Corporate Raiders in the Prison System

UPDATED MARCH 12, 2007!

In the corporate world of business there is a practice which seeks to undermine successfully managed companies, running them into the ground for the benefit of a parent corporation. This has tax benefits for the parent corporation as the loss of the target company will be written off of their taxes. These "Corporate Raids" are accomplished by management teams that are sent in specifically for this purpose and are known as "Corporate Raiders".

Have the Corporate Raiders arrived at the California Institution for Men?

Dismantling established security procedures and failing to correct known physical plant defects, which have contributed to serious assaults on Correctional Officers, demonstrate a management team that is lying down on the job. Now, Sacramento proposes placing even more responsibility on those who have shown a remarkable lack of this quality and are not worthy of any more.

A new mental health facility is proposed to be situated at the California Institution for Men, increasing the population by a reported 900 mentally ill inmates. Wouldn't it make more sense for the management team at the California Institution for Men to get their security act together before they are saddled with any more responsibility? It would if this management team’s primary purpose were to insure that CIM continued in its mission to confine inmates while protecting the staff and the surrounding community.

It is as if this management team was sent to CIM to make this prison a political liability, through all of the adverse media that it has generated. Adversity which they court through inaction and, seemingly, the promulgation of deliberately flawed security procedures of which input from the onboard security experts, i.e. the Correctional Officers, is ignored.*

Whatever the true agenda and ultimate goal of this management team, one thing is assured, unless they change direction, the California Institution for Men will fall into the political abyss created by these Corporate Raiders. Then all can speculate whether or not they were successful in their true mission.

Lorraine Bradley

*I discovered the website and article cited below on March 12, 2007 and it seems to validate the theory of the "Corporate Raiders" in the prison system.

"Los Angeles, CA.

In an eight minute Full Disclosure Network™ video news blog, President Steve Ipsen of the Association of Deputy District Attorneys accuses California politicians of deliberately sabotaging the California Prison system thus setting the stage for a massive prison release program now underway."

http://www.fulldisclosure.net/Blogs/40.php

Tilton's Corcoran

James Tilton, California’s Prison Chief, has announced his intent to order involuntary out-of-state transfers for inmates within the California prison system. This will occur through forcible means if necessary.

Apparently Mr. Tilton has a very short memory which does not seem to extend back to the days when another inane policy was implemented by departmental officials in Sacramento. In a policy widely attributed to David Tristan, former Deputy Director of Institution’s Division, known as the “Integrated Yard Policy”, Correctional Officers were under orders to release rival gang members onto the same yard at the same time for their daily exercise. It is widely believed that the purpose of this policy was to force the rival gang members to “get along”. The violence was predictable and wasted no time in arriving.

Because of this violence, together with the shooting policies of the Department of Corrections at that time, seven inmates were shot and killed. All of this because Correctional Officers were forced to follow bad policy under penalty of being fired if they did not.

Then came the self-serving Federal Criminal Justice System who saw the opportunity for their fifteen minutes of fame if they prosecuted the Correctional Officers who were following the orders of the Correctional Administrators instead of going after the Administrators responsible for this bizarre policy. Eventually these Correctional Officers, known as “The Corcoran Eight”, were acquitted, and so the legend of Corcoran was born.

Now we fast-forward thirteen years and what changes do we find? There are different faces, but the substandard quality of departmental policy has not changed at all. It remains to be seen whether or not the Federal Criminal Justice System has improved or whether it is still populated with glory seekers who wish nothing more than to have their name in the paper every day at the expense of those who are merely following the policy of Tilton.

This will happen when inmates and their families, angry over the forced out-of-state transfers, attempt to hold uniformed Correctional Staff accountable when the eventual use of force is required to effect compliance with the transfer. Transfers mandated by Tilton who is warm, safe and protected in his palatial office in Sacramento.

It will be interesting to see if the Federal System has the courage to hold Tilton accountable or will they settle for the easy kill of smaller fish.

Lorraine Bradley

Clear and Present Danger

I read of the concerns of both the communities of Chino and Chino Hills in the Daily Bulletin article published on Friday, February 2, 2007, entitled “Chino, Chino Hills to fight plan for mental health units” and, I must say, their apprehension over this issue is very well founded.

In a departure from their legal obligation to consult with the security experts at CIM, the current Administration at the California Institution for Men has slammed the door shut on input from the Correctional Officers who must implement the newly promulgated security policies at CIM. In fairness to this administration, this is, reportedly, occurring at all the State’s prisons.

One of the legacies left by the former Secretary of the Corrections Agency, Roderick Hickman, is the elimination of union input from the decision making process which has now become consent without advice. Incredibly, Hickman’s successor, James Tilton, continues on with this policy of exclusion.

Even though it is more comforting and expedient for some to have a boogyman to blame for the recent departmental ills, the emerging problems, since the ouster of the union from labor/management considerations, will continue to plague the prison system until there is a reversal of this philosophy at Tilton’s office.

This unilateral implementation of impetuous security policy by the various prison administrations has resulted in a systematic dismantling of established security protocols within the California prison system, all of which will be blamed on the icon of the prison system, the Correctional Officer, when the defective security policies fail to protect the community.

Such is the effect of the ideological inbreeding that comes with implementing security policy without the contractual requirements of a thorough scrutiny by the security experts working within the prison system and, while the Correctional Managers may protest that they have experience in such matters, they have been behind desks for years and have no recent experience of which to speak.

The disassembly of the Mini-Yards at the California Institution for Men (being reported on the CIM blog at http://cimccpoa.blogspot.com), which were designed to place inmates together into smaller exercise groups, is but one of the many security issues which are being concealed from scrutiny until implemented and, as much as some would like to blame all failings of the prison system on the “Powerful Prison Guard’s Union”, it is becoming manifest to all but the blindest of people that participation by CCPOA was the mucilage which held the Department of Corrections together.

Before prison communities are dumped on again by more inmate populations paired with the riots and disorder caused by the one-sided, ill conceived security procedures, Mr. Tilton must initiate a new course for the Department of Corrections, one of reconciliation and inclusion of, not only the security experts, but the communities and their elected representatives as well.

Lorraine Bradley

The Continuing Story of "Who's In Charge Of OZ?"

Failure to Act!

In an article published on January 12, 2007, on the blog at http://cimccpoa.blogspot.com there is a letter by Gary Clark, the President of the Chino Chapter of CCPOA, in which it was reported that a, potentially disastrous, policy was commenced on December 21, 2006, at the California Institution for Men in Chino.

It has come to my attention that the Associate Warden who implemented this formula for disaster is Mike Collier and the Warden of the California Institution for Men who is mentioned in the article is Mike Poulos.

There are only two more players in this comedy of errors who are important in this dark opera. They are the Chief Deputy Wardens and, as such, they serve as intermediaries between the Warden and the Associate Wardens. By name they are 1) Aref Fakhoury and 2) Richard Alvarado (Acting).

Now that it has been established that Associate Warden Collier has *three supervisors* who could either order him to rescind his questionable policy or rescind it themselves, the question persists, "Why haven't any of *these three* taken any action?" The dismantling of the Mini-Yards remains, as if these managers are awaiting another Correctional Officer's death or a major riot before they correct this mistake in judgment.

If you are a Correctional Officer reading this blog and you are working at the MSF yard of CIM you should have your life insurance policy paid up and in force.

Lorraine Bradley