Management and Training Corp. and BP joined at the “Not our fault” hip

by David Safier

If I didn't know better, I would think the Kingman prison was a BP operation. In fact, the private, for-profit prison is run by Management and Training Corp., but the similarities are astounding.

Remember how they shut off the safety alarms on the BP oil drilling rig because there were so many false alarms, it wasn't letting the workers get any sleep? This is from the Kingman prison:

"What was found were excessive false alarms," Ryan disclosed, noting over 16 hours on July 30 there were 89 alarms. "The system was not maintained or calibrated."

The result, he said, was employees were "desensitized" to the alarms going off, and it took 11 to 73 minutes for staffers to check out problems and reset the alarms.

I know I'm not a titan of industry so my opinion doesn't count, but it seems to me, if warning alarm systems are set up for safety and protection, instead of turning them off or ignoring them if they put out false alarms, shouldn't you fix the system?

When you turn the alarms off or ignore them, that's as much as admitting that safety and security really don't matter. If the result is millions of gallons of oil spilling into the gulf or murderers escaping which most likely resulted in the murder of an elderly couple in New Mexico, that kind of negligence is positively criminal.

It sounds like no one really cared to maintain the security system at Kingman, or was very concerned with making sure the prisoners remained locked in the facility.

The report shows the prison perimeter-alarm system was essentially useless. Bulbs showing the status of the fence were burned out on a control panel. Guards were not patrolling the fence. And a door to a dormitory that was supposed to be locked had been propped open with a rock, helping the inmates escape.

I guess private prisons figure, when you have lifer/murderers in your lockup, the honor system is all you need.

Question: Do our state prisons have the same cavalier attitude toward their security system as the privates? If not, doesn't that create concern that private prisons are more interested in squeezing another million dollars of profit out of the system than actually doing the job they're being paid to do?

Remember how the BP CEO tried to duck blame for the disaster? How about this howler from Management and Training Corp. vice president Odie Washington:

Washington, however, said [the security problems are] not the fault of the corporation. He said company employees at Kingman never told anyone at the corporate headquarters about the problems.

That statement alone should be enough to make Arizona cut its ties with MTC, or insist that Washington and other higher-ups with similar attitudes be fired.

It's not the company's fault because its employees didn't tell them there was a problem? "It may be our company, and we may make gigantic salaries, but it's not our responsibility to know what's going on." I guess that interferes with business lunches, golf outings, and meetings with Republican legislatures to guarantee the state throws more prison business their way.