A Chri$tian Alcohol and Drug Recovery Program--Mo Money

Started by Recusant, October 04, 2017, 08:23:00 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

Recusant

I think that as many states in the US turn toward prison-for-profit schemes this sort of indentured servitude will become more common. This nice little money-maker takes people trying to kick their addictions, but the courts in the area will also send offenders there as an alternative to prison. The workers get food and board and all the prayers anybody could ever want, but no pay. If they're very good they're eligible for a $1,000 "gift" upon "graduation."

"They thought they were going to rehab. They ended up in chicken plants" | Reveal

QuoteBrandon Spurgin was working in the chicken plants one night in 2014 when a metal door crashed down on his head, damaging his spine and leaving him with chronic pain, according to medical records. CAAIR [Christian Alcoholics & Addicts In Recovery] ​filed for workers' compensation on his behalf and took the $4,500 in insurance payments. Spurgin said he got nothing.

Janet Wilkerson [CEO and founder of CAAIR] acknowledged that's standard practice.

"That's fraudulent behavior," said Eddie Walker, a former judge with the Arkansas Workers' Compensation Commission. He said workers' comp payments are required to go to the injured worker. "What's being done is clearly inappropriate."

Three years later, Spurgin's still in pain and can no longer hold a full-time job.

In addition to injuries, some men at CAAIR experience serious drug withdrawal, seizures and mental health crises, according to former employees. But the program doesn't employ trained medical staff and prohibits psychiatric medicine.

A judge in Tulsa sent Donald Basford to CAAIR in 2014 despite a documented history of severe mental health problems. The 36-year-old quickly unraveled, repeatedly complaining to staffers that he was "losing it" without his medication, Snyder, the former employee, recalled.

Basford ran away and was found dead inside a car in a church parking lot a few weeks later, according to an autopsy report. Medical examiners found no drugs in his badly decomposed body and weren't able to determine Basford's cause of death.

Other CAAIR men who had mental breakdowns or manic episodes were kicked out, according to former employees, opening the door for them to be sent to prison.

[Continues . . .]
"Religion is fundamentally opposed to everything I hold in veneration — courage, clear thinking, honesty, fairness, and above all, love of the truth."
— H. L. Mencken


Dave

I often wonder how the "for-profit" prisons in this country will end up. So far there seems to have been some serious issues of staff suitability, training, professionalism and levels - just as you would expect in any organisation designed to minimise costs and maximise profits.

Curretly there is s grest deal of debste about how addiction and mental heslth is dealt with in our penal system, I hope to hell that religion never gets its claws into this area. Though I seem to remember that, when charities were being "contracted" to do counselling work in prisons, a religious organisation won over a secular one. Will research on that.

But, in this country, the accepted rights of workers, even in prison workshops, or factories,  are usually upheld. What is happening above definitely seems like a form  of slave labour.
Tomorrow is precious, don't ruin it by fouling up today.
Passed Monday 10th Dec 2018 age 74

Davin

Private prisons have been a disaster on fronts except profit. Worse environment. More escapes. Understaffed. Reduced worker benefits. More expensive. Higher amount of prisoners returning... It was a bad idea.

Slavery hasn't really gone away, some of it moved to prisons. And this looks like more of the same. They should get paid for their work.
Always question all authorities because the authority you don't question is the most dangerous... except me, never question me.