Audit Time

Spring is in the air which means it’s time for the compound to get turned upside down in preparation for the ACA onsite audit and inspection. The ACA, the “American Correction Association,” is the organization devoted to setting standards for the operation of America’s sixty billion dollar corrections industry. States love touting that they are “ACA certified,” meaning they comply with ACA’s “best practices” for operating a prison facility in a secure, safe, clean, and humane way.

            If you read the ACA manual (a copy of the published standards – security standards are not publicly available – is kept in the prison law library) you would think prisons are well-organized and run facilities. You’d wonder how disease, injury, drug use, and even death are so prevalent in prisons given the ACA standards. The answer is simple: the ACA is all for show. It has no teeth.

            The ACA guidelines are broken into two areas: mandatory standards (the issues that concern the day to day lives of the incarcerated). For example, ACA guidelines require each inmate in a dorm style housing unit to have twenty-five square feet of personal living space (if you wonder how much space is 25 square feet, mark off 5 feet by 5 feet in your home). ACA guidelines also recommend no more than 7 inmates per commode. These are minimum standards (and, coincidentally are in line with the recent U.S. Supreme Court holding in Brown v. Plata ruling against California’s prison system as violating the 8^th Amendment) but they are “recommendations.” As such, a prison can’t be denied certification for violating non-mandatory standards.

            The ACA sends on-site inspection teams. They tour the facilities checking every nook and cranny. How does the prison prepare? They go on a massive cleaning campaign. Mold is scrubbed off bathroom walls; fresh coats of paint are added in buildings and exteriors; floors are waxed and buffed to a luxuriant shine; food quality improves; visits to medical suddenly are scheduled after months of waiting. It’s all done to camouflage the underlying disorder and distress in the facility.

            We’re going through the cleanup right now. Our floor has never been so shiny. For the first time in three years there is no black mold in our showers. The building has a fresh coat of paint. It smells cleaner.

            The problem is, it’s all for show. The systemic problems that lead to continued recidivism aren’t fixed by wax and paint. Too many men living in too little space with too little hope of success is the reality here. The disturbing thing is, I believe the ACA knows it. They interview many inmates during their inspections and take copious notes. Unfortunately, what they really see here isn’t publicly disseminated. “The findings we issue belong to the Warden.”

            Prisons are cruel, dark, filthy places. They do not rehabilitate. They do not properly prepare the vast majority of men and women behind bars to lead productive lives on release. No honest audit could conclude otherwise.

            If the ACA wants to really set standards for prisons they’d conduct the audits in the light of day with surprise on-site inspections and public release of their findings.