0:00:00.792,0:00:04.485
We're seen as the organization that is[br]the bucket for failed social policy.

0:00:04.485,0:00:07.767
I can't define who comes to us or how long they stay.

0:00:07.767,0:00:09.903
We get the people for whom[br]nothing else has worked,

0:00:09.903,0:00:11.341
people who have fallen through all

0:00:11.341,0:00:13.254
of the other social safety nets.

0:00:13.254,0:00:15.587
They can't contain them, so we must.

0:00:15.587,0:00:17.030
That's our job:

0:00:17.030,0:00:20.137
contain them, control them.

0:00:20.137,0:00:22.594
Over the years, as a prison system,

0:00:22.594,0:00:24.415
as a nation, and as a society,

0:00:24.415,0:00:25.890
we've become very good at that,

0:00:25.890,0:00:28.010
but that shouldn't make you happy.

0:00:28.010,0:00:29.710
Today we incarcerate more people per capita

0:00:29.710,0:00:31.847
than any other country in the world.

0:00:31.847,0:00:33.760
We have more black men in prison today

0:00:33.760,0:00:36.321
than were under slavery in 1850.

0:00:36.321,0:00:38.081
We house the parents of almost three million

0:00:38.081,0:00:39.805
of our community's children,

0:00:39.805,0:00:41.825
and we've become the new asylum,

0:00:41.825,0:00:44.862
the largest mental health provider in this nation.

0:00:44.862,0:00:46.333
When we lock someone up,

0:00:46.333,0:00:47.964
that is no small thing.

0:00:47.964,0:00:51.122
And yet, we are called the[br]Department of Corrections.

0:00:51.122,0:00:52.510
Today I want to talk about

0:00:52.510,0:00:54.605
changing the way we think about corrections.

0:00:54.605,0:00:56.664
I believe, and my experience tells me,

0:00:56.664,0:00:58.373
that when we change the way we think,

0:00:58.373,0:01:01.207
we create new possibilities, or futures,

0:01:01.207,0:01:03.833
and prisons need a different future.

0:01:03.833,0:01:07.305
I've spent my entire career[br]in corrections, over 30 years.

0:01:07.305,0:01:08.785
I followed my dad into this field.

0:01:08.785,0:01:11.930
He was a Vietnam veteran. Corrections suited him.

0:01:11.930,0:01:14.940
He was strong, steady, disciplined.

0:01:14.940,0:01:16.380
I was not so much any of those things,

0:01:16.380,0:01:18.779
and I'm sure that worried him about me.

0:01:18.779,0:01:21.622
Eventually I decided, if I was[br]going to end up in prison,

0:01:21.622,0:01:22.943
I'd better end up on the right side of the bars,

0:01:22.943,0:01:24.650
so I thought I'd check it out,

0:01:24.650,0:01:26.920
take a tour of the place my dad worked,

0:01:26.920,0:01:29.101
the McNeil Island Penitentiary.

0:01:29.101,0:01:30.811
Now this was the early '80s,

0:01:30.811,0:01:32.338
and prisons weren't quite what you see

0:01:32.338,0:01:34.320
on TV or in the movies.

0:01:34.320,0:01:36.840
In many ways, it was worse.

0:01:36.840,0:01:39.454
I walked into a cell house that was five tiers high.

0:01:39.454,0:01:41.079
There were eight men to a cell.

0:01:41.079,0:01:43.427
there were 550 men in that living unit.

0:01:43.427,0:01:45.310
And just in case you wondered,

0:01:45.310,0:01:48.376
they shared one toilet in those small confines.

0:01:48.376,0:01:49.879
An officer put a key in a lockbox,

0:01:49.879,0:01:52.421
and hundreds of men streamed out of their cells.

0:01:52.421,0:01:54.400
Hundreds of men streamed out of their cells.

0:01:54.400,0:01:56.763
I walked away as fast as I could.

0:01:56.763,0:01:59.361
Eventually I went back and[br]I started as an officer there.

0:01:59.361,0:02:01.158
My job was to run one of those cell blocks

0:02:01.158,0:02:04.319
and to control those hundreds of men.

0:02:04.319,0:02:06.164
When I went to work at our receptions center,

0:02:06.164,0:02:08.890
I could actually hear the inmates [br]roiling from the parking lot,

0:02:08.890,0:02:11.384
shaking cell doors, yelling,

0:02:11.384,0:02:13.058
tearing up their cells.

0:02:13.058,0:02:15.422
Take hundreds of volatile people and lock them up,

0:02:15.422,0:02:17.186
and what you get is chaos.

0:02:17.186,0:02:19.959
Contain and control — that was our job.

0:02:19.959,0:02:22.280
One way we learned to do this more effectively

0:02:22.280,0:02:23.490
was a new type of housing unit

0:02:23.490,0:02:26.193
called the Intensive Management Unit, IMU,

0:02:26.193,0:02:28.016
a modern version of a "hole."

0:02:28.016,0:02:30.538
We put inmates in cells behind solid steel doors

0:02:30.538,0:02:32.819
with cuff ports so we could restrain them

0:02:32.819,0:02:34.160
and feed them.

0:02:34.160,0:02:36.497
Guess what?

0:02:36.497,0:02:37.991
It got quieter.

0:02:37.991,0:02:40.488
Disturbances died down in the general population.

0:02:40.488,0:02:41.839
Places became safer

0:02:41.839,0:02:44.439
because those inmates who[br]were most violent or disruptive

0:02:44.439,0:02:45.864
could now be isolated.

0:02:45.864,0:02:47.595
But isolation isn't good.

0:02:47.595,0:02:50.424
Deprive people of social[br]contact and they deteriorate.

0:02:50.424,0:02:52.359
It was hard getting them out of IMU,

0:02:52.359,0:02:54.912
for them and for us.

0:02:54.912,0:02:57.381
Even in prison, it's no small thing

0:02:57.381,0:02:59.367
to lock someone up.

0:02:59.367,0:03:01.921
My next assignment was to one[br]of the state's deep-end prisons

0:03:01.921,0:03:04.856
where some of our more violent[br]or disruptive inmates are housed.

0:03:04.856,0:03:06.700
By then, the industry had advanced a lot,

0:03:06.700,0:03:08.758
and we had different tools and techniques

0:03:08.758,0:03:10.795
to manage disruptive behavior.

0:03:10.795,0:03:13.020
We had beanbag guns and pepper spray

0:03:13.020,0:03:14.910
and plexiglass shields,

0:03:14.910,0:03:17.345
flash bangs, emergency response teams.

0:03:17.345,0:03:19.209
We met violence with force

0:03:19.209,0:03:20.670
and chaos with chaos.

0:03:20.670,0:03:23.197
We were pretty good at putting out fires.

0:03:23.197,0:03:26.498
While I was there, I met two[br]experienced correctional workers

0:03:26.498,0:03:28.034
who were also researchers,

0:03:28.034,0:03:31.225
an anthropologist and a sociologist.

0:03:31.225,0:03:32.775
One day, one of them commented to me and said,

0:03:32.775,0:03:34.813
"You know, you're pretty good at putting out fires.

0:03:34.813,0:03:38.647
Have you ever thought about how to prevent them?"

0:03:38.647,0:03:40.624
I was patient with them,

0:03:40.624,0:03:41.933
explaining our brute force approach

0:03:41.933,0:03:43.790
to making prisons safer.

0:03:43.790,0:03:45.324
They were patient with me.

0:03:45.324,0:03:47.501
Out of those conversations grew some new ideas

0:03:47.501,0:03:49.397
and we started some small experiments.

0:03:49.397,0:03:51.798
First, we started training our officers in teams

0:03:51.798,0:03:55.040
rather than sending them one or two[br]at a time to the state training academy.

0:03:55.040,0:03:57.350
Instead of four weeks of training, we gave them 10.

0:03:57.350,0:03:59.627
Then we experimented with an apprenticeship model

0:03:59.627,0:04:03.200
where we paired new staff with veteran staff.

0:04:03.200,0:04:05.713
They both got better at the work.

0:04:05.713,0:04:08.323
Second, we added verbal de-escalation skills

0:04:08.323,0:04:10.213
into the training continuum

0:04:10.213,0:04:12.950
and made it part of the use of force continuum.

0:04:12.950,0:04:15.434
It was the non-force use of force.

0:04:15.434,0:04:17.036
And then we did something even more radical.

0:04:17.036,0:04:19.346
We trained the inmates on those same skills.

0:04:19.346,0:04:21.642
We changed the skill set,

0:04:21.642,0:04:24.813
reducing violence, not just responding to it.

0:04:24.813,0:04:28.047
Third, when we expanded our facility, [br]we tried a new type of design.

0:04:28.047,0:04:30.752
Now the biggest and most controversial component

0:04:30.752,0:04:34.429
of this design, of course, was the toilet.

0:04:34.429,0:04:36.118
There were no toilets.

0:04:36.118,0:04:38.749
Now that might not sound[br]significant to you here today,

0:04:38.749,0:04:40.134
but at the time, it was huge.

0:04:40.134,0:04:42.247
No one had ever heard of a cell without a toilet.

0:04:42.247,0:04:44.495
We all thought it was dangerous and crazy.

0:04:44.495,0:04:47.602
Even eight men to a cell had a toilet.

0:04:47.602,0:04:50.459
That small detail changed the way we worked.

0:04:50.459,0:04:52.189
Inmates and staff started interacting

0:04:52.189,0:04:55.463
more often and openly and developing a rapport.

0:04:55.463,0:04:57.296
It was easier to detect conflict and intervene

0:04:57.296,0:04:58.610
before it escalated.

0:04:58.610,0:05:02.246
The unit was cleaner, quieter,[br]safer and more humane.

0:05:02.246,0:05:04.451
This was more effective at keeping the peace

0:05:04.451,0:05:07.960
than any intimidation technique I'd seen to that point.

0:05:07.960,0:05:09.388
Interacting changes the way you behave,

0:05:09.388,0:05:11.494
both for the officer and the inmate.

0:05:11.494,0:05:14.644
We changed the environment[br]and we changed the behavior.

0:05:14.644,0:05:16.537
Now, just in case I hadn't learned this lesson,

0:05:16.537,0:05:18.947
they assigned me to headquarters next,

0:05:18.947,0:05:21.473
and that's where I ran straight[br]up against system change.

0:05:21.473,0:05:24.042
Now, many things work against system change:

0:05:24.042,0:05:26.151
politics and politicians, bills and laws,

0:05:26.151,0:05:28.919
courts and lawsuits, internal politics.

0:05:28.919,0:05:30.989
System change is difficult and slow,

0:05:30.989,0:05:32.531
and oftentimes it doesn't take you

0:05:32.531,0:05:34.214
where you want to go.

0:05:34.214,0:05:38.236
It's no small thing to change a prison system.

0:05:38.236,0:05:40.910
So what I did do is I reflected[br]on my earlier experiences

0:05:40.910,0:05:44.164
and I remembered that when we interacted[br]with offenders, the heat went down.

0:05:44.164,0:05:46.155
When we changed the environment,[br]the behavior changed.

0:05:46.155,0:05:47.944
And these were not huge system changes.

0:05:47.944,0:05:49.699
These were small changes, and these changes

0:05:49.699,0:05:51.910
created new possibilities.

0:05:51.910,0:05:54.617
So next, I got reassigned as[br]superintendent of a small prison.

0:05:54.617,0:05:56.876
And at the same time, I was working on my degree

0:05:56.876,0:05:58.957
at the Evergreen State College.

0:05:58.957,0:06:00.950
I interacted with a lot of[br]people who were not like me,

0:06:00.950,0:06:02.320
people who had different ideas

0:06:02.320,0:06:04.026
and came from different backgrounds.

0:06:04.026,0:06:06.622
One of them was a rainforest ecologist.

0:06:06.622,0:06:08.372
She looked at my small prison and what she saw

0:06:08.372,0:06:10.158
was a laboratory.

0:06:10.158,0:06:13.083
We talked and discovered how prisons and inmates

0:06:13.083,0:06:15.115
could actually help advance science

0:06:15.115,0:06:16.744
by helping them complete projects

0:06:16.744,0:06:18.555
they couldn't complete on their own,

0:06:18.555,0:06:20.873
like repopulating endangered species:

0:06:20.873,0:06:24.020
frogs, butterflies, endangered prairie plants.

0:06:24.020,0:06:25.347
At the same time, we found ways to make

0:06:25.347,0:06:26.930
our operation more efficient

0:06:26.930,0:06:29.153
through the addition of solar power,

0:06:29.153,0:06:32.683
rainwater catchment, organic gardening, recycling.

0:06:32.683,0:06:35.182
This initiative has led to many projects

0:06:35.182,0:06:36.884
that have had huge system-wide impact,

0:06:36.884,0:06:40.227
not just in our system, but in [br]other state systems as well,

0:06:40.227,0:06:42.423
small experiments making a big difference

0:06:42.423,0:06:45.475
to science, to the community.

0:06:45.475,0:06:48.642
The way we think about our work changes our work.

0:06:48.642,0:06:51.823
The project just made my job[br]more interesting and exciting.

0:06:51.823,0:06:53.780
I was excited. Staff were excited.

0:06:53.780,0:06:55.790
Officers were excited. Inmates were excited.

0:06:55.790,0:06:57.543
They were inspired.

0:06:57.543,0:06:59.099
Everybody wanted to be part of this.

0:06:59.099,0:07:01.418
They were making a contribution, a difference,

0:07:01.418,0:07:03.657
one they thought was meaningful and important.

0:07:03.657,0:07:05.513
Let me be clear on what's going on here, though.

0:07:05.513,0:07:07.256
Inmates are highly adaptive.

0:07:07.256,0:07:08.928
They have to be.

0:07:08.928,0:07:11.689
Oftentimes, they know more about our own systems

0:07:11.689,0:07:13.670
than the people who run them.

0:07:13.670,0:07:15.321
And they're here for a reason.

0:07:15.321,0:07:18.607
I don't see my job as to punish them or forgive them,

0:07:18.607,0:07:19.870
but I do think they can have

0:07:19.870,0:07:22.623
decent and meaningful lives even in prison.

0:07:22.623,0:07:24.200
So that was the question:

0:07:24.200,0:07:27.380
Could inmates live decent and meaningful lives,

0:07:27.380,0:07:30.650
and if so, what difference would that make?

0:07:30.650,0:07:33.547
So I took that question back to the deep end,

0:07:33.547,0:07:36.212
where some of our most[br]violent offenders are housed.

0:07:36.212,0:07:37.843
Remember, IMUs are for punishment.

0:07:37.843,0:07:39.907
You don't get perks there, like programming.

0:07:39.907,0:07:41.837
That was how we thought.

0:07:41.837,0:07:43.950
But then we started to realize that if any inmates

0:07:43.950,0:07:46.237
needed programming, it[br]was these particular inmates.

0:07:46.237,0:07:48.423
In fact, they needed intensive programming.

0:07:48.423,0:07:50.761
So we changed our thinking 180 degrees,

0:07:50.761,0:07:53.124
and we started looking for new possibilities.

0:07:53.124,0:07:55.662
What we found was a new kind of chair.

0:07:55.662,0:07:57.608
Instead of using the chair for punishment,

0:07:57.608,0:07:59.278
we put it in classrooms.

0:07:59.278,0:08:02.330
Okay, we didn't forget our responsibility to control,

0:08:02.330,0:08:04.559
but now inmates could interact safely, face-to-face

0:08:04.559,0:08:06.205
with other inmates and staff,

0:08:06.205,0:08:07.840
and because control was no longer an issue,

0:08:07.840,0:08:10.130
everybody could focus on other things,

0:08:10.130,0:08:12.761
like learning. Behavior changed.

0:08:12.772,0:08:17.607
We changed our thinking, and we changed [br]what was possible, and this gives me hope.

0:08:17.607,0:08:20.143
Now, I can't tell you that any of this stuff will work.

0:08:20.143,0:08:22.735
What I can tell you, though, it is working.

0:08:22.735,0:08:26.164
Our prisons are getting safer[br]for both staff and inmates,

0:08:26.164,0:08:27.558
and when our prisons are safe,

0:08:27.558,0:08:31.013
we can put our energies into[br]a lot more than just controlling.

0:08:31.013,0:08:33.295
Reducing recidivism may be our ultimate goal,

0:08:33.295,0:08:34.970
but it's not our only goal.

0:08:34.970,0:08:36.726
To be honest with you, preventing crime

0:08:36.726,0:08:38.695
takes so much more from so many more people

0:08:38.695,0:08:40.208
and institutions.

0:08:40.208,0:08:43.476
If we rely on just prisons to reduce crime,

0:08:43.476,0:08:45.434
I'm afraid we'll never get there.

0:08:45.434,0:08:47.289
But prisons can do some things

0:08:47.289,0:08:48.965
we never thought they could do.

0:08:48.965,0:08:51.000
Prisons can be the source of innovation

0:08:51.000,0:08:52.381
and sustainability,

0:08:52.381,0:08:55.740
repopulating endangered species[br]and environmental restoration.

0:08:55.740,0:08:58.385
Inmates can be scientists and beekeepers,

0:08:58.385,0:09:00.145
dog rescuers.

0:09:00.145,0:09:02.678
Prisons can be the source of meaningful work

0:09:02.678,0:09:04.635
and opportunity for staff

0:09:04.635,0:09:06.976
and the inmates who live there.

0:09:06.976,0:09:09.150
We can contain and control

0:09:09.150,0:09:11.273
and provide humane environments.

0:09:11.273,0:09:13.864
These are not opposing qualities.

0:09:13.864,0:09:16.165
We can't wait 10 to 20 years to find out

0:09:16.165,0:09:17.752
if this is worth doing.

0:09:17.752,0:09:20.446
Our strategy is not massive system change.

0:09:20.446,0:09:22.250
Our strategy is hundreds of small changes

0:09:22.250,0:09:25.935
that take place in days or months, not years.

0:09:25.935,0:09:29.332
We need more small pilots where we learn as we go,

0:09:29.332,0:09:32.333
pilots that change the range of possibility.

0:09:32.333,0:09:34.422
We need new and better ways to measure impacts

0:09:34.422,0:09:36.163
on engagement, on interaction,

0:09:36.163,0:09:38.179
on safe environments.

0:09:38.179,0:09:40.499
We need more opportunities to participate in

0:09:40.499,0:09:42.671
and contribute to our communities,

0:09:42.671,0:09:45.120
your communities.

0:09:45.120,0:09:48.164
Prisons need to be secure, yes, safe, yes.

0:09:48.164,0:09:49.147
We can do that.

0:09:49.147,0:09:51.168
Prisons need to provide humane environments

0:09:51.168,0:09:53.235
where people can participate, contribute,

0:09:53.235,0:09:54.921
and learn meaningful lives.

0:09:54.921,0:09:56.770
We're learning how to do that.

0:09:56.770,0:09:58.220
That's why I'm hopeful.

0:09:58.220,0:10:00.511
We don't have to stay stuck[br]in old ideas about prison.

0:10:00.511,0:10:02.975
We can define that. We can create that.

0:10:02.975,0:10:05.425
And when we do that thoughtfully and with humanity,

0:10:05.425,0:10:07.362
prisons can be more than the bucket

0:10:07.362,0:10:08.951
for failed social policy.

0:10:08.951,0:10:12.301
Maybe finally, we will earn our title:

0:10:12.301,0:10:14.296
a department of corrections.

0:10:14.296,0:10:16.396
Thank you.

0:10:16.396,0:10:18.927
(Applause)