Vance Laughlin's part time hobby seems to be parroting how great Corrections Corporation of America is. One only has to search his name or read a few stories on the companies internal propaganda website to realise this. CCA's frequent use of Vance Laughlin in company news stories seems to directly contradict his work history with the company. This blog believes it speaks volumes that CCA would choose to highlight one of CCA's wardens who possibly could be considered one of the worst Wardens that CCA has ever hired. Perhaps it is Vance Laughlin's ability to say the right thing to corporate public relations departments that has led to him still having a career with CCA. For a company that professes to having such high ideals it seems strangely odd that they would present any quotes and/or videos from Warden Laughlin in public relations or news stories.
Today this blog will examine Vance Laughlin's record at the Stewart Detention Center on one occasion in a way that we believe will undeniably show his lack of leadership skills and his total inability to correctly run a facility or to be held truly accountable by Corrections Corporation of America.
A very large part of Corrections Corporation of America's way of evaluating a facilities operational performance relies on an annual audit performed by it's corporate Facility Support Center. This audit usually lasts for several days and monitors a facilities policies and actual practices in performing it's daily activities. Corrections Corporation of America claims that these audits allow it to better hold facility staff accountable for adherence to policies and procedures guiding facility operations. This story however will cast serious doubt over whether Corrections Corporation of America holds a Warden like Vance laughlin accountable after it performs an internal Quality Assurance audit.
After an internal audit by CCA's corporate Facility Support Center Vance Laughlin held a meeting in the facilities detainee/inmate dining room and revealed to several hundred of the facilities employees that the Stewart Detention Center had done so badly that it had set a company wide record for the lowest internal audit score ever at a CCA facility in the companies entire history of over twenty-five years.
On a separate occasion Vance Laughlins attitude was much different. Vance revealed that he really did not care about the low audit score because part of his annual CCA performance bonus as a CCA Warden required the facility to improve it's Facility Support Center audit score. Vance Laughlin revealed that now he could always receive this part of his bonus by slowly raising the bar year to year. He very flippantly stated that "It's harder work to improve a high score." This blog believes that on several occasions Warden Vance Laughlin seemed to spend more time worrying about his yearly bonus than his facilities actual performance.
This blog is well aware that Vance was talked to by CCA corporate staff on several occasions about his low performance. Vance Laughlin also was sent to other facilities for retraining and had other CCA facilities send employees to the Stewart Detention Center to retrain him. It is this blogs view that the taxpayers are being short changed by having tax money awarded to a private for-profit prison company that employee's a Warden with a record like Vance Laughlins. Should'nt a company like Corrections Corporation of America perform better after over twenty five years of operations and not worse? If Corrections Corporation of America truly believes that it's internal Quality Assurance audit process holds people accountable how can it justify not having fired the Warden of a facility that set a company wide record for failure after a twenty-five year time period?
All opinions and allegations expressed here are just that. Please cross check anything you read before forming your own decision.
Shining a light on Corrections Corporation of America's (CCA) Stewart Detention Center
