-Caveat Lector- Lack of proper training has been a Wackenhut trademark for years. The reduction in cost provided by cutting this corner enables Wackenhut to deliver their admittedly reduced services at substantial savings to organizations who value a penny saved over the lives of their employees and customers, and to individuals who put a price on the life of their families. The spate of terrorist attacks against Americans and their allies, during the Gulf War included some pesky snipers in Saudi Arabia. Was the House of Saud safe? According to the Jonathan Littman, the Saudi ruling family negotiated (at least) with Wackenhut over a contract for security at Crown Prince Fahd's palace itself. Whether Wackenhut delivered is not for commoners to know. These negotiations took place by way of the tiny (but sovereign) band of Cabazon Indians in Southern California. The Cabazons have also allegedly fronted for Wackenhut's role in the secret (and illegal) Contra supply scam. Both Wackenhut and the Cabazons prefer the term "joint venture." In 1978 the Cabazons hired a certain John Philip Nichols to manage their finances. This self proclaimed "Doctor of Theology" was reputed to be a "premier" obtainer of grants. Once he had obtained the Cabazons' trust, Nichols began proposing an array of projects involving tank cartridges, laser-sighted assault rifles, portable rocket systems, night vision goggles and, most ominously, biological weapons. Many of these proposals grew out of the tribe's partnership with Wackenhut. The Cabazons' sovereign status, and it's accompanying freedom from costly regulation, enables great ease in the bidding process. "I was present at one meeting where Wackenhut people were present. We were told it was part of the security system on the reservation," said Cabazon Joe Benitez. "Later on, I found out they were working to develop munitions. It seemed amazing to me." It is unclear which, if any, of the deals went through. It is a matter of court record, though, that in 1985, Nichols pleaded no contest to the charge of solicitation to murder. He served 18 months. His son, John Paul, took over as acting administrator of the Cabazons while his father did time. After his release, Nichols was barred by his felony record from running any of the reservation's gambling operations. His brother, Mark, inherited the position of Cabazon administrator. What, if any, role Wackenhut plays in Cabazon life today is unclear. Wackenhut denies any. "It turned out that we never got any contracts and, after two years, the venture was canceled," claims director of public relations, Patrick Cannan (1-305-666-5656). Cannan also denied any connection with the so-called "Inslaw case." Wackenhut's name has come up consistently in relation to claims made by Michael Riconoscuito that while a research director for a joint venture between Wackenhut and the Cabazon Indians, he modified a stolen copy of Inslaw's PROMIS software for sale by Earl Brian to the Canadian government. Brian is a crony of Reagan's Attorney General, Edwin Meese. Meese is best known as gutter of the Fourth Amendment, and Wedtech scandal principal. Another former US Attorney, General Elliot Richardson, is the attorney for Inslaw. He has been quoted as saying that Inslaw "is far worse than Watergate." In fact, the Inslaw case does make Watergate look like a small town parking ticket fix. The press has barely scraped the surface of this most sordid of scandals, and not without reason. Among the few honest journalists to poke a nose in this nest of hornets and live to tell the tale is Jonathan Littman. According to Littman, Riconoscuito was a "consultant" for Wackenhut. According to Patrick Cannan, Riconoscuito. was a "hanger on." Everyone is entitled to their own opinion. The Inslaw case stems from the alleged theft of software by the Justice Dept. from the Inslaw Corp. It has grown from a title and bankruptcy case into one that includes allegations of sales of the software to foreign governments (such as Canada, Iraq, South Korea, Libya and Israel) by such Iran-Contra figures as Robert McFarlane and Richard Secord. The case attracted more public attention following the apparent suicide death of journalist Joseph D. "Danny" Casolaro on mid-August in a Martinsburg W. Va. motel room. Casolaro had told friends that he had made connections between Inslaw, Iran-Contra and the so-called "October Surprise." (allegations that representatives of the Reagan-Bush campaign team, headed by Casey, had convinced the Iranian government to delay release of American hostages until after the 1980 U.S. elections) Casolaro also allegedly told his brother that, if he was reported to have had an accident, not to be believe it. Elliot Richardson has demanded a federal investigation of Casolaro's death. Cannan also denied that William Casey was legal counsel to Wackenhut before joining the government and that former CIA officials Frank Carlucci and Admiral Bobby Ray Inman were Wackenhut directors. Cannan said, "Although Casey's law firm represented Wackenhut, Casey himself never had any connection with us. Carlucci was a director of the firm -- he is no longer -- but Inman was not. We did have another director with a similar background to Inman, an admiral who was chief of naval operations, and that might have lead to the incorrect rumor." Plausible deniability has been an American tradition at least since the Boston Tea Party. "The Indians did it." Right. Sure. Tell us another one. Operating fronts within fronts, is a standard modus operandi, and not just of Wackenhut. Wackenhut Corp. itself appears on occasion to be the collective front of a variety of scofflaws, felons and worse. They hide behind a wall of omerta excused by "national security" and enforced by an old boy network rooted deep in the intelligence community. Some successful scams are hidden behind the facade of ineptitude projected by their under-trained and under-paid employees. Perhaps they hire a lot of fuck ups to divert our attention from how slick a few of their operatives actually are. If so, this has proved a somewhat less than successful tactic. The blowback has come from disgruntled former employees. Wackenhut Corp. does not inspire a degree of loyalty up, commensurate with the loyalty down they demand. Instead, they buy it. They buy it cheap. Loyalty bought is intrinsically fleeting. Loyalty bought cheap is fleeter still. Consider the degree to which testimony of disgruntled former employees has damaged Wackenhut's reputation in court as well as the press. Then there's the prison biz. Wackenhut operates 10 detention or correctional facilities, in seven states, that house 3,456 inmates. At least, those are the ones we know about. It's first facility, a federal Immigration and Naturalization Services detention center, opened in 1987. Biz burgeoned. Within two years the correctional business generated about $25 million of Wackenhut's $462 million 1989 revenue This is according to the company itself, not to independent auditors. Robert Hennelly reported in the Village Voice, that Wackenhut is also developing and marketing electronic systems for tracking prisoners under house arrest for local, state, and federal authorities. According to the L. A. Times, Wackenhut does not "operate" any jails in California, but it does "run" a minimum security "correctional facility" for the state in McFarland, where parole violators are housed. This subtle distinction may be lost on those outside the profession. Wackenhut has some serious competition for market share in the prison boom. "Privatization is a slap in the face to corrections officers as professionals," said Jeff Doyle (no relation), a prison guard and California Correctional Peace Officer Assn. vice president. "It's irresponsible for government to turn this over to the private sector." Although Doyle acknowledged there is an element of self-protection among the state guards who are upset with privatization plans, he emphasized that the Wackenhut guards do not have the same level of training and experience that state corrections officers do. Consider the effect of Wackenhut's level of competence of life in a typical American city, San Diego. While California law prohibits counties from contracting out the management of its jails to the private sector, the San Diego county counsel's office (not a Court of Law) determined that the sheriff could contract for beds in the city's proposed jail. According to correctional officials, the Otay facility would be the first privately owned and operated jail in California. Pete Abrahano, the San Diego manager for Wackenhut, said the guards who will run the Otay Mesa facility, would be better trained than the rest of the company's guards. "They will have the necessary training and experience required by federal law," he said. "These will not be just regular guards." Wackenhut's "just regular" guards are no strangers to informed San Diegans. When the Union-Tribune Publishing Co. brought in the Tennessee law firm King & Ballow to handle its contract negotiations, King and Ballow fired all the Union-Tribune security guards and hired new guards from Wackenhut. Bringing in Wackenhut is standard procedure when King and Ballow enters a newspaper labor dispute. The Newspaper Guild complains that the tactic is meant to intimidate employees. When intimidation fails to do the trick, there's always the courts. Slander is a fact of human life. No one gets through life without ever being slandered. But Wackenhut attorneys have refined slander to a high art. Consider the case of murder victim Richard Crake, who met his demise in La Jolla in 1981. In 1985 a jury lodged $217,500 in compensatory damages against the Wackenhut Corporation, the security firm that guarded the complex where Crake lived. Before the trial his widow, Kathryn Crake, turned down an offer from attorneys for the Wackenhut Corporation and it's co-defendants to settle the case for $1.3 million. Then Ken Grider, 32, of Los Angeles, alleging to have been Richard Crake's male lover, testified as a witness for the defendants about how much time Crake spent with him daily before he was killed. The defendants' attorneys argued that the Crake marriage was doomed because of the love affair and would not have survived had he lived. Compromising the reputation of their dead client failed to redeem that of the Wackenhut guards who bungled his protection, but it did save the company a right smart piece of change. It is an aphorism of the trade that "dead clients don't pay." They're not the only ones. Wackenhut hires much better trained attorneys than guards. They need them. In August 1986 it took a 4th District Court of Appeal ruling just to gain a Los Angeles woman the mere right to sue Wackenhut Corp. and it's co-defendants. Florence Blakely was struck by a passenger gate blown open by a blast from a jet engine at John Wayne Airport, where Wackenhut provided the security. Judge Sonenshine, citing "human error" as a "further complication" found the gate dangerous, despite sworn statements from airport officials that there had been no prior reports of negligence by guards opening the gates. Gates are the business of guards. You'd think they'd know how to work the latch. Fortunately for them, Wackenhut knows how to work the courts. Wackenhut guards are as likely to be brutal as they are to stupid. Consider the case of survivor George Bagwell Jr., who sued futilely for redress in the wrongful death of his father. George Bagwell Sr. had suffered from Alzheimer's disease for years. He had driven to Lindbergh Field in January, 1988, thinking his son was due to arrive on a flight. Bagwell wandered into a security area and didn't respond when Harbor Police and Wackenhut Corp. security guards called to him. According to the lawsuit, guards beat and kicked Bagwell, in the course of his arrest. At the time of the incident, Bagwell was wearing a medical bracelet that explained his health problems. He had further details about his condition inside his billfold. Bagwell's son said his father was about 130 pounds and 5-foot-7, hardly a threat. The lawsuit said Bagwell suffered lacerations and injuries to the face, scalp, arms and body, which led to his death in April, 1988. Medical experts testified at trial that the stress of the incident contributed to his death. He did not die in the guard's hands, but died soon thereafter. Bagwell Jr. said the January 1991 verdict was a second disappointment, although the family has no misgivings. While wiser counties such as Los Angeles and Orange use their own deputies to guard hospitalized prisoners at county hospitals, San Diego employs Wackenhut. It was a poor choice. One prisoner escaped in a wheelchair, kidnapping his guard in the process. You'd think if Wackenhut was so "premier," a guy in a wheelchair wouldn't be too much for them to handle. One of the reasons San Diego County Sheriff's Department uses Wackenhut is economics, said Sgt. Bob Takeshta, public affairs officer with the Sheriff's Department. "It's a pure fact of dollars and cents." Sheriff's deputies are paid an average of $12 to $16 an hour for their services. Peter Abrahano, area manager for Wackenhut. declined to say how much his guards made per hour, except to say that they are paid less than sheriff's deputies. To Takeshta's knowledge, the escape was not highly unusual. "This is not an isolated incident; there have been others," he said. Earlier that month, a narcotics suspect escaped by jumping out a fourth floor window. Hospital guards are unarmed and do not wear uniforms, said Sheriff's Lt. Sylvester Washington, a shift watch commander at County Jail downtown. The Sheriff's Department ". . . prefers it that way," he said, "The guards don't have adequate training to be armed." Wackenhut also works for private companies and, in some instances, its guards are armed. Washington said it's a wonder hospital escapes aren't more common. "We've been lucky, very lucky," he said. "There's no reason for guards to be armed," said Abrahano. "You don't really think (prisoners) are going to go anywhere." Not really thinking seems to be an ongoing problem at Wackenhut. Consider case of the 27-year-old fugitive from Colorado who escaped from custody at UC San Diego Medical Center ten days later, the third such escape from a hospital room in less than six weeks. In each case the inmate had been guarded by Wackenhut Corp., under contract to the San Diego County Sheriff's Department. Wackenhut cost the Sheriff's Department $410,000 that year, according to county officials. The prisoner, who jail officials had considered to be an escape risk, eluded two Wackenhut security guards but was arrested after crashing a stolen truck into a tree across the street from a San Diego Police Department substation. Clearly this was no rocket scientist either, but it is equally clear that he was smarter than his guards. According to police, the escape occurred about noon when, with one of the guards apparently out to lunch, the prisoner asked the other guard for permission to take a shower. He then asked for shampoo and, when the guard left to get it, escaped from his 10th floor room by taking a stairway that leads outside. Well, duh! The growing privatization of the ever expanding prison industry places ever greater demands on the public for "raw material." Wackenhut operates 10 detention or correctional facilities in seven states that house 3,456 inmates. It's first facility, a federal Immigration and Naturalization Services detention center, opened in 1987. Within two years the correctional business generated about $25 million of Wackenhut's $462 million in 1989 revenue This is according to company spokesman, not independent auditors. Robert Hennelly reported in the Village Voice that Wackenhut is also developing and marketing electronic systems for tracking prisoners under house arrest for local, state, and federal authorities. Never in my life did I even imagine that one day I would be sticking up for a screw, but by golly there folks, this Doyle guy is right, at least as far as he goes. If we the public want to be perceived as members of a just society we can't buy justice from any body, least of all the lowest bidder. It makes us look real bad. It also aint justice. If we want actual justice, and not just the perception, we have to participate in the process. History has proven conclusively that prisons are no solution to the problem of crime. If they were, it would have happened by now. Only a complete restructuring of society can even begin to address the problem. The problem of crime is structural. Victimless crimes are nothing more than a cash cow for the state. Crimes against property are political offenses, and almost always the result of drug prohibition. There's also the ever sticky problem of definition of property. The sanctity of personal property is respected near universally. Public property and private property are a little harder to define, at least without sufficient arms. This leaves violent crime, a tiny minority of all crimes. Violent criminals should not be imprisoned, per se, but offered asylum, on a purely voluntary basis of course, where they could seek treatment for their mental disorders, and protection from the rest of us. If they decline asylum, kill 'em and be done with it. Don't hire somebody. That's totally gutless. It doesn't work very well, either. If it did, violence would have subsided by now. Do it yourself. If you need help, don't hire; inspire. If you can't inspire, you're living wrong; change. Don't oppose the death penalty. The death penalty is good. Oppose its monopolization by the state. The only truly effective defense against violence is effective self defense. Collective self defense benefits from the economy of scale. History has proven conclusively that courts, prisons, and cops (both public and private), are useless. They have failed, miserably, to cure the problem. In fact, they made it worse, much worse. Worse still, they use the power we grant them against us. Then they have the unmitigated gall to charge us money for the service. Then they don't even deliver. How much worse does it have to get before we wise up? It doesn't matter whether we hire our cops through the private sector or the public sector, they're still basically mercenaries. Machiavelli was right. Mercenaries are useless. We all have a practical as well as a moral duty to protect ourselves and each other. Most of us still lack the skill. The time to start learning has come and gone. While the practice of hiring bumbling thugs to "protect" us has long withstood the test of time, our freedom has not. It dwindles even as I speak. Neither are we protected. Do you feel protected by the current system? Or do you feel, like me, merely used? Can you foresee the situation getting any better on its own? I sure can't, and I'm an inveterate optimist. As we approach the increasingly corporate millennium, we can look forward to life in a private prison that encompasses all society and subjugates every moment of daily life: work, a prison of measured time, and play, a supervised activity. For this we sacrificed our freedom. For this, we even hire our own guards, guards who work for money, not for us, guards who have their own agenda. And a lot of them aren't even good at it, which is a mixed blessing. They, themselves, are a curse. 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