Thread by @ImmCivilRights

TN Comptroller (and state parks enthusiast) Justin P Wilson tells TDOC oversight hearing his 200-page report can be summed up in one sentence:

“The Department did not have adequate controls to endure what they told you, the legislature, and the public is true.”

Tough to see how anyone in any other private industry would survive this sort of review.

Failures, large and small, permeate the audit report.

The message I hear over and over, which should be useful for anyone challenging conditions at TN’s prisons.

Bottom line—according to the Tennessee Comptroller, you can’t trust what TDOC says about what happens in prisons.

“If this isn’t acceptable in the free world, it certainly isn’t acceptable behind bars.” Justin P Wilson

TDOC head steps up to brag about ACA accreditation, apparently assuming legislators are unaware that ACA is funded by private prison companies.

He seems fairly oblivious to the fact that ACA accreditation is rendered meaningless if you credit reports like the Wilson Report.

TL-DR so far:

Comptroller: Leadership failed.

Leadership: We’re doing great. These other dudes said so.

“The paper medical records system is broken. . . . Electronic medical records system is too expensive. . . .”

Chair Bowling: “How much.”

TDOC: “$5-$15M”

Chair: “in the budget of the State of TN that’s not a lot of money.”

Good day for the EMR companies.

The posture of the TDOC’s testimony here on the Wilson Report is fascinating.

The explicit finding Wilson started with is that because TDOC leadership failed at its oversight responsibilities, we can’t trust anything they have to say about what’s happening.

They say Trust Us.

“We simply failed” TDOC re PREA investigation documentation policy.

Compliance head also says that you can ignore the document failures and trust them that they actually performed timely PREA audits.

The cognitive dissonance in here is thick.

“These are all issues that have to be resolved and there’s no excuse for that.” - TDOC Head Parker re specific findings.

Sen. Jackson steps up to ask about E-medrecords

“Any EMR system out there would be better than the system we currently have.” -TDOC

Yet “too expensive”

TDOC commish says any system out there would be better than the current one. Then procurement Dude talks about how challenging it is to find the right system.

You know who’s supposed to have good information on things like that? The ACA. Yet they gave TDOC their blue ribbon.

@RepMikeStewart says cmte getting sunset hearing is bs given the timing of the report. Moves for 90-day extension to vote so the public can review and understand the Wilson Report.

Goes after ACA accreditation and points out its based on false info.

E.g., “natural causes”

“I’m concerned we’re gonna lose our accreditation once these groups find out this information is false.” - Rep. Stewart

Who’s gonna tell him the Head of the ACA, sitting in front of him, just said TN’s prisons are great because the ACA said so?

Stewart moves for extension.

Pushback from the other side is that members of the committee got the report 3 weeks ago, on Dec 20, and had a chance to meet with members of the public. There have been five business hours since the report was made public.

Doug Garrett says Legal Services needs committee to take action today so they can draft legislation and file by deadline.

So basically, cutting through the procedure, what @RepMikeStewart has just teased out is that the people running the show today want to ram sunset through.

Wonder if Justin P. Wilson knew when he showed up today and said what he said that the goose was cooked and this was a sham hearing all along.

More pushback: It’s too soon to know whether it’s too soon.

This hearing is a testament to how fundamentally compromised this legislature is by the prison-industrial complex.

Not one mention of the deaths TNDOC and CoreCivic mislabeled as natural causes when they were actually murders or overdoses by anyone other than @RepMikeStewart

Justin P Wilson tells the Joint Committee that without accurate information, e.g., on death reporting, lawmakers can't make good decisions. The flow of today's hearing -- interrupting the "indictment" to shill for the most profitable fix, i.e., $15M EMR software, ignores report

The Wilson report found that prior software purchased and implemented by the TDOC -- also for $15.3M -- still has no "Go-Live" date.

So basically legislators are asking the same folks who couldn't get the last $15M software project off the ground to do the next one.

Parker on Finding 4: TDOC didn't accurately report the causes of death.

The question he doesn't answer -- and won't be asked -- is whether these death reports were going to be corrected in the absence of the Audit.

Listening to the head of a state agency that's on one end of the school-to-prison-pipeline tell the legislature how hard it is to find qualified, competent staff draws one's attention directly to the other end of that pipeline.

One question for @TNCOT: Why was the report embargoed until Friday?

So I've said this a bunch, but the way to audit staffing levels in prisons and jails is NOT to see what they're doing when they know you're coming. It's to watch their video to see what they're doing when you're not there.

100% video monitoring is vital given Wilson Report.

Can you imagine being the head of this agency and bragging about your first request to the new governor being giving them more $.

Lionizing the line-employees in TDOC for their dedication while blaming them for the specific failures to complete the required reports is . .

"I feel like the Department of Corrections is doing the best we can."

Given that, and in light of the Wilson Report they DOC's best isn't good enough, it's time for new leadership at DOC.

How many different ways can he say it?

THERE

ARE

TOO

MANY

PEOPLE

IN

PRISON

IN

TENNESSEE

@votebo Gets Parker to say that notwithstanding the Wilson Report, he "absolutely would vote for [ACA] accreditation of this Department."

That, my friends, is all you need to know about the ACA. And the TDOC.

Parker, as President-Elect of the ACA, knows those audits aren't =

TDOC's lawyer concurs that TDOC gave contractors an unlawful giveaway.
Jesus.

@RepMikeStewart asks "Are we gonna get the $2M back or not?"

TDOC says that in exchange for more staff hours (i.e., working people's wages), the companies wouldn't have to pay. Not the guys at top.

TDOC brags that because they weren't breaking the law by denying Hep-C meds, the $2m kickback was just fine.

Comptroller said monies weren't authorized. TDOC agrees. @RepMikeStewart says "When are the taxpayers gonna get their $2M back?"

Parker: "I know of know plan, Chairman Stewart, to recover the $2.1M that's been allocated."

Stewart: "Well I think you better make a plan because you have no legal authority to give these vendors $2m of the taxpayers' money."

The Tell here about this meeting and its real purpose is the fact that Parker knew about these findings for three weeks and felt like he could safely show up with no plan for recovering the missing $2.1M. We teach people how to treat us. And the oversight committee has taught DOC

If there were still consent decrees about staffing levels, today's hearing transcript would be Exhibit A in the preliminary injunction.

#TGA members should take Commish Parker up on his invitation to come and visit TDOC facilities. Seriously.

But they should do so unannounced.

Guy who is responsible for this finding says, "I'm proud of my work in the Department and the Department has served me well." Yes. Yes, it has.

Someone should ask why giving more money to the same department whose work produced the Wilson Report's findings and observations isn't exactly like giving a gambling addict your last $20. You know exactly where it's going, and what will become of it.

Maybe spend the $368k TDOC is pissing away on COMET / TOMIS with nothing to show why that $ couldn't be used to pay working people who toil away as guards in the TDOC facilities.

Again, the question here is whether any of this would have been addressed in absence of Wilson Rpt

TDOC: We need more money. That's the problem.

Stewart: I know a place you could find $2.1M

TDOC: Naw. We good.

TDOC: Seriously. We need to be able to pay guards competitive rates to attract and retain good people. Give us $$.

Comptroller: Here's a wasted $15.3M on a system that doesn't work. Watcha gonna do about that?

TDOC: Meh. Give us more $$.

.@replaffertytn Why is a Canadian company running this contract?

TDOC: Well, Virginia did it. Virginia is, ::checks notes:: for Lovers.

(Real:This award went to the company that scored the highest in our procurement process)

@replaffertytn 3 agencies, nothing to show for it.

"It seems like an obscene amount of money to me to spend $15M." @replaffertytn.

I wonder what happens when we check out the results in Virginia? Oh. Fun fact, Abilis had to partner with IBM to fix it in 2018. marketwatch.com/press-release/…
"Do we have anything that works?"
Parker: No

TDOC eager to shift the blame to Abilis Solutions and Corizon and Centurion and the Legislature for the findings and observations in the Wilson Report.

@RepMartinDaniel between look out before a CoreCivic lobbyist comes and tackles him for suggesting performance bonds.

TDOC admits THIS contract has a $7M performance bond. Question is before AG.
Rep Pody asks who's in charge here, anyway? STS is the project manager, says TDOC.
When you're the head of an agency and you don't step forward to that question and say, "Ultimately, I am," seriously?

Kerry Roberts wants public hearings on institutional reforms necessary. Which is weird, because he said this morning he was ready to vote on sunset when opposing @RepMikeStewart's motion.

Chairman Pody - What happened to the 62 unreported incidents that weren't reported to Legislature as required by law and documented on p.57 of Wilson Report. Included in the 62 missing reports - arrests by staff and violations of state law. TDOC: Staff didn't feel like reporting.

@mark_pody has called TDOC out for failing to report approximately 1/3 of the incidents that are required to be reported to the legislature by State Law.

TDOC Commish Parker says incidents were included in the Abstract. Blames weird codes convention. Says "could be misleading."

@mark_pody asks if Employees at prisons can be vendors at prisons.

TDOC Commish Parker says he's not aware of any.

Pody asks if it'd be ethical. Parker says senior staff have to sign conflict-of-interest waivers.

What's Pody know that's not in the Report? Doesn't seem hypo.

Public Comment Period.
Stacy Books Mesco - Prog. Mgr for Persevere. Also an Ex-Offender. She's hear to talk about her non-profits program in TDOC facilities. "I support the Department." Also brags about coding classes in CoreCivic Trousdale.
Saying nice things about 2nd chances

Ms. Books Mesco credits her current job explicitly to Commish Parker.

Curiously silent on the consequences to offenders of the Wilson Report.

In fact, she hasn't mentioned it. Wonder why.

Woo-boy. Calfee, "Can you explain why it's a good idea to teach criminals to code?" "Does this help em go online and do what's been going on for several years where they get people's income tax sent to em?" Dude. Your question tells us all you think a conviction is irredeemable.

Might as well change it from the Tennessee Department of Correction to the Tennessee Department of Aw Screw Em.@RepMikeStewart helps point out Centurion -- one of the vendors that kept part of the State's $2.1M -- is "one of your supporters." Second Persevere witness. Timekilling

Next speaker is a former 12-year resident of a CoreCivic facility. Holds up CoreCivic handbook and explains you can't get to religious services, go to rec time. Says the facility is totally corrupt. Has evidence to demonstrate. Asks for a criminal investigation into facility.

"I can't speak for the rest of the facilities. But I can speak for Whitefield. It is a very, very corrupt place. . . . We dealing with humans. It's true. We committed a crime. But we're not animals."

tnga.granicus.com/MediaPlayer.ph…

Michael Fuller asks legislators to contact him in order make things inside that prison better so that when people reenter society they're reformed. When the corrupt system has no interest in helping those inside, we're not going to come out reformed. *Sorry, it was Whiteville.

Chairman Daniel asks for a specific example of corruption:

Fuller - Start with food. It's one of the most basic necessities. Says there's been several time when he's gone unfed and they've admitted as much on his grievances.

Say he's been denied access to religious services.

Next up: Ashley Dixon, former officer at CoreCivic's Trousdale facility. She testified last year about a death she witnessed while working there.

Testifies that when she was on way to hospital for prison who attempted suicide by swallowing pills, a CCA supervisor admitted . .

. . . That although he told staff he'd swallowed the pills, triggering the duty to give the charcoal. They didn't. He died.

"I've been doing this for so long it's hard not to cover for the company."

Describes guard abuse
Jesus. "So I thought I killed him. He then laughed."

"I mean, you word your stuff right. You can just about get out of it." - Dixon, quoting another CCA guard at Trousdale while she worked there.

Then describes medical file room. "We've got an archaic system. you're having to turn everything by hand."

Describes lost med records.

"I have been waiting since the day of my last testimony for you to do the right thing."
@RepMikeStewart "It sounds like all that you just described comes from your personal knowledge."
Dixon: Yes.

Stewart: So you're a personal witness to someone lying to medical officials?

Pamela Wilson, former CoreCivic employee:

"CoreCivic keeps inmates as long as possible with purposely created chaos."

"The legislature has allowed Parker to fill Trousdale with troublemakers so his prisons look good."

Notes Trousdale has lowest parole/probation rates.

Ms. Wilson's voice shakes as she pleads with legislators, using specific examples of horrific abuses. "CoreCivic prisons are dangerous. Call for help and no one comes. The Department is not suffering. Inmates and line officers are suffering."

Next up is Kurt Campbell w Men of Valor - a CoreCivic-funded front group that's overtaken the TDOC and State Government. Notes "tough conversations and certainly some things need to be addressed."
Instead of addressing them, he's here to talk about MOV's great TDOC relationship.

Campbell, "Appreciate[s] and was not surprised at Commish Parker's receptiveness to change."

Name-checks Parker and CCA CEO Damon Hininger for the record.

Fun Fact - Men of Valor folks demand all meetings with State officials begin with a prayer, then probe whether anyone's uncomfortable.

@RepMikeStewart asks Campbell if he has any observations on the Wilson Report.

Campbell responds that he's here to talk about the good stuff

Next up, JoAnn Holman is here on behalf her son, Richard. Son diagnosed with Hep-C 10 yrs ago. Despite a cure, he's received no treatment today. It's taken 11 years to be seen by an optometrist. His vision is 900/20. Prison doc ordered him $400 glasses he can't see through.

Holman said she mailed contacts to the medical dept for 10 yrs, and he's told now he can't have anymore. Has worn his contacts for 8 mos. Eyes infected. Can't See.

Beaten savagely.

Put in hole for 5 weeks.

Got no medical care in the hole.

40-50 men crowd into medical @4am

"The prison is responsible for caring for my son, his safety, his health, and his belongings."

"He is hungry all the time. Food is often missing from his tray. And when it's not it's not enough to keep from being hungry.

Holman: "The question is: Will you do what's right? You may choose to look the other way, but you can never again say that you did not know."

Next up is Jessica Jones, who previously testified in April 2018 about a homicide and coverup. She notes TDOC Commish Parker said he'd commit to investigate. Parker dismissed her and asked her to speak to Donna Turner at OIC. Turner asked for written stmt. Investigation shut down

Okay, I can't confirm *all*. Sorry.

She was Acting Health Services Admin at West TN State Prison, a charge nurse assigned the day who ran the code on a man who died and performed CPR until he died. She was the treating person and @RepMikeStewart secures testimony that TDOC never talked to her.

Another lie by DOC

Roberts (correctly) hammers sentence enhancements and low parole rates.

"We're sending more people to jail. We're keeping there longer. And we don't seem to be willing to fund what's taking please. Would you wanna be a correctional officer for $30k a year?"

"We have people incarcerated who deserve our respect. They deserve the effort & investment that we make in them so that hopefully when their time is over they're going to be productive citizens of the State of Tennessee and they won't return." Says you can't end TDOC. Wants 4yrs.

Roberts pushing the same blank check the #tga gave TDOC three years ago.

Motion is seconded. @RepMikeStewart wants Comptroller's testimony on the 4-year extension of TDOC.

Wilson: "When you get right down to it the bulk of our report was a lack of internal controls and proper documentation. Dept has already started dealing w some of those issues."

Wilson explains, essentially, why the time of the release of the report essentially guaranteed that no matter what it says, no matter how bad it is -- and it's fantastically bad -- Comptroller can't do anything other than recommend more reauthorization of this leadership.

.@RepMikeStewart asks why the legislative coverup of these audit findings should proceed, given the findings in the Wilson Report.

Bottom line, as pointed out by Sen Sara Kyle, is that Sen. Roberts' motion includes literally zero things to require TDOC to come into compliance.

If a business came into court with what the Comptroller's office put on TDOC, they'd be put into receivership.

Here comes Sen. Roberts with his sober and "diplomatic[]" tone, admonishing legislators about doing their duty to talk to the agency and the Comptroller.

Seems to ignore completely the Comptroller's findings that legislators have been lied to by DOC for years.

What's odd is that Kerry has, as far as I'm aware, never said ANYTHING about the Comptroller's report's adverse findings before today. Even though he was supposedly doing his work.

Now his argument is "We know we're going to win" on the thing you're gonna vote against.

Roberts: "Let's vote and go."

Yep.

Rep. Daniel says "We have to have a DOC. We simply can't sunset them."

This is the sort f thinking you get in a room full of privileged white men. They've never stopped to consider what it'd look like if we didn't. There are models for it.

Sen. Roberts received at least $1,000 from CoreCivic during his last cycle.
justfacts.votesmart.org/candidate/camp…

.@RepMikeStewart says public received the audit report on Friday. Monday morning the joint committee wants to give another 4 years with no oversight for at least 2 Stewart suggests the committee will be responsible if and when federal courts find TN prison conditions unlawful.

Sen. Bowling wants to make sure everyone knows this electronic medical records contract and this offender mgmt system contract need to be fixed.

But then asks whether Wilson could compare state-run facilities to privately-run ones.

Wilson says they need to follow same stds.

And just like that, prisoners in Tennessee are condemned to the same blatantly illegal conditions they've endured for the past three years for another 4. Just like that, the head of the TDOC walks scot-free, despite the Comptroller's findings of his failures. Took about 4 hours.