How a Bogus, Industry-Funded Study Helped Spur a Privatization Disaster in Michigan

[unhappycamper]

http://smirkingchimp.com/thread/joshua-holland/57005/how-a-bogus-industry-funded-study-helped-spur-a-privatization-disaster-in-michigan

How a Bogus, Industry-Funded Study Helped Spur a Privatization Disaster in Michigan
by Joshua Holland | July 18, 2014 - 9:31am

~snip~

From the Detroit Free Press:

Maggots in the kitchen and on the chow line. Workers caught smuggling contraband or engaging in sex acts with inmates. Food shortages and angry prisoners.

Those are among the problems that have plagued Michigan prisons since December when the state — in a move aimed at saving more than $12 million a year — switched from using state workers to feed prisoners to a private contractor, Aramark Correctional Services of Philadelphia.

Ongoing turmoil with the 7-month-old contract — including many instances never previously disclosed — is detailed in more than 3,000 pages of state records obtained by the Free Press under Michigan’s Freedom of Information Act: One Aramark food service director showed up drunk and failed a Breathalyzer. Another worker was caught trying to smuggle marijuana. Others have failed drug tests, kissed prisoners, threatened to assault inmates, or announced intentions to “go postal” inside a facility, records show.

“I’m at my wit’s end,” Kevin Weissenborn, the Michigan Department of Corrections manager in charge of policing the Aramark contract, e-mailed one Michigan warden in March, records show.

[valerief]

1. Well, Michigan, at least you're not doing the unthinkable--taxing rich people.

http://www.miamiherald.com/2014/07/19/4243975/michigan-voters-to-decide-fate.html

[Kaleva]

2. This was going on even before the privatization.

Prison employees were having sex with the prisoners, smuggling in drugs and in an instance at a max facility not far from where I live, two female employees, a guard and a cook, helped a prisoner serving a life sentence for murder escape.

[pnwmom]

6. These problems have nothing to do with food services, public vs. private. n/t

[Kaleva]

8. But the arguement is being made that the private food servers are sub-par

When there also was problems with food servers on the public payroll.

[pnwmom]

9. There is nothing in what you said that indicates prisoners were being given

contaminated or subpar food.

[Kaleva]

10. A qoute from the article.

"Others have failed drug tests, kissed prisoners, threatened to assault inmates, or announced intentions to “go postal” inside a facility, records show. "

Nothing there about sub-par food.

[pnwmom]

11. You left out the part about maggots and food shortages with the private service.

"Maggots in the kitchen and on the chow line. Workers caught smuggling contraband or engaging in sex acts with inmates. Food shortages and angry prisoners."

[Kaleva]

12. And this is what I wrote in my first post

" This was going on even before the privatization.

Prison employees were having sex with the prisoners, smuggling in drugs and in an instance at a max facility not far from where I live, two female employees, a guard and a cook, helped a prisoner serving a life sentence for murder escape. "

Much of the trouble mentioned in the OP seems to stem from the quality of employees. But as I've said, there were problems with prison employees on the public payroll too.

The female guard I wrote about now works as a waitress after she got out of prison. The cook went to work at a local Taco Bell after her release.

[pnwmom]

13. I know what you wrote. And none of that was about the FOOD. Nothing about food contamination

or a food shortage.

Yes, there are bad employees everywhere. But this private company is taking their profits out of money that should be going to buy adequate, wholesome food. Not inadequate food full of maggots.

[Demeter]

3. The Curse of the Koch, DeVos, Fundie Rednecks

so many truly ignorant, evil, dysfunctional greedheads, so little opposition to or even knowledge about them.

I'm relatively safe, in Ann Arbor, although, it ain't as liberal as it thinks it is. Too much Libertarian pollution in the political wellsprings. And then, there's the Governor.

[zentrum]

4. This is always

..what privatization will bring because it's sole goal and purpose is to increase profits for the top. This is what they'll do to the post office, education, health care, social security, roads and bridges, national parks, the water supply etc. if they become profit-driven.

Privatization is another word for "corporate fascism" for the rest of us.

[navarth]

5. On behalf of The Great Lakes State I apologize

We are doing what we can.

The Reptilian Party is in control and the Michigan Democratic Party is trying to get up from under. But there is strong Reptilian money here with DeVos (Blackwater Boy's brother-in-law) and Monaghan (uber-wealthy pizza magnate and funder of Ave Maria University) not to mention Oakland County, just north of the City, where the wealth is concentrated. It's full of Limbaugh, Hannity and O'Reilly types, including my Uncle who is a good man, he's just been breathing the rarified air of the country club for too long. And the Ayn Rand Paul types are here in force. Selfishness is where it's at for some people.

We are doing what we can.

[catbyte]

7. This is what happens when you have a "businessman" try to run government.

Christ on a cracker, governing is. NOTHING like running a business, and when cretins like Snyder come in and govern like a CEO, disaster happens. Government is for the common good, the goal of business is to maximize profits, often at the expense of the common good. I'm all for separation of corporation & state.

One bit of good news--Mark Schauer is within 3 points of Rick "The Dictator" Snyder.