Lexington Herald Leader Editorial: On Prison Riot, State Delays And Dismisses. And I *SIGH*.
On prison riot, state delays and dismisses
A state audit of Aramark Correctional Services, the private firm contracted to serve food in Kentucky's 13 prisons, certainly seems warranted following the release of a more detailed report on the riot at Northpoint Training Center last August.
Unlike the previously released summary of a review team's findings from an investigation of the incident, the report lawmakers and the public got to see Wednesday clearly identified food service as a contributing factor to the riot.
It was not the tipping point. And it perhaps was not as big a factor as state Rep. Brent Yonts, D-Greeneville, has argued repeatedly. But it was a factor significant enough to deserve a more serious administration response than Gov. Steve Beshear's dismissive remark about "criminals who wish they could go to Wendy's."
No one who has expressed concern over the quality of food being served to the state's prisoners has suggested they should be coddled. Nor are we suggesting that.
But wanting a meal free of bugs and feces does not equate to a craving for a Baconator. And it was corrections officers, not prisoners, who testified about the bugs and feces.
Combine their testimony with the findings of the report released last week and the fact that a 2007 audit of Aramark's performance in Florida's prisons recommended the state should rebid the contract or take over the food service itself.
You come up with ample justification for Auditor Crit Luallen to send her staff to see if Kentucky is getting its money's worth out of the $2.63 per day per prisoner allotted for food under the contract with Aramark.
But just as food was not the crucial factor in sparking the riot (the hasty implementation of a "controlled movement" policy was), neither is it the most crucial issue raised by the new, more detailed report on the riot.
That honor belongs to what can only be described as the Beshear administration's attempt to gloss over, if not cover up, several key facts about the Northpoint riot by distilling the full report down into the previously released summary.
If not for the threat of a legislative subpoena, that sanitized version of events might have been the only one the public ever saw.
In addition to downplaying the food issue, the summary neglected to mention that the Northpoint warden, who was in the best position to know his facility and its inmates, was overruled by his superiors in the Department of Corrections on the key decisions of when to end the lockdown — put in effect after a fight among inmates — and how to implement the controlled movement policy.
The summary also neglected to mention such important details as the failure to follow the manual regarding critical incidents, the failure to properly document the incident and a corrections official's role in delaying a state police investigation of the riot.
Since most if not all of the details omitted by the summary reflected mistakes in judgment or mistakes in responding to the riot, the subsequent release of the more detailed report makes the summary look like an attempt to cover up those mistakes.
Whether or not it was actually a coverup, the perception alone has to be damaging to the Beshear administration's credibility.
If the first report to lawmakers and the public had contained all the embarrassing details, the public reaction might have been: "They screwed up. Oh, well."
By keeping those details under wraps until House leaders started talking subpoenas, the administration left itself open to a different public reaction: "They screwed up. Then, they tried to hide it from us."
A state audit of Aramark Correctional Services, the private firm contracted to serve food in Kentucky's 13 prisons, certainly seems warranted following the release of a more detailed report on the riot at Northpoint Training Center last August.
Unlike the previously released summary of a review team's findings from an investigation of the incident, the report lawmakers and the public got to see Wednesday clearly identified food service as a contributing factor to the riot.
It was not the tipping point. And it perhaps was not as big a factor as state Rep. Brent Yonts, D-Greeneville, has argued repeatedly. But it was a factor significant enough to deserve a more serious administration response than Gov. Steve Beshear's dismissive remark about "criminals who wish they could go to Wendy's."
No one who has expressed concern over the quality of food being served to the state's prisoners has suggested they should be coddled. Nor are we suggesting that.
But wanting a meal free of bugs and feces does not equate to a craving for a Baconator. And it was corrections officers, not prisoners, who testified about the bugs and feces.
Combine their testimony with the findings of the report released last week and the fact that a 2007 audit of Aramark's performance in Florida's prisons recommended the state should rebid the contract or take over the food service itself.
You come up with ample justification for Auditor Crit Luallen to send her staff to see if Kentucky is getting its money's worth out of the $2.63 per day per prisoner allotted for food under the contract with Aramark.
But just as food was not the crucial factor in sparking the riot (the hasty implementation of a "controlled movement" policy was), neither is it the most crucial issue raised by the new, more detailed report on the riot.
That honor belongs to what can only be described as the Beshear administration's attempt to gloss over, if not cover up, several key facts about the Northpoint riot by distilling the full report down into the previously released summary.
If not for the threat of a legislative subpoena, that sanitized version of events might have been the only one the public ever saw.
In addition to downplaying the food issue, the summary neglected to mention that the Northpoint warden, who was in the best position to know his facility and its inmates, was overruled by his superiors in the Department of Corrections on the key decisions of when to end the lockdown — put in effect after a fight among inmates — and how to implement the controlled movement policy.
The summary also neglected to mention such important details as the failure to follow the manual regarding critical incidents, the failure to properly document the incident and a corrections official's role in delaying a state police investigation of the riot.
Since most if not all of the details omitted by the summary reflected mistakes in judgment or mistakes in responding to the riot, the subsequent release of the more detailed report makes the summary look like an attempt to cover up those mistakes.
Whether or not it was actually a coverup, the perception alone has to be damaging to the Beshear administration's credibility.
If the first report to lawmakers and the public had contained all the embarrassing details, the public reaction might have been: "They screwed up. Oh, well."
By keeping those details under wraps until House leaders started talking subpoenas, the administration left itself open to a different public reaction: "They screwed up. Then, they tried to hide it from us."
Labels: News reporting
posted by KYJurisDoctor at 8:28 AM
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