it will not. This is where predictability is measured based on how you think situations will occur or be resolved. Knowing who to trust or what to trust plays into this factor as you exchange information you have about your family, friends or other persons who you have placed a level of trust in. Anything less than 50 per cent is just a poor choice made if you have insight on what other people will do and how they will handle a situation when it occurs.

Last but not least is the exchange value of trust. In a relationship one expects love in return for trust. In a business relationship one expects loyalty in return for trust and in in business matters we expect a principle at work where you trust you get your money’s worth for the price paid.

Therefore trust is a perpetual feeling or emotion that goes with the mood or emotion of the moment as well as the sensibility in making good choices based on experiences to not fully knowing what has value and how much value it contains but are willing to take the chance that it is what you expect it to be or claimed to be. Trust now becomes particularly important, because otherwise we are giving something for nothing.

When we trust other people, we may not only be giving them something in hope of getting something else back in the future but we may also be exposing ourselves in a way that they can take advantage of our vulnerabilities known commonly as being “burned” by another person who you should not have trusted to begin with. Hence lessons learned are valuable assets in making such decisions in life and the workplace. 

Trust should be used sparingly and with wisdom. Once someone has failed your expectations and trust they should hold no more value at the same level as before to you and that broken relationship brings a lack of understanding that goes deeper than the surface for it impacts respect, love and dependability thus establishing the other person as someone unworthy of being reliable and having value in your life.

Corrections – a House of Cards - An email to Arizona lawmakers today August 11, 2013

It is becoming clear by the chain of events that have occurred since the beginning of 2009 the Arizona Department of Corrections has been on a slippery slope resembling a house of cards that has been identified to have a flimsy and instable structure and a very fragile internal arrangement of management that is undependable and ineffectively put together that is definitely in danger of collapsing or failing public safety and the safety of those employees that work there.

Without targeting or identifying any specific position or person it is fair to say that its entire performance records has demonstrated ill and poor prison management principles that have cost the state taxpayers excessive amount of money due to its inability to control prison bed growth and its lack of using and implementing innovative sentencing alternatives within the community.

Applying the funds provided by the legislature that total well beyond the sum of one billion dollars and with the realization that the prison population has not grown in the past year and more plans are in place to expand beds, it would behoove the agency to re-allocate some of those funds and fix these systems that are barely kept together with a thread of hope that they don’t break down completely. Realistic assessments of the DOC will reveal weak infrastructure in many of their systems that have been neglected now for years. Specifically we need to address funding and attention to the following systems:

·         Information network system

·         Inmate classification system

·         Security perimeter alarm system

·         Fire alarms system

·         Staffing pattern and deployment system

·         Personnel retention system

·         Preventive maintenance system

There are many other sub-structured systems that are impaired or fragmented but essentially, these are the core systems that provide the public safety for our citizens. The fact of the matter surrounding such weaknesses is the necessity to fund restoration programs and prioritize capital layout funds to address these immediately if Arizona public safety is going to be taken serious. The reason for such dereliction is the lack of financial and administrative attention paid to these systems and the lack of funds directed at these important functions that keep the prison system as a whole accountable and secure in its mission.

Lawmakers should immediately draw up a plan and ask the current administration a preventive maintenance plan that will avoid a systematic failure or partial shutdown of essential operational elements in the near future that may cause the entire prison operation to be interrupted and have a cause and effect that could impact the safety of the public, the safety of the employees and inmates and the safety of visitors that enter these facilities on a regular basis.

Using the house of cards metaphor should illustrate vulnerability that exists today after years of neglect. Small house of cards are easy to rebuild but when a large house of cards fails, removing one card could make everything collapse. There is too much interdependency on these systems to risk such failure with such various individual systems. The large house of cards where the independent systems form above, are at the bottom and the integration layers are built on top. Here we also need reassurances to repair as you can see one card being removed and where the house of cards have collapsed.