Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder is clearly not a man who ever concedes he has made a mistake. After his privatizing of state prison food services went horribly awry with Aramark employees having sex with prisoners, bringing in drugs, and the many and repeated cases of vermin in food, he finally fired them. You would think he’d admit it was a bad idea but that was most definitely not the case. He replaced them with another for-profit corporation, Trinity Services Group.
Now we find out that Trinity is having the same problems as Aramark did:
A prison food service worker at Ionia Correctional Facility was fired Tuesday and is under investigation by the Michigan State Police after he was allegedly found in possession of heroin and methamphetamine.
Corrections officers say they are concerned the same problems of smuggling and over-familiarity that were frequent under the department’s former food contractor, Aramark Correctional Services, are continuing under the replacement contractor, Trinity Food Services.
Trinity’s contract is worth $158.8 million over three years. Corrections officials are understandably concerned about the safety threat posed by inmates on heroin or meth.
This instance isn’t the only problem Trinity’s been having, either. There have multiple food strikes by prisoners who quit eating to protest the detestable quality of the food they are being served by Trinity employees.
Outsourcing of critical services like prisons, healthcare, and education are immoral and should be consigned to the rubbish heap of history with a big sign saying, “It didn’t work. Period.”
Instead, Gov. Snyder keeps doubling down. It is the embodiment of Einstein’s definition of insanity.
