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 25 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, California, Utah, Kansas, Iowa, Illinois, Hawaii, Texas, Kentucky, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Delaware, District of Columbia, Georgia, Florida, and Mississippi.^[2]

Corrections

MTC is one of the world's largest operators of correctional facilities with a capacity to serve more than 31,000 offenders. 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.^[3] 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.^[4]

MTC Medical

MTC Medical provides medical and dental care to prisoners at 14 facilities:^[5]

• 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.^[6]

Background

MTC was founded in 1981 by Robert L. Marquardt, 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 riot broke out at MTC's low-security Eagle Mountain Community Correctional Facility in Eagle Mountain, California Some 150 prisoners attacked each other with meat cleavers, broom handles, rocks, pipes, crutches and fire extinguishers. The privately employed guards retreated, according to the protocol, while state correctional officers were called in from other nearby state facilities.^[7] Two inmates were stabbed to death, seven others were critically injured, and dozens more hurt. Eight inmates were ultimately charged with murder.^[8] 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.^[9]

On 30 July 2010, three violent criminals escaped from the Arizona State Prison – Kingman after MTC workers ignored alarms indicating they had cut through the fence with tools tossed to them by a getaway car driver.^[10] Two MTC employees resigned in the wake of the escape, a unit warden and a unit security chief.^[11] 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 past two and a half years.^[12] One killer escapee, who absconded outside the fence with the getaway car, was captured 28 hours later after a shootout with law enforcement in Colorado. Two truck drivers were kidnapped by the other two killers and their accomplice. Three days later, the ringleader killed two vacationers in New Mexico. All were captured with three weeks. Three are serving life terms in prison and their accomplice got a 40-year federal sentence.^[13] 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.^[14]

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.^{[15][16][17][18][19][20]}

In 2013, the ACLU 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 claims that rats crawl over prisoners in their beds so often that sometimes they are captured, put on leashes and sold as pets to seriously mentally ill inmates.^[21] Many prisoners had reportedly been unable to access appropriate medical care, even for life threatening conditions.^[22][23]

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.^[24]

In November 2014, Christopher Epps, the state corrections commissioner in Mississippi, was arraigned on charges of organizing a massive corruption scheme in which he received $900,000 in bribes in exchange for lucrative contracts to private prison firms with ties to another former state official, including MTC. 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.^[25] On February 25, 2015, Epps pleaded guilty to tax evasion and taking bribes. He took "about $2 million" in exchange for prison contracts.^[26] Epps was scheduled to be sentenced on June 9, 2015, but on June 8 federal authorities announced that the sentencing was indefinitely delayed.^[27]

On January 19, 2015, 23-year-old inmate Neil Early died in Las Vegas after being 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.^[28] 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.^[29]

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.^[30] About two thousand inmates participated in the riot, which required intervention by federal, state and local law enforcement, and twenty percent of the inmates were soon removed by the Federal Bureau of Prisons.^[31] MTC informed the state that all its employees would be laid off by March 9, 2015.^[32] In March, 2015, the bonds that paid for the construction of the prison were lowered to "junk" status by Standard & Poors.^[33]

On July 1, 2 and 4th, 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.^[34][35] 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.^[36] Five competitor for-profit prison corporations indicated an interest in operating the facilities upon MTC's departure. It was ultimately awarded to 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.^[37][38]

See also

• Arizona State Prison – Kingman
• 2010 Arizona prison escape
• Willacy Detention Center
• Eagle Mountain Community Correctional Facility
• Estes Unit
• Marana Community Correctional Treatment Facility
• Central North Correctional Centre
• Walnut Grove Correctional Facility
• East Mississippi Correctional Facility
• 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