Dan Pacholke: How prisons can help inmates live meaningful lives

74,811 views ・ 2014-08-13

TED


Please double-click on the English subtitles below to play the video.

00:12
We're seen as the organization that is the bucket for failed social policy.
0
12792
3693
00:16
I can't define who comes to us or how long they stay.
1
16485
3282
00:19
We get the people for whom nothing else has worked,
2
19767
2136
00:21
people who have fallen through all
3
21903
1438
00:23
of the other social safety nets.
4
23341
1913
00:25
They can't contain them, so we must.
5
25254
2333
00:27
That's our job:
6
27587
1443
00:29
contain them, control them.
7
29030
3107
00:32
Over the years, as a prison system,
8
32137
2457
00:34
as a nation, and as a society,
9
34594
1821
00:36
we've become very good at that,
10
36415
1475
00:37
but that shouldn't make you happy.
11
37890
2120
00:40
Today we incarcerate more people per capita
12
40010
1700
00:41
than any other country in the world.
13
41710
2137
00:43
We have more black men in prison today
14
43847
1913
00:45
than were under slavery in 1850.
15
45760
2561
00:48
We house the parents of almost three million
16
48321
1760
00:50
of our community's children,
17
50081
1724
00:51
and we've become the new asylum,
18
51805
2020
00:53
the largest mental health provider in this nation.
19
53825
3037
00:56
When we lock someone up,
20
56862
1471
00:58
that is no small thing.
21
58333
1631
00:59
And yet, we are called the Department of Corrections.
22
59964
3158
01:03
Today I want to talk about
23
63122
1388
01:04
changing the way we think about corrections.
24
64510
2095
01:06
I believe, and my experience tells me,
25
66605
2059
01:08
that when we change the way we think,
26
68664
1709
01:10
we create new possibilities, or futures,
27
70373
2834
01:13
and prisons need a different future.
28
73207
2626
01:15
I've spent my entire career in corrections, over 30 years.
29
75833
3472
01:19
I followed my dad into this field.
30
79305
1480
01:20
He was a Vietnam veteran. Corrections suited him.
31
80785
3145
01:23
He was strong, steady, disciplined.
32
83930
3010
01:26
I was not so much any of those things,
33
86940
1440
01:28
and I'm sure that worried him about me.
34
88380
2399
01:30
Eventually I decided, if I was going to end up in prison,
35
90779
2843
01:33
I'd better end up on the right side of the bars,
36
93622
1321
01:34
so I thought I'd check it out,
37
94943
1707
01:36
take a tour of the place my dad worked,
38
96650
2270
01:38
the McNeil Island Penitentiary.
39
98920
2181
01:41
Now this was the early '80s,
40
101101
1710
01:42
and prisons weren't quite what you see
41
102811
1527
01:44
on TV or in the movies.
42
104338
1982
01:46
In many ways, it was worse.
43
106320
2520
01:48
I walked into a cell house that was five tiers high.
44
108840
2614
01:51
There were eight men to a cell.
45
111454
1625
01:53
there were 550 men in that living unit.
46
113079
2348
01:55
And just in case you wondered,
47
115427
1883
01:57
they shared one toilet in those small confines.
48
117310
3066
02:00
An officer put a key in a lockbox,
49
120376
1503
02:01
and hundreds of men streamed out of their cells.
50
121879
2542
02:04
Hundreds of men streamed out of their cells.
51
124421
1979
02:06
I walked away as fast as I could.
52
126400
2363
02:08
Eventually I went back and I started as an officer there.
53
128763
2598
02:11
My job was to run one of those cell blocks
54
131361
1797
02:13
and to control those hundreds of men.
55
133158
3161
02:16
When I went to work at our receptions center,
56
136319
1845
02:18
I could actually hear the inmates roiling from the parking lot,
57
138164
2726
02:20
shaking cell doors, yelling,
58
140890
2494
02:23
tearing up their cells.
59
143384
1674
02:25
Take hundreds of volatile people and lock them up,
60
145058
2364
02:27
and what you get is chaos.
61
147422
1764
02:29
Contain and control — that was our job.
62
149186
2773
02:31
One way we learned to do this more effectively
63
151959
2321
02:34
was a new type of housing unit
64
154280
1210
02:35
called the Intensive Management Unit, IMU,
65
155490
2703
02:38
a modern version of a "hole."
66
158193
1823
02:40
We put inmates in cells behind solid steel doors
67
160016
2522
02:42
with cuff ports so we could restrain them
68
162538
2281
02:44
and feed them.
69
164819
1341
02:46
Guess what?
70
166160
2337
02:48
It got quieter.
71
168497
1494
02:49
Disturbances died down in the general population.
72
169991
2497
02:52
Places became safer
73
172488
1351
02:53
because those inmates who were most violent or disruptive
74
173839
2600
02:56
could now be isolated.
75
176439
1425
02:57
But isolation isn't good.
76
177864
1731
02:59
Deprive people of social contact and they deteriorate.
77
179595
2829
03:02
It was hard getting them out of IMU,
78
182424
1935
03:04
for them and for us.
79
184359
2553
03:06
Even in prison, it's no small thing
80
186912
2469
03:09
to lock someone up.
81
189381
1986
03:11
My next assignment was to one of the state's deep-end prisons
82
191367
2554
03:13
where some of our more violent or disruptive inmates are housed.
83
193921
2935
03:16
By then, the industry had advanced a lot,
84
196856
1844
03:18
and we had different tools and techniques
85
198700
2058
03:20
to manage disruptive behavior.
86
200758
2037
03:22
We had beanbag guns and pepper spray
87
202795
2225
03:25
and plexiglass shields,
88
205020
1890
03:26
flash bangs, emergency response teams.
89
206910
2435
03:29
We met violence with force
90
209345
1864
03:31
and chaos with chaos.
91
211209
1461
03:32
We were pretty good at putting out fires.
92
212670
2527
03:35
While I was there, I met two experienced correctional workers
93
215197
3301
03:38
who were also researchers,
94
218498
1536
03:40
an anthropologist and a sociologist.
95
220034
3191
03:43
One day, one of them commented to me and said,
96
223225
1550
03:44
"You know, you're pretty good at putting out fires.
97
224775
2038
03:46
Have you ever thought about how to prevent them?"
98
226813
3834
03:50
I was patient with them,
99
230647
1977
03:52
explaining our brute force approach
100
232624
1309
03:53
to making prisons safer.
101
233933
1857
03:55
They were patient with me.
102
235790
1534
03:57
Out of those conversations grew some new ideas
103
237324
2177
03:59
and we started some small experiments.
104
239501
1896
04:01
First, we started training our officers in teams
105
241397
2401
04:03
rather than sending them one or two at a time to the state training academy.
106
243798
3242
04:07
Instead of four weeks of training, we gave them 10.
107
247040
2310
04:09
Then we experimented with an apprenticeship model
108
249350
2277
04:11
where we paired new staff with veteran staff.
109
251627
3573
04:15
They both got better at the work.
110
255200
2513
04:17
Second, we added verbal de-escalation skills
111
257713
2610
04:20
into the training continuum
112
260323
1890
04:22
and made it part of the use of force continuum.
113
262213
2737
04:24
It was the non-force use of force.
114
264950
2484
04:27
And then we did something even more radical.
115
267434
1602
04:29
We trained the inmates on those same skills.
116
269036
2310
04:31
We changed the skill set,
117
271346
2296
04:33
reducing violence, not just responding to it.
118
273642
3171
04:36
Third, when we expanded our facility, we tried a new type of design.
119
276813
3234
04:40
Now the biggest and most controversial component
120
280047
2705
04:42
of this design, of course, was the toilet.
121
282752
3677
04:46
There were no toilets.
122
286429
1689
04:48
Now that might not sound significant to you here today,
123
288118
2631
04:50
but at the time, it was huge.
124
290749
1385
04:52
No one had ever heard of a cell without a toilet.
125
292134
2113
04:54
We all thought it was dangerous and crazy.
126
294247
2248
04:56
Even eight men to a cell had a toilet.
127
296495
3107
04:59
That small detail changed the way we worked.
128
299602
2857
05:02
Inmates and staff started interacting
129
302459
1730
05:04
more often and openly and developing a rapport.
130
304189
3274
05:07
It was easier to detect conflict and intervene
131
307463
1833
05:09
before it escalated.
132
309296
1314
05:10
The unit was cleaner, quieter, safer and more humane.
133
310610
3636
05:14
This was more effective at keeping the peace
134
314246
2205
05:16
than any intimidation technique I'd seen to that point.
135
316451
3509
05:19
Interacting changes the way you behave,
136
319960
1428
05:21
both for the officer and the inmate.
137
321388
2106
05:23
We changed the environment and we changed the behavior.
138
323494
3150
05:26
Now, just in case I hadn't learned this lesson,
139
326644
1893
05:28
they assigned me to headquarters next,
140
328537
2410
05:30
and that's where I ran straight up against system change.
141
330947
2526
05:33
Now, many things work against system change:
142
333473
2569
05:36
politics and politicians, bills and laws,
143
336042
2109
05:38
courts and lawsuits, internal politics.
144
338151
2768
05:40
System change is difficult and slow,
145
340919
2070
05:42
and oftentimes it doesn't take you
146
342989
1542
05:44
where you want to go.
147
344531
1683
05:46
It's no small thing to change a prison system.
148
346214
4022
05:50
So what I did do is I reflected on my earlier experiences
149
350236
2674
05:52
and I remembered that when we interacted with offenders, the heat went down.
150
352910
3254
05:56
When we changed the environment, the behavior changed.
151
356164
1991
05:58
And these were not huge system changes.
152
358155
1789
05:59
These were small changes, and these changes
153
359944
1755
06:01
created new possibilities.
154
361699
2211
06:03
So next, I got reassigned as superintendent of a small prison.
155
363910
2707
06:06
And at the same time, I was working on my degree
156
366617
2259
06:08
at the Evergreen State College.
157
368876
2081
06:10
I interacted with a lot of people who were not like me,
158
370957
1993
06:12
people who had different ideas
159
372950
1370
06:14
and came from different backgrounds.
160
374320
1706
06:16
One of them was a rainforest ecologist.
161
376026
2596
06:18
She looked at my small prison and what she saw
162
378622
1750
06:20
was a laboratory.
163
380372
1786
06:22
We talked and discovered how prisons and inmates
164
382158
2925
06:25
could actually help advance science
165
385083
2032
06:27
by helping them complete projects
166
387115
1629
06:28
they couldn't complete on their own,
167
388744
1811
06:30
like repopulating endangered species:
168
390555
2318
06:32
frogs, butterflies, endangered prairie plants.
169
392873
3147
06:36
At the same time, we found ways to make
170
396020
1327
06:37
our operation more efficient
171
397347
1583
06:38
through the addition of solar power,
172
398930
2223
06:41
rainwater catchment, organic gardening, recycling.
173
401153
3530
06:44
This initiative has led to many projects
174
404683
2499
06:47
that have had huge system-wide impact,
175
407182
1702
06:48
not just in our system, but in other state systems as well,
176
408884
3343
06:52
small experiments making a big difference
177
412227
2196
06:54
to science, to the community.
178
414423
3052
06:57
The way we think about our work changes our work.
179
417475
3167
07:00
The project just made my job more interesting and exciting.
180
420642
3181
07:03
I was excited. Staff were excited.
181
423823
1957
07:05
Officers were excited. Inmates were excited.
182
425780
2010
07:07
They were inspired.
183
427790
1753
07:09
Everybody wanted to be part of this.
184
429543
1556
07:11
They were making a contribution, a difference,
185
431099
2319
07:13
one they thought was meaningful and important.
186
433418
2239
07:15
Let me be clear on what's going on here, though.
187
435657
1856
07:17
Inmates are highly adaptive.
188
437513
1743
07:19
They have to be.
189
439256
1672
07:20
Oftentimes, they know more about our own systems
190
440928
2761
07:23
than the people who run them.
191
443689
1981
07:25
And they're here for a reason.
192
445670
1651
07:27
I don't see my job as to punish them or forgive them,
193
447321
3286
07:30
but I do think they can have
194
450607
1263
07:31
decent and meaningful lives even in prison.
195
451870
2753
07:34
So that was the question:
196
454623
1577
07:36
Could inmates live decent and meaningful lives,
197
456200
3180
07:39
and if so, what difference would that make?
198
459380
3270
07:42
So I took that question back to the deep end,
199
462650
2897
07:45
where some of our most violent offenders are housed.
200
465547
2665
07:48
Remember, IMUs are for punishment.
201
468212
1631
07:49
You don't get perks there, like programming.
202
469843
2064
07:51
That was how we thought.
203
471907
1930
07:53
But then we started to realize that if any inmates
204
473837
2113
07:55
needed programming, it was these particular inmates.
205
475950
2287
07:58
In fact, they needed intensive programming.
206
478237
2186
08:00
So we changed our thinking 180 degrees,
207
480423
2338
08:02
and we started looking for new possibilities.
208
482761
2363
08:05
What we found was a new kind of chair.
209
485124
2538
08:07
Instead of using the chair for punishment,
210
487662
1946
08:09
we put it in classrooms.
211
489608
1670
08:11
Okay, we didn't forget our responsibility to control,
212
491278
3052
08:14
but now inmates could interact safely, face-to-face
213
494330
2229
08:16
with other inmates and staff,
214
496559
1646
08:18
and because control was no longer an issue,
215
498205
1635
08:19
everybody could focus on other things,
216
499840
2290
08:22
like learning. Behavior changed.
217
502130
2631
08:24
We changed our thinking, and we changed what was possible, and this gives me hope.
218
504772
4835
08:29
Now, I can't tell you that any of this stuff will work.
219
509607
2536
08:32
What I can tell you, though, it is working.
220
512143
2592
08:34
Our prisons are getting safer for both staff and inmates,
221
514735
3429
08:38
and when our prisons are safe,
222
518164
1394
08:39
we can put our energies into a lot more than just controlling.
223
519558
3455
08:43
Reducing recidivism may be our ultimate goal,
224
523013
2282
08:45
but it's not our only goal.
225
525295
1675
08:46
To be honest with you, preventing crime
226
526970
1756
08:48
takes so much more from so many more people
227
528726
1969
08:50
and institutions.
228
530695
1513
08:52
If we rely on just prisons to reduce crime,
229
532208
3268
08:55
I'm afraid we'll never get there.
230
535476
1958
08:57
But prisons can do some things
231
537434
1855
08:59
we never thought they could do.
232
539289
1676
09:00
Prisons can be the source of innovation
233
540965
2035
09:03
and sustainability,
234
543000
1381
09:04
repopulating endangered species and environmental restoration.
235
544381
3359
09:07
Inmates can be scientists and beekeepers,
236
547740
2645
09:10
dog rescuers.
237
550385
1760
09:12
Prisons can be the source of meaningful work
238
552145
2533
09:14
and opportunity for staff
239
554678
1957
09:16
and the inmates who live there.
240
556635
2341
09:18
We can contain and control
241
558976
2174
09:21
and provide humane environments.
242
561150
2123
09:23
These are not opposing qualities.
243
563273
2591
09:25
We can't wait 10 to 20 years to find out
244
565864
2301
09:28
if this is worth doing.
245
568165
1587
09:29
Our strategy is not massive system change.
246
569752
2694
09:32
Our strategy is hundreds of small changes
247
572446
1804
09:34
that take place in days or months, not years.
248
574250
3685
09:37
We need more small pilots where we learn as we go,
249
577935
3397
09:41
pilots that change the range of possibility.
250
581332
3001
09:44
We need new and better ways to measure impacts
251
584333
2089
09:46
on engagement, on interaction,
252
586422
1741
09:48
on safe environments.
253
588163
2016
09:50
We need more opportunities to participate in
254
590179
2320
09:52
and contribute to our communities,
255
592499
2172
09:54
your communities.
256
594671
2449
09:57
Prisons need to be secure, yes, safe, yes.
257
597120
3044
10:00
We can do that.
258
600164
983
10:01
Prisons need to provide humane environments
259
601147
2021
10:03
where people can participate, contribute,
260
603168
2067
10:05
and learn meaningful lives.
261
605235
1686
10:06
We're learning how to do that.
262
606921
1849
10:08
That's why I'm hopeful.
263
608770
1450
10:10
We don't have to stay stuck in old ideas about prison.
264
610220
2291
10:12
We can define that. We can create that.
265
612511
2464
10:14
And when we do that thoughtfully and with humanity,
266
614975
2450
10:17
prisons can be more than the bucket
267
617425
1937
10:19
for failed social policy.
268
619362
1589
10:20
Maybe finally, we will earn our title:
269
620951
3350
10:24
a department of corrections.
270
624301
1995
10:26
Thank you.
271
626296
2100
10:28
(Applause)
272
628396
2531
About this website

This site will introduce you to YouTube videos that are useful for learning English. You will see English lessons taught by top-notch teachers from around the world. Double-click on the English subtitles displayed on each video page to play the video from there. The subtitles scroll in sync with the video playback. If you have any comments or requests, please contact us using this contact form.

https://forms.gle/WvT1wiN1qDtmnspy7