Morning Feature: Real American Values, Part III – Respecting the Law (Non-Cynical Saturday)
Leroy Smith Jr., former safety manager at Atwater Federal Penitentiary, seems a bit stubborn. He blew the whistle on safety violations at the prison’s e-waste recycling center, and the government investigated. When the results read like a whitewash, Smith blew the whistle again.
The government investigated again. The truth came out. (More)
Real American Values, Part III – Respecting the Law (Non-Cynical Saturday)
This week Morning Feature looks at progressive values. Real American values. Thursday we discussed valuing people over profits: respecting each other. Yesterday we consider the earth as our home, not our trash can: respecting the land. Today we conclude with good government: respecting the law.
Our progressive movement has a moral core, but we rarely talk about our moral values. Instead we talk about issues and policies, facts and statistics. We tell voters what’s in it for them, but rarely ask them to be part of something more. So this week we explored how to ask voters to be part of something more, by telling stories that celebrate our progressive values … our Real American Values.
Real Americans Know We All Matter
The people Leroy Smith Jr. looked out for don’t tug at every heartstring. Along with prison staff, they were inmates in a maximum security federal prison. Smith worked for the Bureau of Prisons at the Atwater Federal Penitentiary, about 120 miles from San Francisco on what used to be Castle Air Force Base. His job was to ensure the prison’s work facilities – run by Federal Prison Industries, otherwise known as UNICOR – met health and safety regulations established by OSHA and other agencies.
It’s the kind of job one might be tempted to let slide. The inmates were convicted felons. Political demagogues may campaign on prison toughness or security, but no one campaigns on inmate safety. Most of what ordinary Americans know about prisons comes from fictional movies or cable documentaries that highlight prisoners’ brutality and violence. They’re stories crafted to make us grateful we’re not there … and grateful the bad guys are kept there.
But Smith didn’t let his job slide. Prisoners working in the UNICOR e-waste facility were breaking down old computers, monitors, and other electronics to recycle parts. It was the kind of work citisven discussed yesterday in Our Earth, but it wasn’t being done in China or some other invisible part of the world. It was being done in an invisible part of our own country. Smith saw administrators respond with “carelessness or indifference” as inmates got sick from breathing dust laden with heavy metals like cadmium and lead.
In 2004 Smith filed a whistleblower complaint.
Real Americans Don’t Cover It Up
The complaint made its way to the Office of Special Counsel, who assigned it to then Attorney General John Ashcroft for investigation. Ashcroft delegated the investigation to the Bureau of Prisons. In 2005 they reported that while some of Smith’s charges were true, the violations had been “adequately addressed” by prison officials, who had taken “appropriate steps to ensure factories [were] operating safely.”
Smith thought the report was a whitewash. He blew the whistle again, writing to the Office of Special Counsel. Smith said the investigators had failed to interview relevant witnesses. He said prison officials “willfully and knowingly violated … OSHA guidelines,” and the investigation “was not impartial or comprehensive.” Smith offered documents to back up his charges.
While the Bureau of Prisons dismissed Smith’s complaint and documents as “unreliable,” the Special Counsel Scott Bloch disagreed. In both a letter to President Bush and a press release, Bloch’s office said the Bureau of Prison’s “findings were unreasonable and that its reports were deficient.” Bloch said the investigators “made no attempt to explain” discrepancies between documentary evidence and their findings, and that “they relied on strained interpretations of applicable rules to justify their past actions.” Bloch called for a “thorough, independent, and impartial investigation into computer recycling activities at BOP institutions.”
Real Americans Respect The Law
Based on Bloch’s letter, and a letter from Smith’s lawyer, and a belated request from the Bureau of Prisons, the Office of the Inspector General opened its own investigation in May 2006. While the complaint had begun with conditions at Atwater, Smith had found that UNICOR had e-waste recycling facilities at other prisons, and that the other prison factories had many of the same problems.
The OIG inspected all of them, in one of the longest and most wide-ranging workplace safety probes in U.S. history. The investigation took four years.
Last month the OIG issued a 433-page report that documented widespread violations, where prison officials “failed to perform hazard assessments” and “concealed safety warnings about hazards related to toxic metals.” In one instance, prison officials disabled the factory’s fire alarm for three years, so it would not be set off by the clouds of toxic dust. The OIG found that “[prison] staff and inmates were needlessly exposed” to lead and cadmium:
Overall, we found a culture at UNICOR that did not sufficiently value worker safety and environmental protection. We determined that the flawed organization and poor communication between UNICOR and the BOP made compliance difficult to achieve even with the best-intentioned employees.
And not all of prison staff were well-intentioned:
We also found numerous instances of staff misconduct and performance failures. These included actions that endangered staff and inmates: dishonesty, dereliction of duty, and theft, among others. In all, we concluded that 11 UNICOR and BOP employees committed either misconduct or performance failures in their work related to the e-waste recycling program.
Several cases were referred for criminal action, though ultimately no charges were filed “because of various evidentiary, legal, and strategic concerns.”
Real Americans Have Courage and Persistence
UNICOR – the trade name for Federal Prison Industries – is a for-profit government corporation, like the postal service. Founded in 1934 to offer job training for prisoners, it gets no taxpayer dollars. It offers cheap labor, and the inmates are supposed to learn skills they can use in civilian jobs after their release. In theory it’s a noble idea. In practice such programs can turn prisons into labor camps where inmates are, literally, worked to death.
Leroy Smith Jr. wouldn’t let that happen on his watch. He knew we all matter, even prisoners. So he blew the whistle, and when that didn’t work he blew it again.
The Office of Special Counsel honored him with its 2006 Public Servant Award. As Scott Bloch said at the announcement:
Protecting the lives and well-being of these federal employees and even the inmates who have been placed in the care of the government is a high calling. And it’s a good thing, I hope you’ll agree, to have checks on federal abuse of power or illegal actions that affect safety or national security. For us here at OSC, it’s what we do. For someone in Leroy Smith’s position, however, it takes real courage to stand up to one’s boss. Even more, to stand one’s ground when the boss – upper-level bureaucrats – won’t listen. That’s real courage and persistence.
Leroy Smith knew Real Americans don’t cover it up. We respect the law. We have courage and persistence. Leroy Smith knew we need good government.
Those are Real American Values.
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Happy Saturday!
Simply amazing. Looking beyond the courage of Leroy Smith, one has to express amazement at the courage of Scott Bloch. He was working in a government agency that was part of another government agency that was one of the most corrupt and patronage-ridden of the corrupt and patronage-ridden Bush administration. Yet he persisted in following up on Mr. Smith’s report and got it to the part of the government that was still working for the American people: the Office of the Inspector General.
Kudos to both men and the things that they put up with. Good government is necessary…with an emphasis on the Good.
Very true, Jan. Scott Bloch deserves kudos, too. Huge kudos.
I agree, Jan. Scott Bloch was a hero in this story as well. And several other prison employees, inmates, and inmates’ rights and environmental advocates helped with the investigation. Few heroic stories have only one hero. A lot of Real Americans showed courage and persistence here.
I focused on Leroy Smith because he stood up for people we too rarely notice, except to be grateful they’re locked up far away from us. Reader comments to McClatchy story in the Fresno Bee were dismissive, to put it nicely:
Smith knew he wouldn’t become a “real popular guy” by standing up for inmates’ safety. But it was his job, and it was the right and moral thing to do. Smith showed Real American Values.
Good morning! ::hugggggs::
Very true: Few heroic stories have only one hero.
There were a lot of Good Guys in this Good Government story.
“Hero” is a term that I have a lot of trouble with. When it started being applied to sports figures, it made me very itchy. Leroy Smith and Scott Bloch and the unnamed people willing to back each other up in the official reports are heroes.
Those reader comments are typical of ignorant readers comments on most newspaper sites. I have to admit that I no longer read them. My local online newspaper nicely gives me a button that I have to click to view the comments so that they are not part of the story I am interested in reading…hidden forever from my sight.
I agree we too often throw the word “hero” around loosely. Worse, we too often apply it to actions most of us could never do (e.g.: athletes), or to situations most of us sensibly try to avoid (e.g.: firefighters rushing into a burning building). Both of those cast heroism as something only Select People do. Such stories actually discourage the rest of us ordinary Americans from seeing ourselves as would-be heroes.
This week’s stories were about ordinary Americans: a retired teacher and her neighbors, a “bean counter” in county government, and a prison worker who wouldn’t look the other way. Their ordinariness should inspire the rest of us to look for chances to live our progressive values.
Good morning! ::hugggggs::
Scott Bloch was able to stand tall and fight the in-your-face corruption that is the federal government at all levels. This is the sort of corruption that includes a vehement hate of the rule of law (the concept that the law is above the individual man and that all are equal under the law). But what was the rest of the story? The powers that be sought to destroy Scott Bloch. The corrupt haters sicced the Gestapo pit-bulls (FBI) on him and tried to destroy both him and his family. No good deed goes unpunished…..
lawrence86 – Do you know Scott Bloch? It must have taken incredible courage for him to be willing to stand up for the rule of law in the Bush administration. If you know more about this story, please share it.
The story on Scott Bloch is at best unclear. In 2007 he hired a private computer firm to “clean off” the office computers. Bloch said he hired them to get rid of a virus; others alleged he hired them to erase records. Bloch eventually pleaded guilty to contempt of Congress for “withholding pertinent information” during hearings about the computer incident.
Some staffers at the Office of Special Counsel also accused Bloch of a range of offenses, from anti-gay bias to discriminating against women based on what they wore. None of the accusations was proved, but Bloch resigned in 2008.
Thanks for this. Respecting the law should apply to everyone, including corporations, and it doesn’t matter who the victims are. Indeed, how are we to teach respect for the law, even to prison inmates, if we treat them as slaves whose health is irrelevant?
I’m glad Leroy Smith received acknowledgment for standing up against abuses, especially in a situation where all too many people would wonder why we should even care.
But every life matters, even those of prisoners, and by disobeying the law, UNICOR — and some prison officials — proved to be as callous and reprehensible as those criminals they were abusing. They should be in prison, too.
There are lots of ways to commit violence against our fellow man, and not every version involves a gun, a club or a fist.
We seem to think that human rights abuses occur somewhere else: in other countries not protected by the rule of law.
Our rule of law is nothing to brag about if it can be easily circumvented by Bad Government or at least Government Looking the Other Way.
Agree, Jan. “Rule of Law” is an oft-cited phrase, especially among conservatives, all too many of whom are willing to ignore it if it means making money.
We need Good Government to enforce Good Law, and everyone, including coporations, should pay the penalty of violating the law.
Even civil dissidents realize that if they disobey the law, they will go to jail. See Martin Luther King for a prime example. If you feel you have a higher moral cause, go for it. Then enjoy the cell.
If you do it just for profit, you won’t even have your morality to comfort you in the cell.
Very true, winterbanyan:
And even if they should have someone like Leroy Smith looking out for them. Because we all matter.
Good morning! ::hugggggs::
This is so true, winterbanyan:
Several studies on recidivism have described our prisons as “graduate schools for crime.” When prison officials ignore the law and treat inmates as less than human, why should we be surprised when inmates do the same after their release?
Good morning! ::hugggggs::
Remember when Wisc Sen Proxmire had those Golden fleece Awards to mock fraud, waste and abuse in govt. I’d like to see some prominent figure have good citizenship in the face of idiots awards.
This series has been uplifting, Crissie.
This would be a great idea, Mike:
Too often our high-profile civic awards have gone to celebrities or retiring officials who did more to please the administration than to serve the public. There are stories of Real American heroes out there, but we have to search for them.
I highlighted three such stories this week. I hope to find and share more in the coming weeks and months. We progressives must tell and celebrate these stories. They exemplify our moral values … our Real American Values.
Good morning! ::hugggggs::
This last line from The Office of the Special Council link in the post:
I am in awe of Mr. Smith’s persistence. I think too often it is too easy to say,”Oh that’s just SNAFU at work.” The system really is all of us. The integrity of the system depends on all of us too.
Very inspirational.
This is an important insight, addisnana:
Every time any one of us does the right thing, or fails to do the right thing … “the system” is made better, or worse. Our little part may not seem to matter at the time. We may never know whose lives we touch. But that’s okay. Real American Values are not about being featured a bestseller or a movie. They’re about doing the right thing because it’s the right thing to do.
Good morning! ::hugggggs::