Only In Arizona/Faces Of Deceit #TWO: Wherein, the corruption in the offices of Arizona's highest ranking officials glaringly characterizes the sort(s) of people that I am dealing with as I fight patient abuse at the state's sole long term public mental health facility, The Arizona State Hospital. Dirt, deceit, greed, power, ego, and patent discrimination. Bottom line, and across all lines, from cultural identity to disability, Arizona is an administratively abusive and racist state.   

                                           Arizona Attorney General Tom Horne. 

He is Joel "the mortician" Rudd's boss.

He looks like a drunken Swede.

     One very disturbing feature of my experiences at The Arizona State Hospital that I have tried to bring attention to, is the fact that ASH treats seriously mentally ill Caucasians at about 4-5 times the rate of seriously mentally ill African Americans, which is an absolute u-turn in comparison to these numbers in our state prisons, where African Americans outnumber whites by close to 12 to 1. Not that I knew every other patient at ASH, I can assuredly count on two hands the African American men and women who I knew as peers while I was at ASH, this in a patient community numbering well above 125. This is of critical  concern to me because the vast majority of patients at ASH arrive there following legal proceedings in the state courts, where seriously mentally ill adults of all/any race(s) very often wind up following conflicts with police and the public, after which they come to be either sentenced to a penal facility or referred to a psychiatric hospital. ASH is the only long term public psychiatric hospital in the state. 

     The Arizona State Hospital in Phoenix is the state's one and only long term public mental health facility. Why and how it could possibly be that white men and women in Arizona seemingly suffer from serious mental illness at 4-5 times the rate that African Americans do is beyond me, particularly given that it is defiance of extensive evidence to the effect that serious mental illness does not, in fact, unevenly occur across racial or cultural lines. Herein one can observe clear racial discrimination that occurs in direct relation to both the public behavioral health care system and the legal system in Arizona, which work together veery closely in determining the most appropriate manner in which to manage the state's mentally ill citizens when they have the misfortune of experiencing conflict with the police or public. The implications are severe, knowing as I do that prison populations across the board reflect a markedly high number of mentally ill persons; and in Arizona, I feel it is safe to assume that there is a grossly disproportionate number of seriously mentally ill African Americans in our state prisons, while at ASH, a grossly disproportionate number of mentally ill white men (like Governor Jan Brewer's son?) women are granted treatment at The Arizona State Hospital versus incarceration in the prison system. This is grossly unjustified, and represents nothing short of a broken state system of public administration.   

     I actually submitted a direct comment/inquiry to Arizona Department of Health Services Director Will Humble's official on-line blog site about this specific issue, this in response to an article he published in early July, 2012 (see azadhs.gov: "Director's Blog" July 27, 2012) that discussed observable social/cultural-racial disparities throughout the whole of our nation. In his article, Humble declared a central intent to fairly and comprehensively address any observable disparities in the flow of health care in Arizona, and then went on to further declare the related objective of this intent, as follows: "So that…. Arizona's public health team can better address health equity and improve health status for vulnerable populations in Arizona."     
     As soon as I read this article, I submitted my direct inquiry and comments to Humble's blog about the graphic cultural-racial disparity in mental health services that I witnessed while hospitalized at ASH, but as I have already discussed at length in prior articles, the director of the state's health care system refuses to so much as acknowledge my testimony and expressed concern about the substandard conditions at ASH, much less to formally respond to these inquiries in public (through his blog site).

        Arizona has earned itself the moniker of "the most racist state in the nation" for any number of clearly evident reasons. And while I am not seeking to further this particular line of criticism about the "management" practices of Arizona's elected officials (i.e. Governor Jan Brewer, or Arizona Attorney General Tom Horne, it's freakishly apparent to me that the corruption at ASH and throughout the network of administrators who have been entrusted with overseeing the state of Arizona's public service system occurs in very disparate terms, at the direct expense of Arizona's most at risk populations.  

     That said, here are just a couple more fresh out of the kettle news reports about how things go Arizona in this day in age, 2012, outlandishly disturbing events and revelations to totally in keeping with my sentiment: 

ONLY IN ARIZONA. 

Arizona private prison contract awarded

to Tennessee firm.

by Craig Harris - Aug. 31, 2012 10:12 PM The Republic | azcentral.com

     The state Department of Corrections on Friday evening awarded a multimillion-dollar private-prison contract to Corrections Corporation of America, which has employed lobbyists close to Gov Jan. Brewer in its effort to win the bid.The firm is politically connected to Brewer, who has pushed for the prison expansion. Until mid-July, CCA employed Chuck Coughlin, an influential lobbyist who is a close friend and an adviser to Brewer. And, state lobbying records show CCA also employs Policy Development Group, a lobbying firm that includes Paul Senseman, Brewer's former spokesman.

      "If you place two of your lobbyists at the right and left hand of the governor of the state and she has the final say and oversight of the Department of Corrections, I would say that's a pretty smart business strategy," said Caroline Isaacs of the American Friends Service Committee, a Quaker group and opponent of Arizona's private-prison expansion.

Read more: http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/local/articles/2012/08/31/20120831arizona-private-prison-contract-awarded-firm.html#ixzz25EbpNnjV

Records: AG official did private work on state time

by Yvonne Wingett Sanchez and Bob Ortega - Aug. 31, 2012 11:45 PMThe Republic | azcentral.com

Tom Horne's office releases hundreds of pages of documents at Republic's request

       A political employee (Kathleen Winn) who is under investigation in connection with improper campaign activities was allowed to perform private real-estate work on government time by Arizona Attorney General Tom Horne, records obtained by The Arizona Republic show. The FBI and the Maricopa County Attorney's Office are investigating whether Winn, who ran an independent campaign-expenditure committee on Horne's behalf before he hired her as his director of community outreach, improperly colluded with Horne when he was running for attorney general in 2010…. The records (compiled by the AZ Republic in preparing this story) included internal investigations performed by Horne's own state investigator, Margaret "Meg" Hinchey, who filed a $10 million claim in June accusing Horne of retaliating against her after she went to the FBI with allegations of illegal activity involving Horne and Winn. Hinchey claimed she stumbled upon information about Horne's alleged involvement with an independent expenditure committee chaired by Winn while investigating another matter. Hinchey and another Attorney General's Office employee have alleged that Horne illegally collaborated with Winn on an independent expenditure to help elect Horne in 2010.

     The FBI is collaborating with the Maricopa County Attorney's Office on that investigation, in which subpoenas have been issued, according to Republic sources. Neither law-enforcement agency has confirmed the existence of the probe.

Kathleen Winn, the person at the center of a political scandal swirling around the Arizona Attorney General's Office, was performing private real estate work on government time and was believed by coworkers to be the source of information leaked to the media about another employee, records show.

  

Read more: http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/news/articles/2012/08/31/20120831AG-Horne-staffer-private-work-public-time.html#ixzz25EeKiSMm

IN CLOSING: I firmly believe that the shit is going to hit the fan in Arizona at some time in the near future, specific to what one observer has characterized as "the most scandalous period of history ever, in a state that is well known for its political scandals…." At the bottom of the pond, where the spotlight never shines, the patients at The Arizona State Hospital bear the burden of suffering the worst impacts of these matters, for they (we) are arguably the most marginalized population in the country, and when you take the substandard medical-mental health care practices in a state hospital like ASH into account, there is seemingly little hope in terms of meaningful reform. But I see the road by which to bring this matter to light, because ASH is merely and extension of the state government itself, and when the shit does hit the fan, I will be right there with my extensively documented evidence and heartfelt testimony about the grossly mismanaged affairs at ASH, and the ones responsible for the patterns of patient abuse at ASH will be held accountable. Each and every one of them, if I have my way. The patients at ASH deserve as much, and then some.   

Only in Arizona, indeed. Where in the hell do they (the powers that be) find these people. Is there some sort of factory just south of the border with Mexico, where Beelzebub himself cranks out disfigured forms of human nature and being, pressing them into molds and coloring them all in shades of egg shell and bloodied cream? Please visit my April 30, 2012 "Resource Ideas" article, and come to the aid of Arizona's most vulnerable population. The abuse of seriously mentally ill patients is sickening to the conscience, but at ASH, it is standard practice. The administrators and clinicians at ASH are operating at a level of substandard medical-mental heath care and practice,a nd they are getting away with it. It has to stop. Today. 

paoloreed@gmail.com