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NEWS & LETTERS, December 2004Tax dollars pay for prison coverupby C.C. Simmons Two years ago, the Texas state prison system was finally released from 29 years of federal court oversight. The longest running civil rights class action lawsuit in the history of the U.S. came to an end when Texas prison officials and the attorneys for the prisoner-plaintiff class grudgingly agreed that the Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ) was thereafter capable of running their 150,000-prisoner system without violating the U.S. Constitution. Or so they said. Well before the end of federal court oversight and in anticipation of the new era of self-rule, the TDCJ contracted for the services of the American Correctional Association (ACA) of Lanham, Md. The ACA is a non-governmental private agency that offers to confer a veneer of respectability on those client correctional institutions that comply with the association’s myriad volumes of public standards. After payment of the obligatory and substantial fees, the ACA’s audit teams visit client prisons and, finding at least the appearance of compliance, the ACA declares the prison to be accredited. Accreditations do not come cheap. The state of Texas has delivered hundreds of thousands of dollars to the ACA in exchange for a few cursory walk-through audits of selected Texas prisons and, thereafter, the award of the lurid Certificates of Accreditation—suitable for framing, of course. SECRET AUDITS First, the results of the ACA’s prison audits are secret. Although the audit fees are paid with public funds, the general public is not allowed to know what the audit team found, nor which ACA standards were met and which were not. If deficiencies are discovered, the taxpayers are not informed. In a recent exchange of emails between a concerned Texas citizen and Robert Verdeyen, ACA’s Director for Standards and Accreditation, Verdeyen wrote: "There is a confidentiality clause in every contract that we sign with our client agencies. We are not permitted to disclose any audit report without the express written authorization of the client agency." The Texas taxpayers are thus denied access to the very same information that their tax dollars were spent to purchase. PRISONERS IGNORED Second, the ACA’s auditors rarely solicit comments from prisoners. During a typical audit, the ACA team moves briskly through a prison while surrounded by a phalanx of officials and guards. The ostensible purpose of this arrangement is to shield the auditors from unruly prisoners. The more likely purpose is, however, to obstruct the prisoners from interacting with the auditors and reporting the unadorned truth about prison conditions. On those rare occasions when auditors are permitted to interview prisoners, only the prisoners’ favorable comments are reported. Early in 2004, for example, four ACA auditors visited the Eastham State Prison, a decrepit 2,300-man maximum security facility in Lovelady, Texas. When asked about the prisoners’ recurring written complaints of substandard food and health care at Eastham, the ACA’s Verdeyen responded: "The four auditors were able to interview 111 inmates. Some interviews were brief, others were more involved. Inmates were interviewed individually and in groups at various locations. No complaints were voiced about medical or food service. Inmates were satisfied with services from those areas." Is Verdeyen so naive that he expects the Texas taxpayers to believe that not one of the 111 interviewees had a single complaint about prison food or health care? QUESTIONABLE PAYMENTS TO THE ACA Third, a number of unexplained irregularities appear in the record of payments to the ACA. A detailed report recently obtained from the Texas State Comptroller of Public Accounts shows each and every payment made by the state to the ACA over the past few years. Among the many questionable payments, the following are particularly troubling: • On Jan. 5, 1998, the TDCJ made five separate payments of $2,305.75 to the ACA, all on the same day. • On April 24, 2001, the TDCJ made five separate payments to the ACA, each for $3,973.75, all on the same day. • On Aug. 28, 2001, the TDCJ made four separate payments to the ACA, each for $3,842, all on the same day. • On Oct. 8, 2002, the TDCJ made four separate payments to the ACA, all for $3,973.75, all on the same day. On the following day, the TDCJ made two more payments to the ACA: the first was for $55,930 while the second was for $37,995. In these six separate payments made over a two-day period, the TDCJ paid the ACA more than $108,000. • On Nov. 27, 2002, the TDCJ made 40 separate payments to the ACA, each for $21.55, all on the same day. Further on Nov. 27, the TDCJ made 10 separate payments to the ACA, each for $150, all on the same day. In December 2003, many of these questionable payments were brought to the attention of ACA Director Verdeyen with a request for an explanation. Verdeyen did not reply and later denied receiving the inquiry. As the state of Texas agonizes over budget cuts, shrinking revenue, the elimination of school lunches for needy children, and an end to the meals-on-wheels program for home-bound senior citizens, hundreds of thousands of dollars continue to flow to the ACA. Isn’t it time for state officials to launch a full-scale investigation of the TDCJ-ACA relationship. Why haven’t state legislators done so? |
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