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Watching The Watchers
April 11, 2010
Dr. Suess, in his book, Did I Ever Tell You How Lucky You Are?, poses a worker bee in Hawtch-Hawtch that is suspected of not working very hard. A Bee Watcher is hired to keep an eye on the lazy worker bee under the assumption that a watched bee will work harder. Despite his being watched, the worker bee did not seem to work any harder, so it was decided to employ a Bee Watcher-Watcher to make certain that the Bee Watcher was doing his job. Time and bureaucracy lumbered on, leading to a whole line of Bee Watcher-Watchers, boosting the employment rolls and assuring that nothing would ever be done to upset the status quo.
LD1611, a bill that would have restricted the prolonged isolation of prisoners with diagnosed mental illness, disintegrated into a resolve that has the Maine Department of Corrections studying the problem with the objective of pointing out ways that prison officials can maintain security without harming the mental health of their charges. As a former legislator, I quickly recognized this soft pitch as a means of placating the growing number of the public that has an aversion to turning mentally ill prisoners directly out onto the streets or further exacerbating their stability through isolation. That growing public aversion was condemned in the House debate by distinguished members of the Joint Standing Committee on Criminal Justice and Public Safety as an “insult” to hard working staff who “put their lives on the line every day.”
LD1611 follows suit behind such initiatives as the Visiting Committee, the Board of Corrections and other councils and committees so enmeshed in the Department of Corrections that you literally cannot find your way to the rest room without an escort. The Bee Watchers and the Bee Watcher-Watchers are now happily watching each other in mutual collaboration instead of initiating much-needed change.
In June, 2009, OPEGA, the legislative Office of Program Evaluation and Government Accountability, submitted a report on the systemic staff culture at Maine State Prison. Having determined reluctance on the part of prison staff to report unethical or dangerous situations within the prison for fear of discrimination or reprisal, the report was moved to the jurisdiction of the Board of Corrections. The Board of Corrections, under the astute maneuvering of the legislative oversight committee, directed the Department of Corrections to continue its cultural change work and report back. Translation: “Bury this report in your cultural change file.”
In wondering how to confront the denial that seems entrenched in this addictive system, I have come up with a possible remedy. Submit a bevy of bills in this next legislative session that keep the Department of Corrections busy rounding up the troops to circle the wagons and watching each other watch each other. Keep them so busy on defense that the legislators on the committee will eventually come to the inevitable conclusion that the shroud of secrecy that envelopes the Department has to be pierced in order to drag Maine kicking and screaming into the 21st Century.
Are you watching?
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