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Management and Training Corporation: Rap Sheet

Management and Training Corporation (MTC) Facilities Are a Real Riot

• Just last month, over 100 prisoners at an MTC “superjail” in Ontario, Canada used a battering ram to attempt escape after a riot broke out. The prisoners were armed with makeshift weapons and homemade gas masks. Provincial Police had to be called in to quell the disturbance with tear gas. (Toronto Star, “100 riot in bid to escape superjail,” 9/20/02)
  
  
• The Midland Free Press reported that staff knew the disturbance was “inevitable” and had told the Ontario Public Service Employee Union that something was going to happen. Staff had reported “concerns about working with untrained staff, officers who lacked experience in working in a jail.” (“Tear Gas Needed to Quell Riot,” 9/24/02).
  
  
• This May in New Mexico, inmates at MTC’s McKinley County Jail set fire to mattresses and were subdued with teargas. (Albuquerque Journal, “Grants Inmates Light Mattresses,” 5/20/02).

Oops, They Did It Again

• In December of 2001, MTC guards accidentally released the wrong prisoner from the Santa Fe, NM County Jail. The two guards were later fired after one tried to cover up the incident for the other. It appears that the escaped prisoner was never caught. (Albuquerque Journal, “Two county jail employees fired in case of mistaken release,” 12/11/01)
  
  
• In March of 2002, the same thing happened at the Ontario MTC superjail. A man sentenced to weekend imprisonment was set free when he returned to jail one night. It is also unclear whether this prisoner was apprehended. (Toronto Star, “Inmate ‘mistakenly released’ from jail,” 3/26/02) It was several days before the blunder was reported to council members and the public. (The Mirror, “Looking back: Memorable dates in jail’s short history,” 5/25/02)
  

Questionable Accountability

• Just this month (July 2003), MTC failed to report the escape of four prisoners from the county jail the company manages in Gallup, NM. Law enforcement officials were not aware that the prisoners had escaped until one of them showed up in a local hospital. “We in law enforcement are totally disgusted, and it’s disheartening,” said Ron Williams, McKinley County Sheriff’s Deputy. (Associated Press, “2 inmates still missing from N.M. jailbreak,” July 5, 2003)

MTC Facilities Are No Bargain for States

• The MTC “treatment facility” in Marana was Arizona’s first private prison. After deliberately misleading the community about the nature of the facility (it was originally touted as a minimum-security treatment center for DUI offenders, but was later revealed to be housing medium-security prisoners convicted of a range of offenses) and avoiding the public input process, the Marana facility underwent a tumultuous period of staff turnover. (AZ Daily Star, 5/5/94)
  
  
• An Arizona Department of Corrections (ADC) planning department report revealed that “almost literally, everything that could go wrong has!” The report stated that “in the first 10 months of operation, the Marana prison was run by four wardens…two assistant wardens, three business managers, and two security chiefs,” leading to “an overall haphazard approach” to management. (AZ Daily Star, 12/6/95)
  
  
• The high staff turnover is attributed in the report to the fact that “salaries are 18.1% lower than [what] state employees earn.” In addition to not having enough officers, the prison was reported as suffering from “below standard sanitation and no quality control.” The company’s own security chief estimated the prison could be as much as 75% out of compliance with state inspection criteria on security matters. The report even refers to a December 1994 fight between inmates as a “serious disturbance” that occurred in part because inmates thought Management and Training had “lost control of the Facility.” The report concluded that these serious problems primarily “occurred because the private operators did not want to cut into their profit margin by hiring better-qualified staff, and because they often did not follow state policies and procedures”(AZ Daily Star 12/6/95).
  
  
• In Spring of 2001, ADC reported that MTC was the most expensive prison contractor, with per-diem costs only 5% lower than the state average. (Report On Business magazine, “Profits and convicts,” 9/28/01).
  
  
• An Ohio Civil Service Employees Association representative charged the state with moving problem inmates from private prisons to state run prisons. “We shouldn’t be cleaning up problems that for-profit companies created,” said Darrell Starcher, the president of the union’s local. (Associated Press, “Inmates moved at two prisons,” 7/30/02)
  
  
• MTC’s own home state of Utah closed the only MTC facility in that state in 2001, citing budget cuts and statistics that demonstrated that a publicly operated prison would be cheaper to run. (Prison Policy News, “MTC corporate profile,” July/August 2001)
  

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