Would it be too hard to imagine that the most recent propaganda about the need to expand private prison beds beyond the beds that already exist to 5,000 more as an understatement. Does it seem to you the state corrections chief appears to be engaged in an aggressive campaign to support the private prison industry throwing them the business in their direction without the statutory requirements of oversight and transparency required to protect the public from security flaws? The state leaders and its respective media outlets have already indicated there are plenty of organizations within our state that would lobby for such a decree. This message, resonating from state line to state line shows this propaganda serves to provide misinformation, false statistical data and skewed analysis of the industry and what it can contribute to the communities who accept their offer to become mutual partners in economic growth and job boosts. Regardless of one’s view on this matter, the private prison lobby is a powerful force in the shaping of our politics. In their search and acquisition for more wealth, this force crosses invisible lines drawn in this Sunbelt sand that are undetected to the naked eye but long been visible by those who have opposed this growth.
Propaganda thrives on the delivery of information and methods used. In this case, the effectiveness of building private prisons has already been established and sold as a bold idea to selective lawmakers who are promised a share of the pie that will embellish incarceration and put money into their pockets off the backs of those inside jails and prisons. The most effective way to wage this media war is to supply reliable inside information, including deliberately falsified data, which convinces the legislators that these lobbyists have nothing but the best intentions and their plan is a good plan. It appears that these lobbyists will go to any extreme or any length to go after a vote for their plan. In fact, showing large financial contributions going back several years, they have laid out a strategy very effectively to accomplish this goal so deemed today to be a necessity by our state leaders to “save the state” from economic disaster. This fact should tell us something. This should open up our eyes and minds that there is something wrong with this picture being painted oh so rosy with no flaws and no bitterness to swallow this pill. Surely they must take a defensive posture towards anyone that will who tries to reveal it. Today there are many secrets not yet revealed by the press. The lengths these contractors are willing to go are extreme in nature and borders on illegal activities that include covert operations that sabotage the wellness of the existing public prison environment putting the staff that works there at risk. The private contractors are well organized and have the inside scoop on everything that occurs within the public prisons through their unofficial liaison in the director’s office. His relationship with many private “consultants” illustrated how deep this intrusion into the agency has gotten and how much access they have to relevant information that can balance their approach and credibility on those issues to be presented in the future, just in case there is a judicial review.
Soon, someone will take the lead on how this business was conducted to acquire the ownership of our prison system in Arizona. It is logical this might happen when the government takes a shift to another party or the present majority find their morality and want to glean all those activities that preempted the alliance of these forces and their ultimate goal to turn Arizona into an incarceration state for other states.
Following current trends of other states, it appears they are cancelling or not renewing their contractual obligations with these private contractors thus sending a message that they are refusing to build new prisons or privatizing their governmental services related to jails and penitentiaries. This alarm is however being ignored. Taking care of business as usual, this will create a panic and a need to consolidate their solicited prison populations from out of state and federal facilities a need for a centralized economically feasible alternative here inside Arizona, the only state willing and gullible enough to believe the rhetoric provided by these conglomerates. Soon this matter will turn vindictive in nature and fingers will be pointing in directions presently not thought of today. Eventually, all these covert and non-transparent activities will become public knowledge and the federal government, in their role to balance justice and corruption, could be motivated via the Department of Justice to put pressure on the state and reveal their activities out in the open revealing all the players, the benefactors and the strategies described in transcripts gathered through the FIOA process and now readily available for others to say to the residents of the state “I told you so” and wave the banner of truth.