Dating
This story was released in collaboration with LOOKOUTNews
Reports were spreading out for weeks in the spring of 2022. At Arizona State Prison– Marana, the talk fixated a staff member of Management and Training Corporation, or MTC, the Utah-based for-profit jail business that ran the center. A clerk at the commissary, Alicia Simmons, had actually been continuing an illegal sexual relationship with a put behind bars individual.
In April, the scenario blew up onto the radars of leading jail authorities. A battle broke out in between 2 detainees that 2 previous MTC staff members who spoke with LOOKOUT and The Intercept later on stated was over Simmons. After the fracas, according to a state-level examination, Simmons confessed to making love, often 4 times a week, with a jailed individual. She was release by MTC and served with a search warrant for her phone and automobile. The Arizona Department of Corrections Special Investigations Unit carried out a main probe.
According to an internal report on the sexual assault claims submitted at the jail in the wake of the affair, a high-ranking jail guard at the detention center prepared a “PREA package,” a preliminary recitation of claims and proof made in compliance with the federal Prison Rape Elimination Act.
The PREA package cleared the method for info about the accusations to end up being public: Its presence would be kept in mind the list below year in a lawfully mandated PREA audit. The audits should be released by all carceral centers covered by the law a minimum of when every 3 years and should note all events and claims of sexual contact in between personnel and incarcerated individuals.
The whistleblower stated that he had direct discussions about the sexual assault accusations with the warden.
And yet, a year later on, Marana’s PREA audit stated absolutely nothing about the accusations versus Simmons.
“There was no reported occurrences of sexual assault or unwanted sexual advances reported within the last 24 months,” according to the last October 2023 PREA audit.
Now, a previous worker of MTC who operated at the Marana jail is speaking up for the very first time about what top authorities at the center understood ahead of the PREA audit’s publication. The whistleblower, Alex Randall, informed LOOKOUT and The Intercept that he had direct discussions about the sexual assault accusations with the warden, other authorities, and Simmons herself. Randall stated he was not the only MTC worker the warden talked about the matter with.
“I was being in with my supervisor, me, and the warden when the warden informed all of us about what took place,” Randall stated of the day Simmons was provided a warrant and release from her position.
Randall’s account– including of what jail management understood about the accusations– was substantiated by another previous worker at Marana with direct understanding of the warden’s discussions. The 2nd previous staff member talked to LOOKOUT and The Intercept on the condition of privacy for worry of retaliation. An Arizona Department of Corrections Information Report prepared by a jail staffer on the day of the occurrence likewise stated details about claims of sexual contact in between a staffer and a jailed individual was offered to the warden.
The jailed individual rejected making love with Simmons, according to a later Department of Corrections examination, and Simmons was not described outdoors police for prosecution.
Regardless of extensive understanding of the claims and the main proof, the warden at the time– Jeremy Casey, who is noted as the main contact in the audit– validated in the released report there were no reported occurrences of sexual assault or harassment. (Simmons, MTC, Casey, and the Arizona Department of Corrections did not react to numerous ask for remark.)
There were at least 2 other events of sexual assault reported throughout the duration covered by the 2023 PREA report, according to Arizona Department of Corrections investigative reports gotten through public records demands. One was from August 2022 about a staff member supposedly kissing a put behind bars individual and having an e-mail correspondence with him that was “sexual in nature.” In another case, simply weeks before the 2023 PREA audit was carried out, the corrections department’s Criminal Investigative Unit performed interviews about a claims that a jail guard had actually motivated a jailed individual to carry out foreplay. Those claims likewise ought to have appeared on the subsequent PREA audit however did not.
In 2023, Arizona State Prison– Marana was closed and suffered in inactivity till it was offered to back to MTC in 2025– simply as the Department of Homeland Security was trying to find more bed area to apprehend immigrants.
Resuming as ICE Camp
Randall’s expert account of the lapse in PREA reporting and other conditions are resurfacing Marana’s checkered history at a defining moment for the jail.
Last year, after offering the jail back to MTC, the Marana center is slated to resume as a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention. Federal authorities, according to federal government files, wish to almost triple the jail’s capability to approximately 1,300 beds, according to a Department of Homeland Security floodplain notificationIt is unidentified when the jail is set to resume.
“ICE is pursuing all offered choices to broaden detention bedspace capability, consisting of collaborations with state and city governments to house detainees at existing centers,” Fernando X. Burgos, a public affairs officer for ICE, informed LOOKOUT and The Intercept
The strategy is dealing with considerable oppositions from regional citizens and authorities who state they are being eliminated of any oversight for resuming the jail.
“The entire organization design is taking a naturally pricey proposal and skimming an earnings off the top.”
Critics of the strategy state the failure of MTC to correctly handle the sexual assault claims and other issues, consisting of those coming from what experts state were staffing and resource concerns, raise severe concerns about the business’s future running an enormous migration detention center at the exact same area. By their nature, personal jails, which cut expenses for the sake of their bottom lines, are inclined to the kinds of conditions that can cause abuses like sexual misbehavior and motivate substandard reporting by authorities, critics of the Marana center argued.
“The entire organization design is taking a naturally costly proposal– the care and feeding of countless individuals, the running of a little city– and skimming an earnings off the top,” stated Caroline Isaacs, the executive director of Just Communities Arizona, a not-for-profit working on criminal justice reform; she is likewise a member of Pima Resists ICE, referred to as PRICE, which opposes resuming the jail as an ICE camp.
Isaacs indicated broader accusations about other MTC centersconsisting of in Arizonaand stated regional activists are “extremely acquainted with the awful performance history of MTC.”
She included, “It’s baked into business design of for-profit imprisonment.”
“Holy Shit, I’m Fucked
Randall, who took the task as an accounting clerk at the Marana jail in June 2021, stated Simmons displayed odd habits as quickly as he satisfied her. He stated he saw her emerge from the commissary location “sweating bullets,” even throughout cool months, regardless of having no apparent physically straining work to represent it.
In April 2022, Randall stated he was standing outdoors alone when Simmons came hurrying towards him.
“She goes, ‘Holy shit, I’m fucked,'” Randall stated.
Simmons vanished into a supervisor’s workplace, according to Randall, and in brief order, 2 other guards ran towards the commissary location. Randall stated he later on found out 2 incarcerated guys had actually entered a battle there.
“A great deal of the guards were stating, ‘Well, this isn’t the very first time this has actually taken place here.'”
According to Randall’s account, Casey, the warden, later on informed Randall and his supervisor what had actually taken place: Simmons was thought of having sexual contact with several individuals held at the jail. The battle presumably came from jealousy in between 2 of the guys who were stated to have actually had sexual relationships with Simmons. (The male at the center of the April 2022 claims later on rejected making love with Simmons; in a follow-up interview with the inspector general’s workplace, he stated he was gay. Simmons later on rejected the 2nd affair, according to an Arizona Department of Corrections examination.) Both guys were positioned in partition and talked to by jail authorities; one was eventually moved to a various center, Randall stated.
Simmons was release the exact same day, according to Randall and a Department of Corrections examination. Randall stated that almost all staff members of the jail understood about the accusations.
Randall stated, “A great deal of the guards were stating, ‘Well, this isn’t the very first time this has actually occurred here.'”
The Admission
According to Simmons’s own account, she consistently made love with a put behind bars individual.
Arizona law states that all sexual contact in between incarcerated individuals and jail staffers or professionals is thought about felony sexual assault due to the fact that individuals behind bars can not lawfully provide approval.
“That team member need to have been referred for prosecution,” Brenda Smith, a teacher at American University’s law school and the director of the Project on Addressing Prison Rapestated of the Marana case, keeping in mind that such sexual contact might be thought about a constitutional offense.
The law is clear that jail personnel engaging in any sexual contact with incarcerated individuals is abuse, Simmons’s case is made complex– and raises vexing concerns. Simmons confessed to making love with an individual in custody, however she likewise informed state detectives that she was pushed.
The information of Simmons’s case were stated in an April 2022 investigative report from an Arizona Department of Corrections Office of Inspector General, which was gotten by LOOKOUT and The Intercept through a public records demand.
According to an interview with Simmons explained in the report, she was asked if she had actually taken part in sex with among the incarcerated individuals and stated yes. She had actually done so “numerous times,” she stated. Simmons, nevertheless, informed private investigators she was often threatened, consisting of physically, into making love with the put behind bars individual.
According to the inspector general’s report, “Ms Simmons stated she was terrified and felt she required to keep making love with prisoner [redacted] or she would lose her task.”
She grumbled to private investigators that there were no cams in the commissary space where the occasions happened.
Regardless of the hazards related by Simmons to detectives, there were “a handful of times she was all right with making love with prisoner [redacted] Not all the times,” the report stated.
The prisoner Simmons stated she was making love with, nevertheless, rejected any sexual contact with her, according to the inspector general’s report. That led the detective to conclude that “there is insufficient proof to show” they did have a sexual relationship. The case was “sent to administration for evaluation and processing,” according to the investigative report. (The Arizona Department of Corrections did not react to duplicated ask for remark about the status of the examination.)
No criminal charges were submitted in Marana, Tucson, or the pertinent counties, according to a substantial records search. The Arizona Attorney General’s Office verified that it got no criminal recommendations on the matter.
Smith, the law teacher, was not shocked that the incarcerated male rejected the claims of an illegal affair. There was little to acquire, she stated, by confessing anything. Stimulating an examination or prosecution might trigger headaches at the center or result in possibly unfavorable repercussions for the male in custody.
“He gets moved. He may lose his task,” Smith stated, describing tasks kept in jails by incarcerated individuals. “All of those things are truly crucial for him to eventually leave the center with conditions that agree with for him.”
Rejecting such an occurrence, specifically in a carceral setting, Smith stated, is “so typical for susceptible individuals who are taken advantage of.”
Jail With Problems
The Simmons case wasn’t the only recorded occurrence of supposed sexual assault at the Marana jail. Enrique Olivares-Pelayo, who was apprehended in the jail for around 11 months in 2011, informed LOOKOUT and The Intercept that he had a sexual relationship with a staffer at the jail. After reports started distributing about them, he stated, the worker was fired. (PREA requirements were just completely carried out and mandated by the Department of Justice in 2012.)
Manara’s history works out beyond unreported sexual misbehavior, reaching more comprehensive issues about the MTC center. Randall; the 2nd previous MTC staff member; Olivares-Pelayo; an Arizona Department of Corrections memo; and the inspector basic report all made accusations about conditions at Marana– for put behind bars individuals and personnel alike.
2 relentless concerns focused on the quality of food for incarcerated individuals and the high heat inside the center. Olivares-Pelayo and Randall both stated incarcerated individuals needed to discover methods to intensify their calorie consumption due to the fact that they were served subpar meals. Jailed individuals would often fatten up squirrels with corn chips, Olivares-Pelayo stated, and after that prepare them to consume for additional calories. He stated the squirrel meat tasted “like bunny, kinda mid.” A 2010 memo from the Arizona Department of Corrections discovered that “Kitchen sanitation was substandard.”
The exact same memo stated that all the living locations for incarcerated individuals were “incredibly warm and damp.” It kept in mind that the jail’s overload cooling system appeared not to be working, an observation echoed by Olivares-Pelayo based upon his stay there. He stated the center frequently seemed like a “stove.”
The Marana jail, Randall stated, was afflicted by prevalent substance abuse before it closed. Substance abuse showed up in the inspector basic workplace’s report along with in a list of examinations carried out by Arizona Department of Corrections about Marana, likewise acquired by records demand.
Olivares-Pelayo stated appropriate reporting channels were hardly ever followed throughout his time there 15 years back. The jail, he stated, was efficiently a free-for-all for incarcerated individuals. Guards did rounds Nearly never ever broken down on anyone for violations. Detainees consistently tattooed each other, for example, which was formally prohibited, though repercussions were seldom if ever portioned.
Events of violence or misbehavior, Olivares-Pelayo stated, were managed inside the jail to avoid conditions there from being revealed.
“People would be penalized internally,” he stated. “They constantly covered their filthy things.”
MTC has actually dealt with repercussions before, in Arizona and in other placesfor its jail conditions. When, in 2015, a riot broke out at an MTC-run jail in Kingman, Arizona, a Department of Corrections investigative group concluded bad conditions– pointing out, for instance, a cravings strike due to the fact that of problems with “food service operations”– had actually sped up the occurrence.
“Based upon the observations and evaluations of offered products, prisoner interviews, personnel contacts and interviews,” a report on the event stated, “the Assessment Team concluded that the prisoner population at ASP-Kingman was disappointed with their conditions of confinement. Therefore, they rebelled by method of rioting.”
Mentioning private investigators’ finding that MTC ran with a “culture of lack of organization, disengagement, and neglect,” then-Gov. Doug Ducey canceled the business’s agreement for the Kingman center.
Excluded of Audit
The claims versus Simmons and 2 other claims of sexual misbehavior versus guards were left out, the Marana PREA audit was licensed on December 1, 2023, with a statement that the jail remained in complete compliance with all 45 appropriate PREA requirements. The audit, performed over a three-day website check out from October 16 to 18, reported that the finding of no sexual assault accusations was “validated by the Warden, Chief of Security, PREA Compliance Manager, Investigator, Classification, Health Services Administrator, Random personnel, Random and targeted prisoners.”
It likewise discovered no incarcerated individuals had actually been positioned in partition for sexual-abuse-related factors in the previous 24 months.
Randall, together with the other previous worker who substantiated his account, contested both claims, pointing out in specific the holding cell of the 2 guys who were declared to have actually contested Simmons.
“That was the very first time we utilized our partition system, a minimum of considering that I’ve worked there,” Randall stated of the 2022 occurrence.
He stated the jail kept records on disciplinary matters that ought to have consisted of whatever investigative documents was created from the Simmons case.
“I understand for a truth they kept those examination records,” Randall stated.
Occurrences of sexual assault in jail are regularly left out from PREA reports, stated Smith, the law teacher.
“A great deal of it depends upon how devoted the company is to a complete audit,” she stated.
According to Smith, PREA compliance has actually become worse after the Trump administration in 2015 made considerable financing cutscanceling an approximated $16 million To the Department of Justice’s National PREA Resource.
“For a PREA audit to be missing out on an occurrence of abuse that numerous jail staff members validate happened,” stated Wanda Bertram, an interactions strategist for the Prison Policy Institute, “reveals 2 things: One, that the jail is stopping working to take sexual assault seriously and, 2, that the PREA auditing system has some significant defects.”
ICE Expanding
After the state of Arizona’s 2025 sale of the jail, ICE revealed In February 2026 that the Marana center was slated to resume as a migration detention. The agreement had actually been won by the purchaser, MTC. In the agreement statement, ICE consisted of a boilerplate specification: “The specialist will likewise comply with the March 7, 2014, Department of Homeland Security (DHS) guideline under the Prison Rape Elimination Act.” A February 25 federal procurement memo called MTC as “the sole owner and operator of the Marana detention center that satisfies ICE requirements.”
A more current floodplain notification from the Department of Homeland Security, ICE’s moms and dad company, suggests federal authorities intend to broaden the center well beyond its initial 513-bed style to approximately 1,300 beds. The growth, according to the federal government notification, will come through the addition of momentary real estate, with restorations possibly permitting parts of the center to open even while building continues in other places on the website.
The strategy has actually drawn opposition from Marana locals and regional authorities, consisting of town Council Member Patrick Cavanaugh and the neighborhood group Pima Resists ICE. The residents stated the state federal government, the feds, and MTC left them out of any significant conversations about how the growth would be handled.
Arizona “selected their $15 million sale over securing Marana and Pima County homeowners from an unaccountable, unreliable, and harmful jail operator.”
Pima County Supervisor Jen Allen, who has actually been freely important of the potential customers of a brand-new detention camp opening in the county, informed LOOKOUT and The Intercept that the state’s sale was an example of “bad organization and bad decision-making at all levels.”
“It’s still stunning to me that the state of Arizona understood complete well of MTC’s history: of riots, jail gets away, and cover-ups,” Allen stated. “And in spite of this, still selected their $15 million sale over securing Marana and Pima County citizens from an unaccountable, unreliable, and harmful jail operator.”
With debates raving over the swelling numbers of those apprehended by ICE, the death rate in migration detention camps has more than doubled considering that President Donald Trump started his 2nd term, according to current reporting from Reuters
Isaacs, of Pima Resists ICE, stated that, in tandem with ICE’s broadening crackdown, MTC’s record of obfuscating issues need to strike worry in the hearts of regional leaders.
“ICE plainly has no concept what they’re doing, and they do not care,” she stated. “There might be suits or pressure on the facilities of the town.”
“Nobody understands what’s going on, and no one will understand– till it’s far too late, up until really bad things occur.”
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