CLOSURE OF ANAGRAM SHIFT AT FARIBAULT PRISON - REPORT/REFLECTIONS FROM A PRISONER THERE
By: Mn Voices The Inside
Tags: Prison Reform

Anagram Balloons, the largest outside contractor in MN prisons and Minncor the private/public, state funded, prison industry corporation that manages such contracts, and makes profit on its own behalf.

*Update: In some sense policy has now ‘been followed’ in this instance thanks to prisoners with cool heads showing the DOC how to do their jobs and negotiations/proof of policy not being completely ignored. Prisoners need to be at the table in how everything is done, and to have their own self-determined structures to show up as such. DOC, if we’re in a new situation, lets make that the new reality.*

One of my rules for an incarcerated life is to be aware of and do not heavily rely upon privileges appearing as entitlements that can ultimately be taken away. Obviously, they can take anything away from us. But in the everyday grind of things we grow accustomed to an order. And when a large group of people fail to observe the above principle; when authority changes something big; it’s like a boulder thrown into a pond. At times, a stagnant and smelly body of water, but it’s home. And I care what happens to it.

The DOC, MINNCOR, and MCF-Faribault have consolidated the Anagram shop from a night shift and a day shift to a single day shift. They laid off between 150–200 workers. There was no advance notice, but an observant person would have seen the writing on the wall. The flow of work has been disrupted since the death of Officer Joe Gomm at MCF-Stillwater last year. But the past few months have seen other security disruptions and a slowdown of work that just could not have been ignored. The thing is done. MCF-Faribault has an unemployment crisis. I don’t expect a security crisis from the suddenly laid off, but a lot will depend on how well administration responds to the new batch of sedentary inmates who have done absolutely nothing wrong to earn their dismissal. Still, nothing is in the offing as far as organized resistance, as far as I know. That’s fine. This is not the sort of event to foment insurrection. It does raise a few questions:

1) What did they know?/When did they know it?

It may seem counterintuitive to the old way of doing corrections to talk to inmates about what you’re going to do before you do it, but, this is not a security issue, this is a programming issue. Poor management may impact security outcomes, but it begins with program failure.

Moves to reduce the overall number of inmates employed in Anagram were clearly part of a strategy anticipating this move. Rather than give inmates fair warning and an opportunity to make a phased transition to other work or education assignments, the sudden move creates tension in the increase in unemployed, as well as between the remaining employed who have drastically reduced salaries, or immediate loss of seniority in the poorly-arranged new shop. No one gets to make an informed decision about their future. This may be widely accepted, though reprehensible, practice in for-profit enterprise, but the DOC is not a for-profit enterprise, last I checked.

2) What is MINNCOR’s actual obligation to the DOC and is it being met?

MINNCOR has an obligation to the state to facilitate programs of employment at multiple facilities, along with several vocational programs, some of which were at MCF-Stillwater and are now suspended. MINNCOR is the sole pipeline of inmates into the EMPLOY program, a transitional assistance curriculum that places inmates into the state’s unincarcerated job market as they leave prison. It may be common practice in the commercial marketplace for employers to yank the rug out from under unsuspecting workers, but the DOC is not a regular employer. Its mission begins and ends with public safety through reduction of recidivism, as the published statement goes.

Pressure from MINNCOR has negatively affected the security of one facility to the extent that it cost the life of an officer. At least, that has been the position of the officer’s union. Additionally, moves like this that place the concern of their client, in this case Anagram, ahead of the program obligations of the facility, are commonplace. There is a culture problem in the DOC because of the too-generous considerations that have been made for the profitability of MINNCOR. This is a problem. A problem that will not get better on its own. A problem that MINNCOR cannot be relied upon to properly address. If for no other reason than it is antithetical to trust any for-profit corporation to actively work against its own bottom line.

3) What needs to be done?/What can be done?

There are some people, in and out of prison, that objectively hate MINNCOR. They hate what they do (profit from incarceration), they hate what they represent (exploitation of slave labor and state/prison subsidy of private enterprise). From a principled position, it is tough to take MINNCOR’s side in anything. Fortunately/unfortunately, depending on where you’re sitting (for the record: on the edge of a steel toilet in a Faribault, K-building, prison cell), I am a pragmatist.

Minnesota was a relatively early-abandoner of CCA and the private prison in Appleton. And unlike JPay, a demon-prince of all things for-profit that exploit the incarcerated, their families, and facilities in this country, MINNCOR has historically done “ok” by the state and the many inmates that have passed through its shops and in particular its vocational training programs. I believe the DOC ought to be in realignment of its priorities with regard to programming and the opportunity for real change in the lives and the agency of inmates anyway, and that MINNCOR has a role to play in how best to cultivate a new set of values with regard to the role of incarceration in public safety and rehabilitation. To this end I offer the following suggestions.

a) The legislature needs to change the funding structure of the DOC from a per diem model to a standard budgetary allotment/appropriation in order to create a financial incentive to reduce the overall incarcerated population and facilitate justice reinvestment. No effort toward structural improvement of ANY aspect of the DOC that reduces prison population can be fully realized if it simultaneously undermines the DOC’s fiscal health.

b) Make closure of an outdated facility like MCF-St Cloud a central piece of resource consolidation to transition the DOC into a more effective rehabilitative agency. This reduces the geographic footprint of the DOC and frees up resources to invest in modern, multipurpose facilities, as well as expanding facilities capable of serving multiple security levels. We call St Cloud “Castle Greyskull”. It is as effective as an ancient mystical castle would be for corrections in the 21st century.

c) Utilize MINNCOR to expand the DOC’s footprint into diversionary programming. Make vocational programs available in and out of facilities, expand DOC employment in minimum security and transitional housing so that inmates could leave custody sooner or not go behind the wall in the first place after being processed by a legal system desperately in need of its own drastic reform.

Everyone agrees that continual improvement should be part of the everyday work of the DOC. That we are in growing agreement that the existing model doesn’t satisfy the requirements of today’s society doesn’t mean there isn’t a role for the DOC, and MINNCOR to play in a reformed approach to corrections. In fact, and perhaps obviously, existing agencies with qualified leadership are best suited to implement the changes necessary to take our community where it needs to go. Do you want a state agency and its largest private partner to provide a commitment to public safety that’s “just ok”? Or would you rather see them take these and other mounting problems seriously? I believe Commissioner Schnell wants to make the right changes for the right reasons, for the sake of the entire state of Minnesota. Here is one area where his intervention is sorely needed.

It matters that something like this happens and you have staff and inmate alike standing around in the shop scratching their heads trying to figure out just what the higher ups could have possibly been thinking. These are symptoms of a growing problem that permeates the entire relationship between DOC, MINNCOR, and the community they are responsible for serving, in and out of prison. Today it felt like nobody who matters was listening, and to those who ought to be listening, nobody else matters. We are, strictly speaking, both the problem and necessary to the solution. Whether persons in a position to change things recognize this fact remains to be seen.

William Anderson

195069

Friday, September 6, 2019