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We're seen as the organization that is
the bucket for failed social policy.

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I can't define who comes to us or how long they stay.

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We get the people for whom
nothing else has worked,

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people who have fallen through all

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of the other social safety nets.

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They can't contain them, so we must.

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That's our job:

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contain them, control them.

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Over the years, as a prison system,

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as a nation, and as a society,

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we've become very good at that,

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but that shouldn't make you happy.

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Today we incarcerate more people per capita

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than any other country in the world.

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We have more black men in prison today

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than were under slavery in 1850.

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We house the parents of almost three million

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of our communities' children,

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and we've become the new asylum,

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the largest mental health provider in this nation.

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When we lock someone up,

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that is no small thing.

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And yet, we are called the
Department of Corrections.

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Today I want to talk about

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changing the way we think about corrections.

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I believe, and my experience tells me,

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that when we change the way we think,

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we create new possibilities, or futures,

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and prisons need a different future.

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I've spent my entire career
in corrections, over 30 years.

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I followed my dad into this field.

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He was a Vietnam veteran. Corrections suited him.

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He was strong, steady, disciplined.

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I was not so much any of those things,

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and I'm sure that worried him about me.

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Eventually I decided, if I was
going to end up in prison,

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I'd better end up on the right side of the bars,

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so I thought I'd check it out,

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take a tour of the place my dad worked,

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the McNeil Island Penitentiary.

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Now this was the early '80s,

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and prisons weren't quite what you see

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on TV or in the movies.

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In many ways, it was worse.

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I walked into a cell house that was five tiers high.

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There were eight men to a cell.

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there were 550 men in that living unit.

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And just in case you wondered,

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they shared one toilet in those small confines.

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An officer put a key in a lockbox,

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and hundreds of men streamed out of their cells.

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Hundreds of men streamed out of their cells.

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I walked away as fast as I could.

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Eventually I went back and
started as an officer there.

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My job was to run one of those cell blocks

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and to control those hundreds of men.

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When I went to work at our receptions center,

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I could actually hear the
inmates from the parking lot,

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shaking cell doors, yelling,

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tearing up their cells.

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Taking hundreds of volatile people and lock them up,

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and what you get is chaos.

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Contain and control: that was our job.

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One way we learned to do this more effectively

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was a new type of housing unit

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called the Intensive Management Unit, IMU,

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a modern version of the "hole."

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We put inmates in cells behind solid steel doors

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with cup ports so we could restrain them

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and feed them.

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Guess what?

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It got quieter.

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Disturbances died down in general population.

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Places became safer

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because those inmates who
were most violent or disruptive

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could now be isolated.

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But isolation isn't good.

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Deprive people of social
contact and they deteriorate.

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It was hard getting them out of IMU,

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for them and for us.

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Even in prison, it's no small thing

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to lock someone up.

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My next assignment was to one
of the state's deep end prisons

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where some of our more violent
or disruptive inmates are housed.

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By then, the industry had advanced a lot,

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and we had different tools and techniques

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to manage disruptive behavior.

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We had beanbag guns and pepper spray

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and plexiglass shields,

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flash bangs, emergency response teams.

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We met violence with force

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and chaos with chaos.

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We were pretty good at putting out fires.

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While I was there, I met two
experienced correctional workers

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who were also researchers,

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and anthropologist and a sociologist.

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One day, one of them commented to me and said,

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"You know, you're pretty good at putting out fires.

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Have you ever thought about how to prevent them?"

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I was patient with them,

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explaining our brute force approach

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to making prisons safer.

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They were patient with me.

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Out of those conversations grew some new ideas

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and we started some small experiments.

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First, we started training our officers in teams

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rather than sending them one or two
at a time to state training academy.

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Instead of four weeks of training, we gave them 10.

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Then we experimented with an apprenticeship model

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where we paired new staff with veteran staff.

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They both got better at the work.

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Second, we added verbal deescalation skills

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into the training continuum

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and made it part of the use of force continuum.

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It was the non-force use of force.

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And then we did something even more radical.

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We trained inmates on those same skills.

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We changed the skill set,

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reducing violence, not just responding to it.

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Third, when we expanded our facility,

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we tried a new type of design.

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Now the biggest and most controversial component

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of this design, of course, was the toilet.

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There were no toilets.

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Now that might not sound
significant to you here today,

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but at the time, it was huge.

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No one had heard of a cell without a toilet.

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We all thought it was dangerous and crazy.

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Even eight men to a cell had a toilet.

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That small detail changed the way we worked.

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Inmates and staff started interacting

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more often and openly and developing rapport.

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It was easier to detect conflict and intervene

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before it escalated.

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The unit was cleaner, quieter,
safer, and more humane.

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This was more effective at keeping the peace

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than any intimidation technique I'd seen

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to that point.

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Interacting changes the way you behave,

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both for the officer and the inmate.

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We changed the environment
and we changed the behavior.

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Now, just in case I hadn't learned this lesson,

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they assigned me to headquarters next,

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and that's where I ran straight
up against system change.

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Now, many things work against system change:

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politics and politicians, bills and laws,

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courts and lawsuits, internal politics.

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System change is difficult and slow,

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and oftentimes it doesn't take you

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where you want to go.

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It's no small thing to change a prison system.

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So what I did do is I reflected
on my earlier experiences

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and I remembered that when we interacted
with offenders, the heat went down.

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When we changed the environment,
the behavior changed.

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And these were not huge system changes.

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These were small changes, and these changes

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created new possibilities.

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So next, I got reassigned as
superintendent of a small prison.

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And at the same time, I was working on my degree

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at the Evergreen State College.

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I interacted with a lot of
people who were not like me,

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people who had different ideas

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and came from different backgrounds.

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One of them was a rainforest ecologist.

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she looked at my small prison and what she saw

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was a laboratory.

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We talked and discovered how prisons and inmates

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could actually help advance science

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by helping them complete projects

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they couldn't complete on their own,

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like repopulating endangered species:

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frogs, butterflies, endangered prairie plants.

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At the same time, we found ways to make

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our operation more efficient

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through the addition of solar power,

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rainwater catchment, organic gardening, recycling.

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This initiative has led to many projects

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that have had huge system-wide impact,

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not just in our system,

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but in other state systems as well,

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small experiments making a big difference

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to science, to the community.

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The way we think about our work changes our work.

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The project just made my job
more interesting and exciting.

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I was excited. Staff were excited.

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Officers were excited. Inmates were excited.

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They were inspired.

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Everybody wanted to be part of this.

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They were making a contribution, a difference,

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one they thought was meaningful and important.

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Let me be clear on what's going on here, though:

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inmates are highly adaptive.

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They have to be.

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Oftentimes, they know more about our own systems

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than the people who run them.

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And they're here for a reason.

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I don't see my job as to punish them or forgive them,

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but I do think they can have

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decent and meaningful lives even in prison.

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So that was the question:

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could inmates live decent and meaningful lives,

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and if so, what difference would that make?

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So I took that question back to the deep end,

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where some of our most
violent offenders are housed.

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Remember, IMUs are for punishment.

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You don't get perks there, like programming.

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That was how we thought.

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But then we started to realize that if any inmates

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needed programming, it
was these particular inmates.

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In fact, they needed intensive programming.

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So we changed our thinking 180 degrees,

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and we started looking for new possibilities.

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What we found was a new kind of chair.

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Instead of using the chair for punishment,

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we put it in classrooms.

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Okay, we didn't forget our responsibility to control,

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but now inmates could interact safely face to face

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with other inmates and staff,

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and because control was no longer an issue,

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everybody could focus on other things,

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like learning. Behavior changed.

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We changed our thinking

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and we changed what was possible,

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and this gives me hope.

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Now, I can't tell you that any of this stuff will work.

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What I can tell you though, it is working.

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Our prisons are getting safer
for both staff and inmates,

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and when our prisons are safe,

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we can put our energies into
a lot more than just controlling.

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Reducing recidivism may be our ultimate goal,

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but it's not our only goal.

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To be honest with you, preventing crime

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takes so much more from so many more people

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and institutions.

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If we rely on just prisons to reduce crime,

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I'm afraid we'll never get there.

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But prisons can do some things

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we never thought they could do.

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Prisons can be the source of innovation

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and sustainability,

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repopulating endangered species
and environmental restoration.

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Inmates can be scientists and beekeepers,

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dog rescuers.

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Prisons can be the source of meaningful work

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and opportunity for staff

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and the inmates who live there.

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We can contain and control

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and provide humane environments.

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These are not opposing qualities.

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We can't wait 10 to 20 years to find out

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if this is worth doing.

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Our strategy is not massive system change.

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Our strategy is hundreds of small changes

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that take place in days or months, not years.

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We need more small pilots where we learn as we go,

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pilots that change the range of possibility.

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We need new and better ways to measure impacts

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on engagement, on interaction,

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on safe environments.

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We need more opportunities to participate in

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and contribute to our communities,

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your communities.

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Prisons need to be secure, yes, safe, yes.

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We can do that.

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Prisons need to provide human environments

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where people can participate, contribute,

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and learn meaningful lives.

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We're learning how to do that.

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That's why I'm hopeful.

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We don't have to stay stuck
in old ideas about prison.

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We can define that. We can create that.

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And when we do that thoughtfully and with humanity,

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prisons can be more than a bucket

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for failed social policy.

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Maybe finally, we will earn our title:

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a department of corrections.

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Thank you.

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(Applause)