Sr. Reporter: Ex-inmates lauded Kingman prison

Not surprising, right? Of course prisoners would love a place that lets them escape.

But these guys did their time and were released — into a better life. All three had "found Jesus," and received important support from the Kingman prison as they moved to embrace their change.

Tracy Kovach told me that when he arrived at Kingman about two or three years ago, other white inmates asked him if he was planning to "run the yard."

During past prison stints, Kovach told me, "Normally I'd take over the yard for the whites."

Each race had a guy who ran the yard, he said, and would negotiate with the leaders of the other races. That was the job assumed by Kovach, who still sports a "White Power" tattoo on his chest and the SS-shaped lightning bolts on his stomach.

The last time Kovach was arrested, he told me, it was May 2007. He was living in Mesa and running the drug world from east Mesa to Apache Juncation, he told me. People called him "the regulator." Then the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office sent one of those small tanks they own into his house and arrested him.

Six weeks later, Kovach attended a chuch service at the Maricopa County Jail, just to get out of his cell. At that moment, he said, "God came into my life, and I've never been the same since."

The environment at Kingman was welcoming for people like him, who were trying to break free from their old lives, Kovach said.

"Guys didn't know what to make of me 'cause I used to beat people up and take their stuff, and now I'm praising Jesus," Kovach said.

"MTC was absolutely a blessing for so many people," Kovach told me. "The holy spirit was all over."

He specifically pointed to the numerous religious offerings for all faiths and the participation of the Lake Havasu Calvary Baptist Church as important. There were numerous rehabilitation offerings, too, he said: Wood shop, GED programs, creative writing  classes and other courses.

"Everybody had something to do," he said.

Now Kovach is working at the Teen Challenge halfway house on North Oracle Road north of Grant Road and preparing to get married.

Nathan Amado lives just down Oracle at The Bridge halfway house, another in a series of Christian halfway houses on that stretch. I interviewed him along with another former inmate residing at the house, who asked not to be quoted for my story.

These two pointed to a chaplain at the Kingman prison, Wayne Basye, as very influential in helping them turn their lives in a positive direction.

"It wasn't somuch just him; it was the congretation at Kingman," Amado said. "Anywhere else you were in DOC, it was, if you went to church, you were weak. If you're going to church, you handle it here on the yard."

Amado and the other man I interviewed had both spent time at minimum-custody yards belonging to the state Department of Corrections.

"DOC reigns by fear. But the MTC yard, you weren't intimimdated. You weren't put on edge. You didn't feel like you had to have a chip on your shoulder."

"It takes the individual on an individual basis to make the change they want," Amado said. "In my opinion, MTC actually made that reality."

I spoke with Amado, his friend, and Kovach in person but spoke to a fourth former inmate living in Tucson, Carlos Arevalo, by phone. Of the four, Arevalo had the most mixed review of private prisons.

Arevalo had spent time in state prison in the late 1990s and went back in 2007 on a DUI charge. First he was in the Geo Group's Phoenix West prison, then he was moved to Marana, where the same company that owns the Kingman prison has a facility.

"In Phoenix West, the guards were a little more like they had a chip on their shoulders, more than the state would," Arevalo said. "Maybe they had more unexperienced workders to work there. They’d give you a write up for any little thing."

"The guards at Marana were more laid back. They weren't as petty."

What wasn't laid back at Marana was the counseling. Inmates went through counseling "at least every day," he said.

If you don't go through counseling, Arevalo said "you're going in the hole, or getting a write up."

For me, the interviews with these four inmates, plus the escape story, showed a possible pattern: The MTC prisons in Arizona have been dedicated to rehabilitation programs, perhaps to the point of losing a degree of control over the prisoners.