WEBVTT

00:00:00.792 --> 00:00:04.485
We're seen as the organization that is
the bucket for failed social policy.

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

00:00:07.767 --> 00:00:09.903
We get the people for whom
nothing else has worked,

00:00:09.903 --> 00:00:11.341
people who have fallen through all

00:00:11.341 --> 00:00:13.254
of the other social safety nets.

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

00:00:15.587 --> 00:00:17.030
That's our job:

00:00:17.030 --> 00:00:20.137
contain them, control them.

NOTE Paragraph

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

00:00:22.594 --> 00:00:24.415
as a nation, and as a society,

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

00:00:25.890 --> 00:00:28.010
but that shouldn't make you happy.

00:00:28.010 --> 00:00:29.710
Today we incarcerate more people per capita

00:00:29.710 --> 00:00:31.847
than any other country in the world.

00:00:31.847 --> 00:00:33.760
We have more black men in prison today

00:00:33.760 --> 00:00:36.321
than were under slavery in 1850.

00:00:36.321 --> 00:00:38.081
We house the parents of almost three million

00:00:38.081 --> 00:00:39.805
of our community's children,

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

00:00:41.825 --> 00:00:44.862
the largest mental health provider in this nation.

00:00:44.862 --> 00:00:46.333
When we lock someone up,

00:00:46.333 --> 00:00:47.964
that is no small thing.

00:00:47.964 --> 00:00:51.122
And yet, we are called the
Department of Corrections.

00:00:51.122 --> 00:00:52.510
Today I want to talk about

00:00:52.510 --> 00:00:54.605
changing the way we think about corrections.

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

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

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

00:01:01.207 --> 00:01:03.833
and prisons need a different future.

NOTE Paragraph

00:01:03.833 --> 00:01:07.305
I've spent my entire career
in corrections, over 30 years.

00:01:07.305 --> 00:01:08.785
I followed my dad into this field.

00:01:08.785 --> 00:01:11.930
He was a Vietnam veteran. Corrections suited him.

00:01:11.930 --> 00:01:14.940
He was strong, steady, disciplined.

00:01:14.940 --> 00:01:16.380
I was not so much any of those things,

00:01:16.380 --> 00:01:18.779
and I'm sure that worried him about me.

00:01:18.779 --> 00:01:21.622
Eventually I decided, if I was
going to end up in prison,

00:01:21.622 --> 00:01:22.943
I'd better end up on the right side of the bars,

00:01:22.943 --> 00:01:24.650
so I thought I'd check it out,

00:01:24.650 --> 00:01:26.920
take a tour of the place my dad worked,

00:01:26.920 --> 00:01:29.101
the McNeil Island Penitentiary.

NOTE Paragraph

00:01:29.101 --> 00:01:30.811
Now this was the early '80s,

00:01:30.811 --> 00:01:32.338
and prisons weren't quite what you see

00:01:32.338 --> 00:01:34.320
on TV or in the movies.

00:01:34.320 --> 00:01:36.840
In many ways, it was worse.

00:01:36.840 --> 00:01:39.454
I walked into a cell house that was five tiers high.

00:01:39.454 --> 00:01:41.079
There were eight men to a cell.

00:01:41.079 --> 00:01:43.427
there were 550 men in that living unit.

00:01:43.427 --> 00:01:45.310
And just in case you wondered,

00:01:45.310 --> 00:01:48.376
they shared one toilet in those small confines.

00:01:48.376 --> 00:01:49.879
An officer put a key in a lockbox,

00:01:49.879 --> 00:01:52.421
and hundreds of men streamed out of their cells.

00:01:52.421 --> 00:01:54.400
Hundreds of men streamed out of their cells.

00:01:54.400 --> 00:01:56.763
I walked away as fast as I could.

NOTE Paragraph

00:01:56.763 --> 00:01:59.361
Eventually I went back and
I started as an officer there.

00:01:59.361 --> 00:02:01.158
My job was to run one of those cell blocks

00:02:01.158 --> 00:02:04.319
and to control those hundreds of men.

00:02:04.319 --> 00:02:06.164
When I went to work at our receptions center,

00:02:06.164 --> 00:02:08.890
I could actually hear the inmates 
roiling from the parking lot,

00:02:08.890 --> 00:02:11.384
shaking cell doors, yelling,

00:02:11.384 --> 00:02:13.058
tearing up their cells.

00:02:13.058 --> 00:02:15.422
Take hundreds of volatile people and lock them up,

00:02:15.422 --> 00:02:17.186
and what you get is chaos.

00:02:17.186 --> 00:02:19.959
Contain and control — that was our job.

NOTE Paragraph

00:02:19.959 --> 00:02:22.280
One way we learned to do this more effectively

00:02:22.280 --> 00:02:23.490
was a new type of housing unit

00:02:23.490 --> 00:02:26.193
called the Intensive Management Unit, IMU,

00:02:26.193 --> 00:02:28.016
a modern version of a "hole."

00:02:28.016 --> 00:02:30.538
We put inmates in cells behind solid steel doors

00:02:30.538 --> 00:02:32.819
with cuff ports so we could restrain them

00:02:32.819 --> 00:02:34.160
and feed them.

00:02:34.160 --> 00:02:36.497
Guess what?

00:02:36.497 --> 00:02:37.991
It got quieter.

00:02:37.991 --> 00:02:40.488
Disturbances died down in the general population.

00:02:40.488 --> 00:02:41.839
Places became safer

00:02:41.839 --> 00:02:44.439
because those inmates who
were most violent or disruptive

00:02:44.439 --> 00:02:45.864
could now be isolated.

00:02:45.864 --> 00:02:47.595
But isolation isn't good.

00:02:47.595 --> 00:02:50.424
Deprive people of social
contact and they deteriorate.

00:02:50.424 --> 00:02:52.359
It was hard getting them out of IMU,

00:02:52.359 --> 00:02:54.912
for them and for us.

00:02:54.912 --> 00:02:57.381
Even in prison, it's no small thing

00:02:57.381 --> 00:02:59.367
to lock someone up.

NOTE Paragraph

00:02:59.367 --> 00:03:01.921
My next assignment was to one
of the state's deep-end prisons

00:03:01.921 --> 00:03:04.856
where some of our more violent
or disruptive inmates are housed.

00:03:04.856 --> 00:03:06.700
By then, the industry had advanced a lot,

00:03:06.700 --> 00:03:08.758
and we had different tools and techniques

00:03:08.758 --> 00:03:10.795
to manage disruptive behavior.

00:03:10.795 --> 00:03:13.020
We had beanbag guns and pepper spray

00:03:13.020 --> 00:03:14.910
and plexiglass shields,

00:03:14.910 --> 00:03:17.345
flash bangs, emergency response teams.

00:03:17.345 --> 00:03:19.209
We met violence with force

00:03:19.209 --> 00:03:20.670
and chaos with chaos.

00:03:20.670 --> 00:03:23.197
We were pretty good at putting out fires.

NOTE Paragraph

00:03:23.197 --> 00:03:26.498
While I was there, I met two
experienced correctional workers

00:03:26.498 --> 00:03:28.034
who were also researchers,

00:03:28.034 --> 00:03:31.225
an anthropologist and a sociologist.

00:03:31.225 --> 00:03:32.775
One day, one of them commented to me and said,

00:03:32.775 --> 00:03:34.813
"You know, you're pretty good at putting out fires.

00:03:34.813 --> 00:03:38.647
Have you ever thought about how to prevent them?"

00:03:38.647 --> 00:03:40.624
I was patient with them,

00:03:40.624 --> 00:03:41.933
explaining our brute force approach

00:03:41.933 --> 00:03:43.790
to making prisons safer.

00:03:43.790 --> 00:03:45.324
They were patient with me.

00:03:45.324 --> 00:03:47.501
Out of those conversations grew some new ideas

00:03:47.501 --> 00:03:49.397
and we started some small experiments.

00:03:49.397 --> 00:03:51.798
First, we started training our officers in teams

00:03:51.798 --> 00:03:55.040
rather than sending them one or two
at a time to the state training academy.

00:03:55.040 --> 00:03:57.350
Instead of four weeks of training, we gave them 10.

00:03:57.350 --> 00:03:59.627
Then we experimented with an apprenticeship model

00:03:59.627 --> 00:04:03.200
where we paired new staff with veteran staff.

00:04:03.200 --> 00:04:05.713
They both got better at the work.

00:04:05.713 --> 00:04:08.323
Second, we added verbal de-escalation skills

00:04:08.323 --> 00:04:10.213
into the training continuum

00:04:10.213 --> 00:04:12.950
and made it part of the use of force continuum.

00:04:12.950 --> 00:04:15.434
It was the non-force use of force.

00:04:15.434 --> 00:04:17.036
And then we did something even more radical.

00:04:17.036 --> 00:04:19.346
We trained the inmates on those same skills.

00:04:19.346 --> 00:04:21.642
We changed the skill set,

00:04:21.642 --> 00:04:24.813
reducing violence, not just responding to it.

NOTE Paragraph

00:04:24.813 --> 00:04:28.047
Third, when we expanded our facility, 
we tried a new type of design.

00:04:28.047 --> 00:04:30.752
Now the biggest and most controversial component

00:04:30.752 --> 00:04:34.429
of this design, of course, was the toilet.

00:04:34.429 --> 00:04:36.118
There were no toilets.

00:04:36.118 --> 00:04:38.749
Now that might not sound
significant to you here today,

00:04:38.749 --> 00:04:40.134
but at the time, it was huge.

00:04:40.134 --> 00:04:42.247
No one had ever heard of a cell without a toilet.

00:04:42.247 --> 00:04:44.495
We all thought it was dangerous and crazy.

00:04:44.495 --> 00:04:47.602
Even eight men to a cell had a toilet.

00:04:47.602 --> 00:04:50.459
That small detail changed the way we worked.

00:04:50.459 --> 00:04:52.189
Inmates and staff started interacting

00:04:52.189 --> 00:04:55.463
more often and openly and developing a rapport.

00:04:55.463 --> 00:04:57.296
It was easier to detect conflict and intervene

00:04:57.296 --> 00:04:58.610
before it escalated.

00:04:58.610 --> 00:05:02.246
The unit was cleaner, quieter,
safer and more humane.

00:05:02.246 --> 00:05:04.451
This was more effective at keeping the peace

00:05:04.451 --> 00:05:07.960
than any intimidation technique I'd seen to that point.

00:05:07.960 --> 00:05:09.388
Interacting changes the way you behave,

00:05:09.388 --> 00:05:11.494
both for the officer and the inmate.

00:05:11.494 --> 00:05:14.644
We changed the environment
and we changed the behavior.

NOTE Paragraph

00:05:14.644 --> 00:05:16.537
Now, just in case I hadn't learned this lesson,

00:05:16.537 --> 00:05:18.947
they assigned me to headquarters next,

00:05:18.947 --> 00:05:21.473
and that's where I ran straight
up against system change.

00:05:21.473 --> 00:05:24.042
Now, many things work against system change:

00:05:24.042 --> 00:05:26.151
politics and politicians, bills and laws,

00:05:26.151 --> 00:05:28.919
courts and lawsuits, internal politics.

00:05:28.919 --> 00:05:30.989
System change is difficult and slow,

00:05:30.989 --> 00:05:32.531
and oftentimes it doesn't take you

00:05:32.531 --> 00:05:34.214
where you want to go.

00:05:34.214 --> 00:05:38.236
It's no small thing to change a prison system.

00:05:38.236 --> 00:05:40.910
So what I did do is I reflected
on my earlier experiences

00:05:40.910 --> 00:05:44.164
and I remembered that when we interacted
with offenders, the heat went down.

00:05:44.164 --> 00:05:46.155
When we changed the environment,
the behavior changed.

00:05:46.155 --> 00:05:47.944
And these were not huge system changes.

00:05:47.944 --> 00:05:49.699
These were small changes, and these changes

00:05:49.699 --> 00:05:51.910
created new possibilities.

NOTE Paragraph

00:05:51.910 --> 00:05:54.617
So next, I got reassigned as
superintendent of a small prison.

00:05:54.617 --> 00:05:56.876
And at the same time, I was working on my degree

00:05:56.876 --> 00:05:58.957
at the Evergreen State College.

00:05:58.957 --> 00:06:00.950
I interacted with a lot of
people who were not like me,

00:06:00.950 --> 00:06:02.320
people who had different ideas

00:06:02.320 --> 00:06:04.026
and came from different backgrounds.

00:06:04.026 --> 00:06:06.622
One of them was a rainforest ecologist.

00:06:06.622 --> 00:06:08.372
She looked at my small prison and what she saw

00:06:08.372 --> 00:06:10.158
was a laboratory.

00:06:10.158 --> 00:06:13.083
We talked and discovered how prisons and inmates

00:06:13.083 --> 00:06:15.115
could actually help advance science

00:06:15.115 --> 00:06:16.744
by helping them complete projects

00:06:16.744 --> 00:06:18.555
they couldn't complete on their own,

00:06:18.555 --> 00:06:20.873
like repopulating endangered species:

00:06:20.873 --> 00:06:24.020
frogs, butterflies, endangered prairie plants.

00:06:24.020 --> 00:06:25.347
At the same time, we found ways to make

00:06:25.347 --> 00:06:26.930
our operation more efficient

00:06:26.930 --> 00:06:29.153
through the addition of solar power,

00:06:29.153 --> 00:06:32.683
rainwater catchment, organic gardening, recycling.

00:06:32.683 --> 00:06:35.182
This initiative has led to many projects

00:06:35.182 --> 00:06:36.884
that have had huge system-wide impact,

00:06:36.884 --> 00:06:40.227
not just in our system, but in 
other state systems as well,

00:06:40.227 --> 00:06:42.423
small experiments making a big difference

00:06:42.423 --> 00:06:45.475
to science, to the community.

00:06:45.475 --> 00:06:48.642
The way we think about our work changes our work.

00:06:48.642 --> 00:06:51.823
The project just made my job
more interesting and exciting.

00:06:51.823 --> 00:06:53.780
I was excited. Staff were excited.

00:06:53.780 --> 00:06:55.790
Officers were excited. Inmates were excited.

00:06:55.790 --> 00:06:57.543
They were inspired.

00:06:57.543 --> 00:06:59.099
Everybody wanted to be part of this.

00:06:59.099 --> 00:07:01.418
They were making a contribution, a difference,

00:07:01.418 --> 00:07:03.657
one they thought was meaningful and important.

NOTE Paragraph

00:07:03.657 --> 00:07:05.513
Let me be clear on what's going on here, though.

00:07:05.513 --> 00:07:07.256
Inmates are highly adaptive.

00:07:07.256 --> 00:07:08.928
They have to be.

00:07:08.928 --> 00:07:11.689
Oftentimes, they know more about our own systems

00:07:11.689 --> 00:07:13.670
than the people who run them.

00:07:13.670 --> 00:07:15.321
And they're here for a reason.

00:07:15.321 --> 00:07:18.607
I don't see my job as to punish them or forgive them,

00:07:18.607 --> 00:07:19.870
but I do think they can have

00:07:19.870 --> 00:07:22.623
decent and meaningful lives even in prison.

00:07:22.623 --> 00:07:24.200
So that was the question:

00:07:24.200 --> 00:07:27.380
Could inmates live decent and meaningful lives,

00:07:27.380 --> 00:07:30.650
and if so, what difference would that make?

00:07:30.650 --> 00:07:33.547
So I took that question back to the deep end,

00:07:33.547 --> 00:07:36.212
where some of our most
violent offenders are housed.

00:07:36.212 --> 00:07:37.843
Remember, IMUs are for punishment.

00:07:37.843 --> 00:07:39.907
You don't get perks there, like programming.

00:07:39.907 --> 00:07:41.837
That was how we thought.

00:07:41.837 --> 00:07:43.950
But then we started to realize that if any inmates

00:07:43.950 --> 00:07:46.237
needed programming, it
was these particular inmates.

00:07:46.237 --> 00:07:48.423
In fact, they needed intensive programming.

00:07:48.423 --> 00:07:50.761
So we changed our thinking 180 degrees,

00:07:50.761 --> 00:07:53.124
and we started looking for new possibilities.

00:07:53.124 --> 00:07:55.662
What we found was a new kind of chair.

00:07:55.662 --> 00:07:57.608
Instead of using the chair for punishment,

00:07:57.608 --> 00:07:59.278
we put it in classrooms.

00:07:59.278 --> 00:08:02.330
Okay, we didn't forget our responsibility to control,

00:08:02.330 --> 00:08:04.559
but now inmates could interact safely, face-to-face

00:08:04.559 --> 00:08:06.205
with other inmates and staff,

00:08:06.205 --> 00:08:07.840
and because control was no longer an issue,

00:08:07.840 --> 00:08:10.130
everybody could focus on other things,

00:08:10.130 --> 00:08:12.761
like learning. Behavior changed.

00:08:12.772 --> 00:08:17.607
We changed our thinking, and we changed 
what was possible, and this gives me hope.

NOTE Paragraph

00:08:17.607 --> 00:08:20.143
Now, I can't tell you that any of this stuff will work.

00:08:20.143 --> 00:08:22.735
What I can tell you, though, it is working.

00:08:22.735 --> 00:08:26.164
Our prisons are getting safer
for both staff and inmates,

00:08:26.164 --> 00:08:27.558
and when our prisons are safe,

00:08:27.558 --> 00:08:31.013
we can put our energies into
a lot more than just controlling.

00:08:31.013 --> 00:08:33.295
Reducing recidivism may be our ultimate goal,

00:08:33.295 --> 00:08:34.970
but it's not our only goal.

00:08:34.970 --> 00:08:36.726
To be honest with you, preventing crime

00:08:36.726 --> 00:08:38.695
takes so much more from so many more people

00:08:38.695 --> 00:08:40.208
and institutions.

00:08:40.208 --> 00:08:43.476
If we rely on just prisons to reduce crime,

00:08:43.476 --> 00:08:45.434
I'm afraid we'll never get there.

00:08:45.434 --> 00:08:47.289
But prisons can do some things

00:08:47.289 --> 00:08:48.965
we never thought they could do.

00:08:48.965 --> 00:08:51.000
Prisons can be the source of innovation

00:08:51.000 --> 00:08:52.381
and sustainability,

00:08:52.381 --> 00:08:55.740
repopulating endangered species
and environmental restoration.

00:08:55.740 --> 00:08:58.385
Inmates can be scientists and beekeepers,

00:08:58.385 --> 00:09:00.145
dog rescuers.

00:09:00.145 --> 00:09:02.678
Prisons can be the source of meaningful work

00:09:02.678 --> 00:09:04.635
and opportunity for staff

00:09:04.635 --> 00:09:06.976
and the inmates who live there.

00:09:06.976 --> 00:09:09.150
We can contain and control

00:09:09.150 --> 00:09:11.273
and provide humane environments.

00:09:11.273 --> 00:09:13.864
These are not opposing qualities.

NOTE Paragraph

00:09:13.864 --> 00:09:16.165
We can't wait 10 to 20 years to find out

00:09:16.165 --> 00:09:17.752
if this is worth doing.

00:09:17.752 --> 00:09:20.446
Our strategy is not massive system change.

00:09:20.446 --> 00:09:22.250
Our strategy is hundreds of small changes

00:09:22.250 --> 00:09:25.935
that take place in days or months, not years.

00:09:25.935 --> 00:09:29.332
We need more small pilots where we learn as we go,

00:09:29.332 --> 00:09:32.333
pilots that change the range of possibility.

00:09:32.333 --> 00:09:34.422
We need new and better ways to measure impacts

00:09:34.422 --> 00:09:36.163
on engagement, on interaction,

00:09:36.163 --> 00:09:38.179
on safe environments.

00:09:38.179 --> 00:09:40.499
We need more opportunities to participate in

00:09:40.499 --> 00:09:42.671
and contribute to our communities,

00:09:42.671 --> 00:09:45.120
your communities.

00:09:45.120 --> 00:09:48.164
Prisons need to be secure, yes, safe, yes.

00:09:48.164 --> 00:09:49.147
We can do that.

00:09:49.147 --> 00:09:51.168
Prisons need to provide humane environments

00:09:51.168 --> 00:09:53.235
where people can participate, contribute,

00:09:53.235 --> 00:09:54.921
and learn meaningful lives.

00:09:54.921 --> 00:09:56.770
We're learning how to do that.

NOTE Paragraph

00:09:56.770 --> 00:09:58.220
That's why I'm hopeful.

00:09:58.220 --> 00:10:00.511
We don't have to stay stuck
in old ideas about prison.

00:10:00.511 --> 00:10:02.975
We can define that. We can create that.

00:10:02.975 --> 00:10:05.425
And when we do that thoughtfully and with humanity,

00:10:05.425 --> 00:10:07.362
prisons can be more than the bucket

00:10:07.362 --> 00:10:08.951
for failed social policy.

00:10:08.951 --> 00:10:12.301
Maybe finally, we will earn our title:

00:10:12.301 --> 00:10:14.296
a department of corrections.

NOTE Paragraph

00:10:14.296 --> 00:10:16.396
Thank you.

NOTE Paragraph

00:10:16.396 --> 00:10:18.927
(Applause)