Management and Training Corporation

Management & Training Corporation or MTC is a Centerville, Utah-based contractor that manages private prisons. MTC's core business is in Corrections, Education & Training, MTC Medical, and Economic & Social Development. MTC is the largest operator of the U.S. Department of Labor Job Corps program in the country . MTC operates or partners in operating 22 Job Corps centers across the country. MTC also operates 24 correctional facilities in eight states.^[1]

Education & Training

As the nation's largest Job Corps operator , MTC contracts with the U.S. Department of Labor in operating or partnering in operating centers in Washington, Oregon, Nevada, Minnesota, California, Utah, Kansas, Iowa, Illinois, Hawaii, Texas, Kentucky, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Delaware, District of Columbia, Georgia, Florida, and Mississippi.^[2]

Corrections

MTC is the third largest U.S. operator of correctional facilities with a capacity to serve more than 31,000 offenders.^[3] MTC's philosophy is 'rehabilitation through education' and offers inmates a wide variety of programming, including GED, adult basic education, substance abuse, life skills, and vocational training.^[4] Twelve MTC correctional facilities have earned American Correctional Association accreditation ACA, meaning the facilities exceed national standards and implement state-of-the-art safety and security policies and procedures. Ten MTC correctional facilities exceed Correctional Education Association CEA, standards for educational programming. Various MTC facilities are also accredited by the Licensed Substance Abuse Treatment Facility organization, the National Commission on Correctional Health Care and The Joint Commission.^[5]

On August 18, 2016, Deputy U.S. Attorney General Sally Yates announced that the Justice Department intended to end its contracts with for-profit prison operators, because it concluded "...the facilities are both less safe and less effective at providing correctional services..." than the Federal Bureau of Prisons. In response, MTC's spokesperson, Issa Arnita, said, it was “disappointed” to learn about the DOJ’s decision. “If the DOJ’s decision to end the use of contract prisons were based solely on declining inmate populations, there may be some justification, but to base this decision on cost, safety and security, and programming is wrong.”^[6] In a memorandum, Yates continued, for-profit "...prisons served an important role during a difficult period, but time has shown that they compare poorly to our own Bureau facilities. They simply do not provide the same level of correctional services, programs, and resources; they do not save substantially on costs; and as noted in a recent report by the Department's Office of Inspector General, they do not maintain the same level of safety and security. The rehabilitative services that the Bureau provides, such as educational programs and job training, have proved difficult to replicate and outsource and these services are essential to reducing recidivism and improving public safety."^[7] However; the findings of the report have been called into question and discredited in several articles including a Bloomberg report by Paul Barrett titled /The Justice Department used Shaky Statistics to Drop Private Prisons and a National Review report by Sasha Volokh titled "The DOJ's Misguided Withdrawal from Private Prisons". Contractors including MTC argue the Inspector General report was an apples to oranges comparison. Even the Inspector General report noted concerns with the comparison: "Moreover, we were unable to compare the overall costs of incarceration between BOP institutions and contract prisons in part because of the different nature of the inmate populations and programs offered in those facilities."^[8] "We note that we were unable to evaluate all of the factors that contributed to the underlying data, including the effect of inmate demographics and facility locations."^[9] Read MTC's full response to the Inspector General report here.^[10]

MTC Medical

MTC Medical provides medical and dental care to prisoners at 14 facilities:^[11]

• Marana Community Correctional Treatment Facility, Marana, Arizona
• Taft Correctional Institution, Taft, California
• Otero County Processing Center, Chaparral, New Mexico
• Otero County Prison Facility, Chaparral, New Mexico
• North Central Correctional Complex, Marion, Ohio
• East Texas Treatment Facility, Henderson, Texas
• Bridgeport Pre-Parole Transfer Facility, Bridgeport, Texas
• Gadsden Correctional Facility, Quincy, FL
• Giles W. Dalby Correctional Facility, Post, Texas
• West Texas Intermediate Sanction Facility, Brownfield, Texas
• South Texas Intermediate Sanction Facility, Houston, Texas
• Willacy County Correctional Center, Raymondville, Texas
• Imperial Regional Detention Facility, Calexico, California

Economic & Social Development

MTC created its Economic & Social Development division in 2004. MTC has provided technical assistance in multiple locations around the world. Work has included vocational assessments, small and medium enterprise development, training for marginalized populations including women and youth, executive training, national skill set development, technical vocational education and training system design and implementation, among many others. Projects have included work in China, Haiti, Iraq, Palestine, South Sudan, Mongolia, Jordan, and Tunisia.^[12]

Background

MTC was founded in 1981 by Robert L. Marquardt, (1925-2012)^[13] when Morton Thiokol decided to divest its Job Corps training division. Marquardt, who worked for Morton, and his partners, borrowed $3.5 million to purchase the spin-off.

Controversies

On October 25, 2003, a 90-minute prison race riot broke out at MTC's low-security Eagle Mountain Community Correctional Facility in Eagle Mountain, California Some 150 mostly Hispanic prisoners attacked black inmates with meat cleavers, kitchen knives, broom handles, rocks, pipes, crutches and fire extinguishers. The privately employed guards retreated, while state correctional officers were called in from distant state facilities.^[14] Two inmates were stabbed to death, seven others were critically injured, some airlifted out, and dozens more hurt. Eight short-term inmates were ultimately charged with and convicted of murder.^[15] The facility was closed by the end of the year.

In November 2007, four MTC employees at the Willacy Detention Center in Raymondville, Texas were charged in relation to their use of company vehicles to smuggle illegal immigrants through checkpoints. They were allegedly caught smuggling 28 illegal immigrants through the U.S. Border Patrol's Sarita checkpoint, situated approximately 100 miles north of Brownsville. The immigrants were from Mexico, the Dominican Republic, Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador. Two of the men charged were wearing their uniforms and driving a company van, apparently overloaded with the immigrants.^[16]

On 30 July 2010, three homicidal prisoners escaped from the Arizona State Prison – Kingman after MTC workers ignored alarms indicating a breached fence. They had cut through the fence with tools tossed to them by a getaway car driver.^[17] Two MTC employees resigned in the wake of the escape, a unit warden and a unit security chief.^[18] On September 20, the Arizona Department of Corrections released a report which stated that the escape went undetected for an unknown period of time because the security system between the perimeter fences, which should have detected the prisoners passing through, had been incorrectly installed and had not worked properly for the previous two and a half years.^[19] One killer escapee, who absconded outside the fence with the getaway car, was captured 28 hours later after a shootout with law enforcement in Rifle, Colorado. He was eventually sentenced to 48 years in the Colorado prison system. Two truck drivers were robbed, hijacked and kidnapped by the other two killers and their accomplice. “This is the first major glitch we’ve had, and I pray they pick the two guys up and nobody gets hurt,” said Robert Marquardt.^[20] Three days later, the ringleader hijacked, kidnapped, killed and incinerated two vacationers in New Mexico. He and his fellow escapee and their accomplice were captured within 20 days. Two are now serving life terms in federal prisons and their accomplice got a 40-year federal sentence.^[21] Subsequently, corrections officials stopped sending new inmates to the facility, which they stated was "dysfunctional." MTC threatened to sue the state for breach of contract, which guaranteed the facility 97% occupancy, and for the loss of $10 million in revenue from empty beds. The state renegotiated the contract and paid MTC $3 million.^[22]

On June 22, 2011, MTC Security Officer Edwin Rodriguez at the Willacy facility was arrested, and subsequently charged with the sexual abuse of a female detainee.^{[23][24][25][26][27][28]}

In 2013, the American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit against the East Mississippi Correctional Facility (EMCF), operated by the MTC, which they described as an "extremely dangerous facility" where "basic human rights are violated daily." The lawsuit claimed that rats crawled over prisoners in their beds so often that sometimes they were captured, put on leashes and sold as pets to seriously mentally ill inmates.^[29] Many prisoners had reportedly been unable to access appropriate medical care, even for life threatening conditions.^[30][31]

In July 2014, a portion of an internal ceiling collapsed in a dayroom at the Diboll Correctional Center in Texas. A number of inmates were taken to the hospital. One was listed as being in critical condition.^[32]

In November 2014, Mississippi Corrections Commissioner Christopher Epps was arraigned on charges of organizing a massive corruption scheme in which he received $1,900,000 in bribes in exchange for lucrative contracts to private prison and subcontractor firms including MTC, with ties to Cecil B. McCrory, a Republican former state legislator. According to the indictment, the bribes occurred when the MTC-operated EMCF was descending into "hellish chaos" with gang violence routine, medical care substandard and corruption rampant among corrections officers.^[33] On February 25, 2015, Epps pleaded guilty to tax evasion and taking bribes. He took "about $2 million" in exchange for prison contracts.^[34] After Epps was indicted, Governor Phil Bryant quickly ordered the $60 million MTC contract to operate three Mississippi prisons: Walnut Grove Correctional Facility, East Mississippi Correctional Facility and Marshall County Correctional Facility, which had been managed by GEO Group, and a fourth, Wilkinson County Correctional Facility, which had been managed by the Corrections Corporation of America, all of which involved McCrory and Epps, to be renegotiated.^[35] MTC had been sued for mistreatment of inmates in two of those prisons.^[36] McCrory plea bargained to lesser federal charges. He had begun working as a consultant to GEO Group, which had paid him $10,000 monthly. MTC subsequently won all four contracts and hired McCrory as a consultant. It fired him after the indictments were announced against Epps and McCrory, claiming they had known nothing of McCrory's criminal activities. Epps was scheduled to be sentenced on June 9, 2015, but on June 8 federal authorities first announced that the sentencing was indefinitely delayed.^[37] Cecil McCrory, co-defendant in the Epps case, has moved to withdraw his guilty plea and have a trial scheduled. Consequently, the sentencing of Epps was again postponed.^[38] The sentencing of Epps and Brandon businessman McCrory last scheduled for July 19, 2016, was again delayed by Judge Henry Travillion Wingate to give their defense lawyers additional time to review materials concerning how much money was gained by 15 corporations paying bribes to the pair. Prosecutors hope to use the evidence to increase the recommended prison sentences for Epps and McCrory. Epps faces a possible 23 years after his 2015 guilty plea to money laundering and filing false tax returns related to $1.47 million in bribes.^[39] In mid-June 2016, in the face of declining prison populations and the removal of juveniles to more suitable facilities, the state announced it would close the Walnut Grove Correctional Facility. That was accomplished on September 16, 2016. It was anticpated to have a devastating effect on the local economy.^[40][41]

On January 19, 2015, 23-year-old inmate Neil Early died in a hospital in Las Vegas after being sexually and fatally assaulted in MTC's Kingman, Arizona, Golden Valley State Prison. A search of the prison turned up numerous weapons, illegal cell phones and a quantity of heroin. A guard working a 16-hour shift had been supervising 200 inmates at the time of the attack on Early.^[42] Early's parents filed suit for millions against the state, MTC and a prison medical provider alleging delayed medical intervention after he was found beaten and sexually assaulted.^[43]

On February 21, 2015, inmates at the MTC-operated "tent" prison in Willacy County, Texas rioted over issues such as poor medical care. The prison was rendered "uninhabitable" according to the Federal Bureau of Prisons, which had contracted with MTC to manage 2,800 inmates.^[44] About two thousand inmates participated in the riot, which required intervention by federal, state and local law enforcement, and all of the inmates were soon removed by the Federal Bureau of Prisons.^[45] MTC informed the state that all its employees would be laid off by March 9, 2015.^[46] In March, 2015, the bonds that paid for the construction of the prison were lowered to "junk" status by Standard & Poors.^[47]

On July 1st, 2nd and 4th, 2015, riots broke out once again at the Arizona State Prison-Kingman, at Golden Valley, which had "a long history of problems." Nine guards and seven inmates were injured, and the state brought in 96 members of its special tactical unit to quell the disturbances.^[48][49] In August 2015, Arizona governor Doug Ducey terminated the contract with MTC after an Arizona Department of Corrections investigative report revealed the company had "a culture of disorganization, disengagement, and disregard" of DOC policies.^[50] Five competitor for-profit prison corporations indicated an interest in operating the facilities upon MTC's departure. It was ultimately awarded to Florida's GEO Group, effective December 1, 2015. GEO had contributed $2,000 to Ducey's 2014 campaign for Governor, plus $50,000 more to an Independent expenditure Superpac that exclusively supported Ducey's candidacy.^[51][52]

A July 2016 rally by 100 opponents of an MTC immigration prison proposal for Hopkins Park, Illinois followed local rejection of such proposals by larger competitors Corrections Corporation of America in Joliet and Crete, Illinois, and GEO Group in Hobart and Gary, Indiana due to similar protests. Protesters also cited the recent loss of MTC's Arizona State Prison – Kingman contract, a result of that state's negative characterization of MTC's prison operation.^[53]

See also

• Arizona State Prison – Kingman
• 2010 Arizona prison escape
• Eagle Mountain Community Correctional Facility
• Estes Unit
• Marana Community Correctional Treatment Facility
• Central North Correctional Centre
• East Mississippi Correctional Facility
• Marshall County Correctional Facility
• Walnut Grove Correctional Facility
• Wilkinson County Correctional Center
• Willacy Detention Center
• Willacy County Correctional Center
• Operation Mississippi Hustle
• Chris Epps
• Lane McCotter
• James A. Joseph
• Kyle, Texas
• Red Rock Job Corps Center
• Idaho Department of Correction
• Incarceration in the United States
• List of members of the American Legislative Exchange Council
• Arizona SB 1070
• List of detention sites in the United States

References

External links

• Management & Training Corporation company web site