Restoring prisoners to competency in Yuma County.

I'd rather see more programs diverting the seriously mentally ill from prosecution altogether...but this has an interesting design that includes education about the legal process and seems worth posting. Hopefully they won't take as long with folks as Maricopa County (MCSO) does (9 months seems the norm here) - that's a long time to lock a person up in a place like that who hasn't even been to trial, and seems only to coerce too many into pleading guilty as soon as they're deemed competent to in order to get out of MCSO custody, the jail's treatment of the SMI is so bad.

We wish the best to Dr. Falcon with this program - we hope it serves Yuma County's vulnerable prisoners well. Anyone who has direct experience with this program and thoughts on it is invited to contact me (Peggy) at arizonaprisonwatch@gmail.com. I'd love to hear how it's going. Same with any of the restoration to competency or mental health programs in Arizona's other county jails.

---from the Yuma Sun---

Jail starts program to restore suspects to competency

http://www.yumasun.com/news/program-75148-person-trial.html

December 12, 2011 2:07 PM

BY DARREN DARONCO - SUN STAFF WRITER

After months of planning, the Yuma County Detention Center has implemented its own restoration to competency (RTC) program.

YCDC recently held an open house to show local judges a newly renovated mental health pod and to explain how the RTC program works.

When a person who is charged with a crime is determined by a judge to be incompetent, the judge places him or her into a mental health program so treatment can be administered until the person is capable of standing trial.

“Before we sent everyone who couldn't stand trial to the Arizona State Hospital or to another county with an RTC program,” said Lt. Joe Lackey. “Now instead of sending them away, everything is going to be performed here at the local jail. (Often times,) it would take a year before a person was restored...and that is very expensive. So this will definitely save the county money.”

Yuma County's RTC program focuses on both teaching the person what will happen during the trial and treating the person's mental illness.

“One of the things we emphasize is that it's a process,” said Dr. Elizabeth Falcon, the program's head forensic psychologist. “They first go through intake assessments, which allows us to target the areas they need to work on. Once we identify those, they begin the other critical part which is the education piece. Also during this time, they are receiving the treatment that they need.”

Falcon said the education component is divided into a series of 12 modules and the inmates must pass each one before advancing in the program.

“The modules are curriculum-based and are multi-modal so they are not just doing the same lesson,” she said. “Some (modules) include exercises or role-playing while others are more traditional.”

After inmates finish the modules and complete their therapy, they partake in a mock trial which prepares them for the actual courtroom.

“We try to simulate every aspect of a trial,” Falcon said. “Everybody who participates has a script and then we act out the trial just as it would in the courtroom.”

Two people have been admitted to the program since its inception in early November, with one person successfully completing it.

“I think it's wonderful that we have this program in Yuma,” said Yuma County Superior Court Judge Maria Elena Cruz. “It expedites the process so we can quickly identify those that can be restored and those that can't. So it's a cost savings not only financially, but on the human side of it because we won't have someone who is mentally ill without the possibility of being restored being held for months and months in jail.”

Yuma Sun: MTC/GEO Private Prison Public Hearings

-------------------from the Yuma Sun-----------

Prison companies face Yuma public

BY CHRIS McDANIEL - SUN STAFF WRITER

Yuma Sun

August 19, 2011

Scandal involving two private prison companies seeking a contract to build and operate a new complex near San Luis followed them to Yuma County.



The two companies, GEO Group and Management and Training Corp. (MTC), are competing for Arizona Department of Corrections (DOC) monies provided by the Arizona Legislature to build up to 5,000 new private prison beds.



DOC is considering five sites in Eloy, Coolidge, San Luis, Winslow and Goodyear as possible prison locations, and was in Yuma this week to hear public comment.



If awarded a contract, GEO proposes building a new prison with 2,000 or 3,000 beds in San Luis, while MTC proposes a 3,000-bed prison.



Meeting attendee Vivian Haas warned Yuma County residents against allowing MTC to build the prison. Her son, Gary Haas, and his wife, Linda, were allegedly murdered in August 2010 in New Mexico by two escaped prisoners being housed at an MTC prison in Kingman, Ariz.: Tracy Province and John McCluskey.



“I've been through a lot of painful times in 81 years, even surviving the terrible tornado that hit Joplin recently, but nothing compares to the pain of having my son and his wife, Gary and Linda Haas, brutally murdered because MTC couldn't do its job of keeping criminals locked up.”



According the Zachar Law Firm in Phoenix, the prisoners were able to escape due to extensive and egregious security errors, allowing them to completely avoid detection by prison security.



“I want to prevent anyone else from suffering the same type of pain,” Vivian Haas said tearfully. “I do not want to reward MTC's failure to do its job by giving it another prison to manage.”



In response, Issa Arnita, MTC director of corporate communications, said the company has learned from the deadly error. “Well, obviously what happened at Kingman is very unfortunate, but you learn from that. Mistakes were made — we took full responsibility for it, but over the process of working with (DOC) over the last several months, MTC has been very cooperative.”



GEO Group, the second-largest private prison company in the country, is currently a defendant in a federal class-action lawsuit filed by the Southern Poverty Law Center and the American Civil Liberties Union for violations at its juvenile detention center in Walnut Grove, Miss. The lawsuit contends the prison's management caused a culture of violence and exploitation by selling drugs inside the facility and entering into sexual relationships with the inmates.



Pablo Paez, GEO vice president of corporate relations, said the alleged crimes would have taken place before GEO bought the prison from Cornell, a private corrections company, on Aug. 12, 2010.



Another critic of GEO and MTC was San Luis resident James Beecher. “I have no issue with a prison that is run by the Arizona Department of Corrections, but to build a private facility of this nature — I don't think that is what's best for San Luis.”



However, proponents of a new prison in San Luis tout the jobs they believe it will create, both in the construction phase and in the day-to-day functions of running it.



“To me this is a no-brainer,” said state Sen. Don Shooter, R-Yuma. “We have an opportunity to bring 350 to 750 jobs to rural Arizona and we need jobs. I would certainly like to see (DOC) strongly consider Yuma. Just to point out, we do have a Criminal as our mascot for our high school.”



Arnita said the addition of a prison is just what an ailing Yuma County economy, with unemployment hovering at about 30 percent, needs.



“The idea is to support the local community and work in the community. You want local people to come and work for you because they live here and can benefit from it. We are talking 500 jobs for a facility with 3,000 beds, and that is quite a few jobs for an area like this.”



Arnita said if MTC receives the contract, “Our architecture firm and the contractor (will) hold a job fair and invite local folks to come in and submit a resume, talk about their skills and show their certifications. If they have the skills and manpower to be able to do the work, we hire them locally.”