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Religion in Corrections-National Institute of Corrections

February 3, 2016 by

Religion in Corrections-National Institute of Corrections

DC Public Safety Radio

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Radio Show available at http://media.csosa.gov/podcast/audio/2014/09/religion-corrections-national-institute-corrections/

Len Sipes: On the nation’s capital this is DC Public Safety. I am your host Leonard Sipes. Ladies and gentlemen today the topic is Religion in Corrections. We have Ronald G. Turner, JD and PhD with us today. Ron is a frequent speaker in inmate religious rights. He had led workshops on the topic at the 2011-2013 American Correctional Associations Annual Congress of Corrections. In May this year he was a panelist on the National Institute of Corrections two day training on Religion in Corrections. He led workshops sponsored by the National Institute of Corrections in Denver for the Chief and Legal Councils and Food Service Directors for Prison Systems across the Country. He has also presented on the topic for the American Correctional Chaplains Associations and Corrections Cooperation of America. Ron welcome to DC Public Safety.

Ronald G. Turner: Thanks Len I’m glad to be here.

Len Sipes: Ok, First of all before we get into the program the program is produced by the National Institution of Corrections specifically Donna Ledbetter we appreciate Donna producing of the show. Ron this, Religion Corrections has been called the hottest legal topic in Corrections today. Is that correct?

Ronald G. Turner: There is no question about it. Since January 1st of this year 238 law suits have been filled by inmates across the country in Federal Court asserting religions rights. That is almost one new law suit a day.

Len Sipes: Now that’s amazing, I mean when I was in mainstream corrections for the state of Maryland for 14 years it was, people were astounded because they said how do you spend your day and is it talking about rehabilitation, is it talking about security, is it talking about reentry and I said no, the bulk of our day is spent in talking about or dealing with inmate medical care because that was the hottest topic at the time 12 years ago and now the hottest legal topic in corrections today is religion that is astounding.

Ronald G. Turner: Well there have been some legal developments in the last 15 years that account for that. We have a long history of freedom of religion in this country and the population itself has exploded in the last 25 or 30 years. So there are a lot of reasons for it. Many people will hear that statistic and assume that 90% of those law suits are frivolous and ought to be thrown out, from my experience that is not the case. A number of them are not frivolous.

Len Sipes: In 2000 the US Congress passed the Religious Land Use and Industrialized Persons Act and in an article you wrote recently you summarize it three ways, that Government must have a very good reason to limit inmates sincere religious practice, limits on religion must be imposed as gently as possible and inmates may exercise their religion in ways not necessarily required by their faith. That is putting a big burden on Correctional Systems to interperate all this and to put it into play, correct?

Ronald G. Turner: Well it is and it is really tough to jump right into that because when you start digging into that language particularly to your prison or jail administrator. You would throw your hands up and say why won’t congress do this to us and we can get into those three aspects of the law and I need to say it is the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act, it is people who live in institutions primary prisons, jails and some hospitals.

Len Sipes: How important is religion in all of this. I interviewed an awful lot of chaplains either from the Islamic faith, from the Protestant, Catholic, Jewish faith throughout my career. I found my discussions with chaplains to be some of the most interesting in all the broadcasts that I have done on the American Criminal Justice System. They all seem to assert that religion is extraordinarily important for reentry for coming out, to maintain themselves while in Correctional Institutions. So religion is an integral part of the Correctional System and always has been from its very roots. Is that correct?

Ronald G. Turner: Absolutely, and we have a number of studies that have been done. My own PhD dissertation dealt with the impact of religious faith and spirituality on inmates particularly while they are incarcerated and you’re exactly right. It makes a difference while they are inside and once they get out and here again there is a stereotype from the movies that you know inmate find religion in prison and then they lose it the day they walk out the gates. That happens to some folks but it very often is a very real and sincere aspect of the lives both in and out.

Len Sipes: You have received your Law Degree and Masters in Theology studies as well as a PhD in Public Administration from Tennessee State University. You have quite a background in terms of looking at it from a theological point of view as well as the legal point of view so it seems as if you are the top person to talk to in terms of what happens in correctional systems and the topic of religion.

Ronald G. Turner: Well I appreciate it and let me just say that my Law Degree and my Masters of Theological studies were from Vanderbilt International and then I got the PhD at a later stage in life in Tennessee State but I think one thing that I bring to this, first of all I have a deep interest in it and an abiding interest in it but I have been a college Professor. I taught college for seven years. I practiced law for over 20 years and I do have the theological training as well as the PhD so I can talk to votes recruiters, like everybody who is sitting around the table when this issue comes up. From Correctional Officers and wardens to chaplains, their academics to commissioners and it is a fascinating topic. I think, frankly I am not surprised that it is as hot as it is because the law that we are talking about we will get into in a minute has been on the book since 2000. A US Supreme Court upheld its constitutionality in 2005 and inmates from my experience all over the country are familiar with the law and they are becoming more and more willing to assert their rights under the law. I think a number of prison systems have been a little bit slow to catch up to it but now they are being overrun by it. Particularly if you talk to any of the attorneys who have worked in the prison systems all over the country, they are spending lots of time on these law suits.

Len Sipes: I just want to remind all of our listeners that the Program Religion and Corrections is available at the National Institute of Corrections website. It is www.nicic.gov if you simply search for religion you will find the seminar on Religion and Corrections on the National Institute of Corrections website. Ron before we go onto the specifics of the program I do want to return to the importance of religion. I mean we run, we at the Court Services and Offenders Supervision Agency run a fairly substantial faith based initiative and we pretty much recognize that the faith community really is an integral, very important component in terms of people leaving the prison system, coming out in terms of being gathered and mentored to and helped by the faith based community they provide. In some cases clothing, shelter, substance abuse, alcohol, remediation. There are a lot of services the faith community offers both inside and outside the prison system so again the role of faith was an integral part of the American prison experience from the very beginning as it is now. So let’s talk a little bit more about that importance.

Ronald G. Turner: Well there is no question that what you are saying is exactly right. I do want to specify or mention the fact that one of the purposes of this law we call it RALUPA, Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act. One of the purposes of it being passed was to protect the religious right of all institutionalized persons and I probably will refer to them for the rest of the program as inmates because we are talking primarily of prisons and jails.

Len Sipes: Yes.

Ronald G. Turner: So its inmates of minority religious faiths that are protected as well as Christian and other inmates of larger faith groups and the congress was very specific about that when they passed the law.

Len Sipes: But it is interesting in terms of the role of chaplain’s, I was reading in an article that you created that the role of chaplains also has to be their insistence that everybody is taken care of. The role of prison chaplains is to see that religious rights of inmate of all faiths are protected. So in essence that means that regardless to your religious orientation the chaplain is responsible for everybody within that institution to be sure that their religious faith is protected.

Ronald G. Turner: Well unless that responsibility has been assigned by the warden to someone else and usually it is not, it is usually the chaplains responsibility and from my experience as Director of Religious Services here in Tennessee for five years that is probably the most challenging aspect of being a prison chaplain because certainly, you know Tennessee is a conservative state. We have 16 state paid chaplains in 14 institutions and they are all Christians. Some would call themselves evangelical Christians and they make no bones about the fact that they were called to the ministry to save, you know to bring people to Jesus which is fine outside the prison setting or even inside the prison setting if the inmate comes to the chaplain and says tell me, you know tell me about your faith. Then the doors open but if a chaplain of any faith Christian, Jewish, Buddhist, you name it starts imposing their faith on inmates, if they are getting their pay check from the state that is where you have some constitutional problems.

Len Sipes: You know back in Maryland, this would be fairly stereotypical. I remember these conversations, do we allow certain people who use marijuana within religious ceremonies, do you allow marijuana to be used as part of this religious ceremony. There are some American Indians who fervently believe that smoke lodges or sweat lodges are an integral part of their religion so the question was do you allow sweat lodges, do you allow the use of marijuana. It is far more complex than that correct?

Ronald G. Turner: Well it is but with regard to that example there is a pretty simple answer. The Government has a compelling Governmental interest in plain English and a really good reason to maintain safety and security in the prisons. That compelling governmental interest is a reason to impair an individual’s religious practice. So even if a Native American has a sincere belief that they need marijuana or that they want marijuana in their religious practice, it won’t be allowed because it is a risk to institution safety and security. Safety and Security will always trump religious faith.

Len Sipes: Prisons are the very epitome of the word institution so they run in a very bureaucrat round peg in round hole sort of approach. They are cities to themselves; I have been in and out of prisons that have held over 2000 inmates. These are very large structures. When you start talking about individualized diets, a vegetarian diet or a non pork diet or the allowance of a particular religious ceremony or the length of an inmate’s hair, these are all things that the prison system has a hard time dealing with because they are used to walking in lock step. Again if it is not round peg in round hole they really don’t know what to do. When I was reading your article you were advising chaplains who work closely with attorneys for the state prison systems and again that the law says that institutions need to tread as lightly as possible on the religious right of individualized inmates. So prison systems are now required, as long as they do not have an impact on the security of the institutions to provide individuals with services that formerly were not provided.

Ronald G. Turner: Let me comment. I generally agree with what you just said. Safety and security is a compelling governmental interest and across the board it is. But we at the institution have to be sincere when we say there is a safety and security issue. Let’s use sweat lodges as an example and I suppose everyone listening knows what a sweat lodge is. It is essentially a structure that is constructed and used by Native Americans but there is some other groups that use them and they will have a fire outside and they will heat lots of rocks and bring the rocks inside and create, essentially it’s like a sauna and they will stay in there, the inmates will stay in there and its dark, for maybe four hours and it is a spiritual experience for them. It is a genuine and sincere spiritual experience but there are obviously some security aspects to it. It is dark, there are many time they want to go in without any clothes on and so forth. As a result some states allow sweat lodges and some states don’t allow sweat lodges even though RALUPA is a Federal Law that was passed by congress. It is enforced in all 50 states. It applies to all prisons and jails and other institutions that receive federal funds so that will be 99% of them. The Supreme Court has never ruled on the question of sweat lodges so what we have is Appellate Courts what we call the Circuit Courts of Appeals ruling in different ways on sweat lodges. Some are saying it is a security risk, we can’t allow it and others are saying well they are ways we can modify to protect the security risk and so we are going to allow and so it a pretty important rules on that question, that we are going to have a split circuit on that question. We have splits on a number of questions prayer oil, length of hair and beards, diet and that is one reason the job is so difficult right now of chaplains and prison officials enforcing the law because the provisions, there are provisions in the law that just have not been clarified by the Supreme Court but there is a case coming up later this year and we can talk about that later that might answer some questions.

Len Sipes: Our topic today ladies and gentleman is Religion in Corrections our guest is Ronald G. Turner extraordinarily qualified he has his Law Degree and his Masters Degree in Theological studies as well as a PhD from Tennessee State University. The program has been arranged and produced by the National Institute of Corrections and there is a seminar Religion in Corrections on the National Institute of Corrections website www.nicic.gov. The email address for Ron is rturn787@gmail.com. Ron okay so religion in corrections, you are dealing with prison populations, you’re dealing with the United States history but you are dealing with the first amendment that says the freedom of religion shall not be interfered with, shall not be infringed I think.

Ronald G. Turner: Yeah, the exact language is Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof what we call the establishment clause and free exercise clause that basically says we will not have an official state sponsored religion in this country. Likewise the government is not going to come in and tell you how to worship. Now that is a broad brush explanation of it but if I could I would like to take just a second and get into the reasons that congress passed this law in 2000 in the first place because it has created a lot of activity. In the 90s in the early 1990s congress held some hearings to find out whether religious, whether inmates in prisons and jails and folks who lived in other institutions were suffering religious abuse. Either they were not allowed to practice their own religion or another religion was being imposed on them. They found wind spread abuse. They found what they call arbitrary and capricious abuse. In other words there were time that things were denied to the people and there was no reason for it as a result. Congress passed a law in 1993 called the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, actually it was much broader then just applying to prisons and hospitals but the purpose of it was to expand the religious protection of virtually all citizens under the first amendment. Four years later 1997, the Supreme Court struck down that law and said it only applied to Federal Institutions, it did not apply to the states. Okay. So you essentially have a see saw battle going back and forth here between congress and the Supreme Court. Congress did not like that, they are big supporters of freedom of religion and so a new law was prepared called the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act and Congress passed it in 2000 and I want to read a quote the co-sponsors of that law in 2000 were Ted Kennedy and Oran Hatch they were the co-sponsors in the Senate. Ted Kennedy said this about that law. The pioneers who founded America came here to practice their faith free from government interference convinced of the need to assure that all Americans at all times, the right to practice their religion unencumbered of course Senator Kennedy was a Catholic Democrat, Liberal. Senator Hatch conservative Republic Mormon from Utah had this to say. This law is important for the preservation of religious freedom of all American people especially those who’s religious beliefs and practices differ from the majority. It is pretty clear from their statements they were wanting to protect their religious freedom of everybody specifically the minority religious groups. So they passed RALUPA. Many people say why in the world does it have such a crazy name. well in addition to dealing with institutionalized persons the same law deals with religious discrimination in zoning matters and in a nut shell that comes up where a group of people buy a piece of property. They want to put up a church but it is not zoned for a church or a temple or a synagogue. They go to the local zoning authority or city council and they submit their application that covered everything in the application that anybody else would cover, it is in good form and so forth and the application is denied. It is pretty obvious that it has been denied because of religious discrimination. Well congress did not like that either so in the same law they dealt with that type of thing and it is way beyond the scope of our program but that is why it has such a fun name.

Len Sipes: It says in plain English the law says before we substantially limit inmate religious exercise we need a really good reason. The inmate must be sincere but the request need not be required by the inmate’s faith. So it is almost a self imposed by the inmate you know you could be a Roman Catholic but not follow the tenants of Catholicism and you could come up with your own interpretation of what they believe Catholicism is. Is that correct?

Ronald G. Turner: You are putting your finger on what I think is probably the toughest part RALUPA. Let me go back, this is what RALUPA requires and I want to talk about each component for just a second and of course this is not the legalese you can pull up the statue itself if you want to but in plain English congress is telling us that before we, and that is prisons and jails, sustainably limit an inmate’s religious exercise we need a really good reason. So the first things we might say is well we did not substantially limit the inmates exercises, the problem with that or in using that is that courts had not interpreted the word substantial in a very different way than we might off the top of our heads and many times they will find a burden on an inmate’s religious exercise to be substantial when we would say “What? Are you kidding?” So be careful if you are going to use lack of substantiality as a basis for denying a request. Secondly, it only applies to religious exercise so we can so well, this does not deal with religion. A Native American wants a feather, what does that have to do with religion. It has a lot to do with that Native Americans religion so here again before you deny a request saying a) this is not religious you better get your lawyers involved and let them do some research and find out what the cases have said about, you know what is religious. Another aspect of the law as it says before we burden religious exercise we need a compelling governmental entrance or in plain English a really good reason. Safety and security is a classic example of a really good reason because obviously the government has a compelling interest in maintaining safe and secure prisons but just as the inmate must be sincere when they submit a request to us and they do have to be sincere, we have to be sincere when we say no you can’t have it and the cases in the last few years have taken an interesting turn up until a few years ago when a prison official, a warden or a commissioner got up on the witness stand the Judge would usually defer to their professional opinion and say you are the expert, you know how to run prisons we don’t. We will defer to your judgment. Now under RALUPA if the prison system denies a request based on Safety and Security they courts are now saying, tell me why Warden or Commissioner why is it a Safety and Security issue and what alternatives did you look at because not only did congress tell us that we can’t substantially limit an inmate’s religious exercise it says if we do limit a religious exercise it has to be in the least restrictive way or the gentlest way and I can give an example of that. Let’s say you have this Native American inmate who wants a feather, I mentioned that before, and so we say you can’t have any feathers, no feather whatsoever they are a safety and security risk and a feather can be because you can stab somebody with one right. What is the most restrictive response we can give is you can’t have any feathers, no feathers and absolute no is the most restrictive response. What would be less restricted from that, what we might say, what might we say.

Len Sipes: Well I don’t know because either you provide feathers or you don’t provide feathers it seems to me to be fairly straight forward.

Ronald G. Turner: Okay well we could say small feathers. The reason a feather is a risk is because it is big enough and sturdy enough to stab somebody. Let’s say you can have feathers six inches or smaller. That is allowing some feathers, so in other words you are not saying absolutely no feathers which was the most restrictive response you are giving a less restrictive response by saying you can have small feathers.

Len Sipes: I do find this fascinating this law makes the world of difference from past years because the burden was on the inmate and now it’s on us so as you said.

Ronald G. Turner: That is exactly right.

Len Sipes: So as you just said. The warden goes in the court and in the past the court would defer to the warden, you are the expert we are not, you tell us. Now the burden is on us to prove that we are providing for the constitutionality of that religious service.

Ronald G. Turner: As long as the inmate is sincere and it deals with religion then the inmates gets it unless we can show compelling ways in why they shouldn’t and most of the time that is going to be safety and security that is 180 degrees different than the law before RALUPA.

Len Sipes: Yes it is.

Ronald G. Turner: It has turned being a chaplain in prison on its head. A number of chaplains are retiring now because this is not what the bargained for. It is not what they came in to do. Even those who want to minister to inmates of all faiths find it much more difficult now than before. In the good old days of pre RALUPA if an inmate came into your office and said, if a Buddhist came into your office before 2000 and asked for something you would pull your book off the shelf, a handbook of religious practices and you turn to the chapter on Buddhism and you might, let’s say he wants a meditation mat, you find in their meditation mat is approved so you can say yeah you can have it. If it wasn’t on the list he would not get it.

Len Sipes: It’s relying, I go back to a point that I made before and this is something from the 14 years when I was with the State of Maryland these monolithic institutions, it is almost impossible to make these individualized decisions to protect the rights of individuals. it is a burden beyond all comprehension because to run that institution and to run it on a budget at a fairly low budget, you have got to run things a certain way and now it is saying no, the burden is upon us, the burden is upon the state to protect the constitutional religious rights of the inmates and that may mean a whole host of individualized decisions to allow that inmate to practice his faith in a way that he thinks is valid, as long as he is “sincere”. That is a huge burden on correctional facilities and I understand why chaplains are having a hard time with it.

Ronald G. Turner: There is no question about it and it is one reason there are so many law suits pending right now. You mentioned meals. Religion in correction is the hottest topic, meals under religion in prisons is the hottest part of the topic right now particularly kosher meals and halal for muslim inmates and so forth and the courts are going all over the place with regard to whether we are required to provide kosher meals. The big question is which inmates are entitled to have kosher meals. Most courts are saying under RALUPA, you don’t have to have been Jewish on the outside to go through a conversion process and this applies not only to Jewish inmates but inmates of any faith. If you can sincerely show a religious basis for requesting the meal, let’s say kosher, you get it.

Len Sipes: We only have a minute left and I don’t want to leave this out. Hope versus Hobbes is an upcoming Supreme Court process.

Ronald G. Turner: O yes.

Len Sipes: Give me a 45 second submission of Hope versus Hobbes.

Ronald G. Turner: Hope versus Hobbes is going to be insured by the Supreme Court later this year so the first Supreme Court case under RALUPA since 2005 it is a beard case out of the eight circuits where the prison said you can’t have any beards for religious reasons. Well the court of appeals agreed with the Trial Court based on the fact that 39 other States now allow beards under RALUPA. My best prediction is the Supreme Court will allow beards. The question is whether the court will use this case as an opportunity to interpret some of these other ambiguous areas of RALUPA. It bears watching because the Supreme Court can answer a whole lot of these questions later this year if they want to.

Len Sipes: And the complexity that is going to go along with it for correctional administrators it is an amazing topic Ron.

Ronald G. Turner: Well it is fascinating.

Len Sipes: Quickly.

Ronald G. Turner: as I tell folks, federal judges are interested in protecting constructional rights and running the prison many times they will say that is the legislature’s problem or the executor’s problem.

Len Sipes: Alright Ron I’m going to stop you there. Ladies and Gentleman our guest today, it has been a fascinating conversation with Ronald G. Turner, PhD and JD we were talking about Religion within Correctional Institutions Ladies and Gentleman this is DC Public Safety we appreciate your comments. We even appreciate your criticisms so we want everybody to have themselves a very pleasant day.

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How Effective Is Correctional Education?

March 3, 2014 by

Welcome to “DC Public Safety” – Radio and television shows, blog and transcripts on crime, criminal offenders and the criminal justice system.

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Radio Program available at http://media.csosa.gov/podcast/audio/2014/02/how-effective-is-effective-correctional-education/

[Audio Begins]

Len Sipes: From the nation’s capital, this is DC Public Safety. I’m your host, Leonard Sipes. Ladies and gentlemen, an extraordinarily good program, How Effective Is Correctional Education and Where Do We Go to From Here? A new research report from the Rand Corporation and the US Department of Justice by our microphones today is Lois Davis, she’s a senior policy researcher for the Rand Corporation and John Litton, he is Director of Correctional Education for the US Department of Education. I want to very briefly read a synopsis of this report. The study’s key findings is that correctional education is effective in terms of reducing recidivism for incarcerated adults and there is some evidence that it’s also effective, especially for vocational education in terms of improving a person’s likelihood of post-release employment. Every dollar spent on correctional education, $5 is saved. John and Lois, welcome to DC Public Safety.

Lois Davis: Thank you.

John Litton: Thank you Leonard.

Len Sipes: Alright Lois, the first question goes to you. A very prestigious report, you have briefed folks at the capital and you’ve just come from the White House, and we’re honored, White House to DC Public Safety. I’m not quite sure if that’s too big of a step down from the White House. But you briefed Congress; you briefed the White House, what were your primary thoughts about the briefing, and give me a sense as to the report itself.

Lois Davis: Well, I was very pleased with the turnout. It was impressive that there was quite a range of representation across, not just within Congressional staff, but also outside of Congress. And so, it clearly says that they idea of correctional education resonates with a lot of different people. One of the main messages that we wanted people to understand for this report is, once we really look at the effectiveness of correctional education that it’s important to understand that indeed it is effective in reducing recidivism, improving post-release employment and outcomes, but also it’s cost effective. So the debate moving forward should no longer be about whether or not it’s effective, it’s really about what can we do to move the field forward, and where can we fill in our gaps in our knowledge.

Len Sipes: John Litton, you’ve been involved in correctional education for an awfully long time, you and I worked together in the state of Maryland with the US Department of Education. This report is very important to the US Department of Education, correct.

John Litton: Yes, we’re very pleased to have the benefit of this report. It was mandated by Congress and the Bureau of Justice Assistance did a competitive process to award the opportunity to do the report, do the whole study to the Rand Corporation. The Rand folks did an excellent job and the findings are very interesting and we think quite compelling.

Len Sipes: Now the research indicates there was a 13% overall reduction in recidivism, which is extraordinarily important, but I do want to point out that I’ve seen reports, Maryland was one, three-state survey was done about 20 years ago now, where you had a 20% reduction in recidivism. So you’re going to get variances in terms of the individual pieces of research that you looked at Lois, so some are going to be higher, some are going to be lower, yours averaged out to be 13%.

Lois Davis: Yes, in fact one of the things we did was a systematic look at the studies that have been published all the way back from 2008 to the present. And 1980 to the present. And so what we’re doing is using a meta-analysis, which is a statistical technique to synthesize results across studies. And so to give a single estimate. So if we look at correctional education for the United States, I think our study shows that on average, within the United States, that you can expect a 13-percentage point reduction in the risk of recidivating. Another way that translates, which is a dramatic number, that also means that’s a 43% reduction of the odds of recidivating. So that alone I think is compelling evidence about its effectiveness.

Len Sipes: Now one of the interesting things that I find is that it doesn’t take a lot, and I’m getting this now, the Washington State Public Policy Institute did a little research a little while ago talking about what percentage of reduction it takes to be cost effective in, in any jurisdiction. They looked at, not research in just the state of Washington, but research throughout the country. And one of the things that I found from that research and one of the things that I’m getting from your research is that it doesn’t take a whole heck of a lot in terms of that percentage reduction for it to be cost effective, so it’s almost foolproof, it is not in terms of returning more dollars than it takes?

Lois Davis: That’s a really good point. When we look at it from a cost effectiveness analysis, what you see is that breakeven, so in other words, for the cost of a correction education programs to be break even in terms of the cost of incarceration, you only need a reduction of about 1-2 percentage points. But indeed we’re showing that it’s a 13-percentage point reduction.

Len Sipes: Right.

Lois Davis: So it’s a significant payback, so to speak, in terms of your return on investment.

Len Sipes: So John what we’re talking about is, you know, people say 13%, well Leonard, son of a gun, that doesn’t seem that high to me, the cost effectiveness part of it I understand, but what we’re talking about is if you extrapolate and apply this to all 50 states, if you can somehow, someway apply it to jails, you’re talking about literally hundreds of thousands, eventually millions of crimes not committed, correct?

John Litton: Yes, crime reduction as well as the cost benefit and one thing I just wanted to add to Lois’ comment is that incarceration is very expensive. So anything that we can do that reduces future incarceration, even a small percentage, can really payoff financially. So there’s been a tendency in recent years to disinvest treatment programs, putting more and more money into the bricks and mortar aspect of corrections, and I think that it’s time that we took stock of that and realized that very small investments and effective treatment programs can really be a good return on the taxpayer’s dollar.

Len Sipes: Well, speaking of the taxpayer’s dollar, the other point that I wanted to make is that we are talking about the potential for saving, again, states, not just crimes, but savings the states hundreds of millions, eventually billions of dollars if you can take that 13% recidivism rate and again, it’s going to be higher in some studies, lower in other studies, but if you can take that 13%, extrapolate it, you’re talking about saving states a tremendous amount of money.

John Litton: Very significant savings.

Len Sipes: Ok, now the question goes to either one of you. Because John mentioned it a couple seconds ago. There seems to be a disinvestment in correctional education and that doesn’t surprise me. We just went through a tremendous recession, states are really upset as to all the money that they have to throw in to their correctional systems, they find it to be burdensome, the challenge that they’ve placed upon all of us in the criminal justice system is to find a better way of doing it, so the fiscal burden on the states will not be that much. So they have cut back though. And that does create a significant conundrum for the rest of us, right?

Lois Davis: That’s exactly true, and in fact, one of the things when we started the study is that in our discussions with state correctional educational directors and others, it was clear that the recession had a huge impact. So what we did is we fielded a national survey that really allows us to get a picture, what is correctional education look like today, but also to get a sense of what the impact of the recession was. So for example, what we see is that states had a dramatic in reduction correctional education budgets, particularly in large and medium-sized states. By large and medium, I mean states that have the largest prison populations. And so the results of that were actually a contraction in the capacity of the academic programs within the system.

Len Sipes: Fewer people got programs that were necessary.

Lois Davis: That’s exactly right.

Len Sipes: Now one of the things that puzzles me again, the question goes out to either one, but John you would be the most logical person to take this. From my 25 years in terms of dealing with correctional operations, correctional programs keep prisons safe, do they not?

John Litton: I believe that’s true, yes.

Len Sipes: That’s not one of the points of the research, but when I dealt with, throughout my time, my 14 years with the Maryland Department of Public Safety, it was always emphasized to me by wardens, by assistant wardens, by security chiefs, that the more programs that you had inside of that prison, the calmer that prison was, the less violence occurred and made it a safer place of everybody. The correctional officers, the correctional staff and the inmates. Is that a correct observation?

John Litton: Well, I’m not a corrections expert, I’m more of the education person but I certainly personally believe that that’s true and I think it’s important that people be engaged in productive activity. If incarcerated individual and persons incarcerated for an extended period of time limited physical opportunities, limited mental opportunities, limited opportunities for social development, the opportunities for that returning citizen to come out and be productive and be productively engaged, common sense would say that it’s diminished. So it’s important that there be a range of constructive opportunities during the period of incarceration. I think it’s important also in terms of the message that we’re giving to the incarcerated population, that we really do have expectations for a positive outcome and that we believe that investing in you as a person that’s being prepared to return to free society, that we expect you to take advantage of those opportunities and to be engaged in a positive way when you’re released from incarceration.

Len Sipes: Lois, please.

Lois Davis: I’d also like to add to that it’s been interesting to see that as we talk to correctional officials across the country that they see correctional education as a really good news story. To them, it’s a program that they point to as being a real success, both in terms of increasing safety and security within the system, but also in terms of ultimately being able to point for example, to GED completion rates as a good news story for them. So they too recognize the importance of an education.

Len Sipes: Now I’ve been talking to folks at the Department of Education and I’ve said that I was going to do this radio program and one of things that we were talking about was this, and you touched upon it in your report, is that distance learning, remote learning seems to be just as effective as classroom learning. And I understand that has an awful lot of implications, but some people envision a centralized location in the state of educators, pumping information in to every prison in that state, thereby dramatically expanding the capacity of correctional education or vocational education. Right now, we’re in the process here at Court Services and Offender Supervision Agency, of learning green screen television production. There is a company out there called Linda.com, that has the most wonderful pieces of video, instructing you on every little detail, every little piece of doing green screen television. It’s transcribed, so you can print that transcription so you have something to read. Long distance education seems to be taking prominence now and if it’s just as effective, or close to being just as effective as classroom education, isn’t there the possibility that every state can do that, provide vocational and educational opportunities throughout their state system through long distance learning. Anybody want to take a shot at that?

Lois Davis: I actually wanted to; in the report where we look at it is the effect of computer-assisted instruction. And we do see that we don’t detect a difference for example, between an outcome of say reading the math scores for those that receive computer assisted instruction, versus those that receive traditional instruction. Now, when we think about distance learning, there’s a lot of potential there, but it doesn’t necessarily replace the need for the face to face interaction, the one on one interaction with instructors, so there’s a real need for us to really look at some innovative examples out there and try to assess really where the capacity is for improving the capabilities of distance learning.

Len Sipes: John, is it everybody in the ballpark when they’re saying to themselves, maybe we can get everybody involved if we do long-distance learning because we’re never going to be able to afford the classroom capacity? Is that right or wrong or should we be looking at it that way?

John Litton: I think there’s, we definitely need to be looking at that question and I don’t think it’s an easy answer. But one of the things that happened in corrections is that there have been many security concerns about access to the internet and most distance learning is internet enabled, and I think there’s some feeling that perhaps we can move past the security issues, we have some solutions for the security issues. And that might rather quickly open many new possibilities for using distance learning. So as Lois has said, we really need to take a, have an open mind in terms of doing some pilot programs and doing some research and studying the effectiveness. There definitely is importance for social learning. We don’t think that just replacing interaction in a classroom, interaction with a teacher, interaction with other learners with a computer is probably the end all and the be all, but we certainly think that technology is being under-utilized in correctional environments and it’s a great potential to use our resources more effectively by using distance-learning resources and certainly as you were pointing out Leonard, when people need some of these technology skills to be effective in our communities today, because the world has changed, so it’s a really, really important area. One that was given quite a bit of emphasis in the report and we’re quite excited about following up on that.

Len Sipes: The interesting thing is that every correctional administrator that I’ve ever talked to and every parole and probation administrator that I’ve ever talked to has said I would wish and pray that there was a certain point where everybody in, who’s incarcerated had that opportunity to go and get their GED, get their 8th grade certificate, learn how to read, learn how to write, go to brick laying class, and come out fully equipped, fully skilled. If every correctional administrator in this country, I can’t speak for them all, the ones that I’ve talked to at least, seems to be very supportive of correctional education, if every parole and probation administrator, and again I haven’t talked to them all, but every one that I have talked to has said this, if everybody is so supportive of this, then why isn’t it more expansive and more extensive than what it actually is?

Lois Davis: Well, I just wanted to comment a little bit about that. When you talk to the educators, they would say that that kind of the security concerns about access to the internet kind of a drive a lot of the decisions about whether or not they can, the extent to which they can use computer technology in the classroom. Now, there’s good simulated internet programs that allow you to address giving access to some of the online courses for inmates to get the experience of using the internet-based system, without it actually being the real internet. So that’s an important step that we need to make, we need to advertise more broadly, that is available. Because the security concerns are definitely one that are constantly in the background of the decision making about this area.

Len Sipes: We’re more than half way through the program. The program today is How Effective Is Correctional Education and Where Do We Go to From Here, done by the Rand Corporation and the Bureau of Justice Assistance to the US Department of Justice. Our guests today are Lois Davis; she’s a senior policy researcher for the Rand Corporation. John Litton is Director of Correctional Education for the US Department of Education. So the real concern seems to me to be this, we are all supportive of this, those of us in the correctional field. Is there really a disagreement that somehow, someway be it remote, or be it in person, that this needs to be offered to virtually every person that occupies that prison bed?

Lois Davis: That’s, you know, the survey that we did was, we asked the question, in your state, is correctional education mandatory or is voluntary? And what we learned, particularly for individuals for example who had less than an 8th grade education or lower levels of educational attainment, indeed in most states, it is mandatory. But for the bulk of inmates, it is something they can self-select into. And so we don’t really see it as something that should be part of a core piece of the rehabilitative process that we require everyone to participate in. But it is definitely something that many people can benefit from.

Len Sipes: My problem is that in so many instances when I take a look at substance abuse, when I take a look at mental health, I’m finding the numbers to be very small, in terms of the people who actually go through substance abuse or even mental health treatment within the incarcerated setting. In some cases, those figures turn out to be 10 or 15%. Again, I understand that there are some states that push that to 20 or 30%, but in most state system and most research that I’ve seen, the numbers are fairly small. Do we have a sense as to what percentage of inmates within the incarcerated setting within prisons are actually getting vocational and educational programs? Do we have that sense?

Lois Davis: You know, we do know that it’s the story where you have basically; most correctional systems offer correctional education, particularly GED, adult basic education. To a lesser degree, for example, post secondary education or vocational training, but then the flip side of that is so how many inmates within that system actually get access to those programs. And that’s where there is a disparity. The recession really did reduce the capacity of the number of inmates to go through these programs, and so the fact that we’re seeing less offerings available, I think is something to be concerned about. But the numbers vary from state to state in terms of the percentage of inmates who are participating in these programs.

Len Sipes: When you talk to people at Congress, when you talk to people within the White House, did they seem to understand the importance of doing this and the importance of what it would mean, both at the state and federal level in terms of fewer expenditures, fewer crimes committed? Do they really understand the implications of the research?

Lois Davis: Yes, it’s actually been very gratifying to see the response. It really is an opportune time, because with the focus at the federal level now on re-entry and understanding what programs we really need in place individuals, this is really the great timing in terms of attention being paid to; let’s think about what programs are effective. And so our report has been very well received and I know that we’ve heard anecdotally for example it’s informed strategic planning both within the Department of Justice as well as the Department of Education and in other areas. I think people really are getting it.

Len Sipes: People in supervision have sat by these microphones in the 11 years in my being here, and 14 years with the state of Maryland I’ve interviewed hundreds of people who were currently caught up in the criminal justice system. To a person, they have said it’s the programs that have helped them cross that bridge, as I like to put it, to a crime lifestyle to a crime free lifestyle. Going from tax burden to tax payer. The programs always seem to be the bedrock. Now they had to have the motivation and they had to really believe in themselves and really believe in a future beyond drugs and beyond crime, but the programs helped them cross that bridge, the programs helped them become the people they are today. I mean, they’re in the community, they’re supporting themselves, they’re supporting their children, they’re being good community members because they went to a brick laying class in the Maryland prison system, John. I hear that all the time. So talk to me about that, the importance to the individuals caught up in the criminal justice system with these programs.

John Litton: Well, I think you’ve said it Len. We’ve heard from so many individuals that really do attest to the fact that an opportunity really meant something to them, really did make a difference in their life. One thing that we’ve been focusing on a little bit more recently and I’m proudest of the work we’ve done on this is that we’ve realized that many people come out of prison and really face tremendous obstacles in terms of moving directly into employment, and so we’ve been focusing somewhat on opportunities to continue education post-release and use their association with educational agencies and institutions entities to make the bridge to employment. That our traditional model had been that we would take care of the educational needs during the period of incarceration, the person would be job-ready when they come out and I think we have a little bit more of a nuanced view of that now. And I think it’s important that we encourage our returning citizens to continue to be involved in educational programs and educational institutions. I really think it can make a difference for individuals.

Len Sipes: What I was surprised of in terms of reading the report was the number of states participating in collegiate programs. Now I understand that this brings a certain level of controversy. And I remember college programs, and we used to advertise them in the state of Maryland put out a press release and then people would call me and yell at me. As to why we’re giving this guy a college education and why he can’t afford to give his own kids a college education, so I understand its implications and I understand the controversy. Yet college programs were in what, Lois, how many states? Is it 32 states had college programs?

Lois Davis: Yes, something like that. Yes.

Len Sipes: And I find that amazing. I didn’t realize it was that extensive, and there is research out there that says that collegiate programs are some of the most powerful programs in terms of getting people to create for themselves a crime-free lifestyle.

Lois Davis: Yes, and two things that I want to say about that. One is it’s important to recognize that when we think about college programs, those are usually paid by the inmates’ families. Or by family finances or in some cases foundations. It’s not necessarily that we’re using federal dollars for those college courses and to a little bit of extent, we use state dollars, but I think it’s important for people to realize that it’s really the inmate and their family that are trying to support those efforts. The other point I wanted to make is that one of things that is really encouraging is that it’s not simply college courses, but it’s really there’s a movement now that’s happening in various states, various initiatives to provide college courses that are going to lay the foundation working towards a degree. And I think that’s important, so it’s not simply a course here, a course there, but it’s really thinking about a program that will allow this individual to works towards an AA degree or a BA degree and that is something that is very encouraging.

Len Sipes: Let’s was philosophical in terms of the remaining moments of the program. You’ve got great reception at the White House; you got great reception in Congress, every correctional administrator that I’ve ever encountered, every parole and probation administrator supports these programs very, very strongly. We do have an emphasis on re-entry, within this administration and within previous administrations. There seems to be an across the board support for these sort of programs from both sides of the aisle, so it’s no longer republican or democratic, we’re getting very strong support from both parties in terms of getting the biggest possible bang for the tax paid dollar in terms of the results of correctional programs. So we have all this ground swell of support in terms of making sure that individuals have the skills that they need to be successful upon release from prison. So from this report, where do we go to from here? What is the hope, what is the dream, what is the possibility?

Lois Davis: Well, from our perspective, one of the things that both policy makers as well as educators, correction officials also, that they need is more information about what tradeoffs can they make and still maintain effective programs? So one of the limitations of the data right now is that we can’t answer some of the more complex questions that are needed to inform those kind of decision-making. And so for example, what models of instructions are associated with the most effective programs? Does dosage matter for example? Those are the kinds of things that we need to really push the evidence base to get at those answers because if you’re an educator and you’re being asked to cut your budget by say 10%, then you’re making choices about both dosage, about program delivery as well as who gets into those programs. So those are the kinds of information that we need to focus on next in order to really help inform those debates.

Len Sipes: But we also really need to get across the point that if you’re going to break the cycle of recidivism, we have 700,000 human beings coming out of prison systems every year. We have, I’ve seen figures saying it’s 4, to 6, to 8 times that in terms of jails. So we have an awful lot of people caught up in the criminal justice system on any given day, 7 million and that doesn’t count again the people who are in and out of the jail system on a fairly regular basis. This is a huge impact, we’re talking about, you know, collectively, millions of people over a certain amount of time. If we want those millions of people to live crime-free lifestyles and stop being tax burdens and start being tax payers, we have to put more money into these programs, correct?

John Litton: We have to put more money in but we have to put more money in a smarter way. And I think that’s one thing that we’re inspired by the report is that is really does a good job at articulating some of our knowledge gaps, that we don’t have the information to guide policy to the extent, policy and practice to the extent that we need to, and that some key questions, as Lois was just recounting, really do need to address, to be addressed and we hope that at the federal level we can provide more effective leadership in terms of giving the type of information that would allow program practitioners at the local or state or federal programs the opportunity to really gear up programs as effectively and as cost effectively as possible to get the best results and extend those resources across the population where it will have the most impact.

Len Sipes: And that would help us establish say what the kind of correctional education is the most powerful, whether or not it’s vocational or educational, whether it’s a combination of the two, if it’s vocational, ok so, maybe plumbing doesn’t work but maybe heating and air conditioning does. I would imagine those are the sorts of things we’re talking about?

Lois Davis: Yes, but also it’s how do we deliver programs. What model of instruction is going to be most effective? But it’s also when you were talking about for example does welding matter? I think that’s another part of the story is understanding where is the demand for jobs? We’re going to be the opportunities for individuals coming out of correctional settings and insuring that we’re providing them those kind of training programs and the kind of nationally industry recognized certificates that will allow them to be ready to find employment upon return.

Len Sipes: Because traditionally the jobs have been in the construction market and the hard labor market, where you’re teaching electricity, plumbing, brick laying, those sorts of things, maybe we should be out there teaching software. Maybe we should be teaching maintenance. Maybe we should be teaching IT. Maybe we should be teaching other things besides the traditional brick laying courses.

Lois Davis: That’s exactly right. It’s really understanding what the demand for jobs will be in particular regions of the country, but also recognizing that our 21st century workforce is going to be very different now.

Len Sipes: This has been a fascinating conversation with the two of you. I really do appreciate you being with us today. How Effective is Correctional Education and Where Do We Go To From Here is the wonderful title from the Rand Corporation and from the Bureau of Justice Assistance, US Department of Justice. Our guests today have been Lois Davis, she is the senior policy researcher for the Rand Corporation and we also had John Litton, the Director of Correctional Education for the US Department of Education. Really appreciate everybody’s participation in the show today and we really appreciate your participation, we appreciate your comments. We even appreciate your criticisms and we want everybody to have yourselves a very, very pleasant day.

[Audio Ends]

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Filed Under: Audio Podcast, Corrections-Prisons, Education and Vocational Assistance, Employment, What Works Tagged With: , ,

Evidence Based Community Corrections-Joan Petersilia-DC Public Safety Radio

July 31, 2013 by

Welcome to “DC Public Safety” – Radio and television shows, blog and transcripts on crime, criminal offenders and the criminal justice system.

The portal site for “DC Public Safety” is http://media.csosa.gov.

Radio Program available at http://media.csosa.gov/podcast/audio/2013/05/evidence-based-community-corrections-joan-petersilia-dc-public-safety-radio/

[Audio Begins]

Len Sipes: From the nation’s capital, this is DC Public Safety. I’m your host, Leonard Sipes. Ladies and gentlemen, I’m very proud to bring you Dr. Joan Petersilia. She is in essence one of the best-known and best-respected criminologists in the United States. I’ll quickly read her background from the website there at Stanford.  Dr. Joan Petersilia has spent more than 25 years studying the performance of U.S. criminal justice agencies and has been instrumental in effecting sentencing and corrections reform in California and throughout the United States. She is the author of 11 books about crime and public policy, and her research on parole reform, prisoner reintegration, and sentencing policy has fueled changes in policies throughout the nation. A criminologist with a background in empirical research and social science, Dr. Petersilia is also a faculty co-director for the Stanford Criminal Justice Center, focusing on policies related to crime control, sentencing, and corrections, and developing non-partisan analysis for recommendations intended to aid public officials, legal practitioners, and the public in understanding criminal justice policy in the state and national levels, and like I said, in essence one of the best-known and most-respected criminologists in the United States. Dr. Joan Petersilia, welcome to DC Public Safety.

Dr. Joan Petersilia: My pleasure to be here. Thank you for having me.

Len Sipes: I am just absolutely thrilled to have you before our microphones. I want to start off with the quote. Now, I saw this in terms of the National Institute of Justice speech that you gave, and I’m reading from a document, and I’ll read from this, and then I promise the entire program will go over to you. Let me read a quote, “There’s a long history of over-promising and under-delivering that has contributed to the constant pendulum swings in punishment practices. There is nothing in our history of over 100 years of reform that says that we know how to reduce recidivism by more than 15% to 20%. To achieve those rather modest outcomes, you have to get everything right. The right staff delivering the right programs at the right time in the offender’s life, and in a supportive community environment, and we have to be honest about that. – And my sense is that we have not been publicly forthcoming because we’ve assumed that we would not win public support with modest results.” Joan, can we start off with that quote and get a sense as to why you wanted to say what you said?

Dr. Joan Petersilia: Well, I’ve been around the criminal justice policy world since the 1970s, and, in the 1980s, 1990s, and now 2000 and the next decade, we have seen these huge shifts in terms of endorsing tough-on-crime and building up prisons or endorsing probation and community alternatives, and we just seem to go back-and-forth and back-and-forth. And I know that I think most of us, and in fact most of us in the public but certainly, I think, your listeners, practitioners, academics favor non-incarceration if at all possible. And so, you know, we’re kind of trying to get there. We’re trying to get evidence and public opinion to support the notion of community corrections but when I say we over-promise and we under-deliver, that’s really what I’m talking about, but I’m also talking about we over-promise and under-deliver in terms of the impacts of prison. So I think for both sides of the coin, if you think about the coin being this pendulum swing – community corrections, soft-on-crime versus prisons, tough-on-crime – we just simply go back-and-forth because we don’t really have solid evidence that would allow us to choose one option over the other. And so I think, you know, my hope, and I think we’re really primed to deliver a decade now, which can be different. You know, I think about the decarceration period, which we’re now going through, and we are at a space in U.S. crime policy which, literally, we have not been in ever, where we are closing prisons. We’re reducing prison budgets. We’re reducing incarceration populations at all levels, and we’re discharging probationers and parolees in some instances. So we are downsizing correctional control at all levels, and that’s an amazing story to tell, and I don’t think that most people who aren’t involved in criminal justice realize that that is now a major policy change that we’re having. And the question for us who care about this issue is will we be able to keep the population down or will we simply have another pendulum swing when all those people we have decarcerated, decriminalized, discharged, etcetera, don’t behave well?  And so how can we set the stage – and this to me is the $64,000 question for all of us in crime control policy – how can we do better this time around so that pendulum does in fact not swing back to the kind of building-up of prison capacity that we saw when we tried this exact same experiment in the 1980s?

Len Sipes: I talk to a lot of criminal justice practitioners, Joan, and they remain a bit frustrated. What they’re saying is that we hear from the research community a lot of different things about what it is we should be doing. Number one, we really don’t have the money to do all the different things that people are asking us to do. Number two, the research seems to be murky; it doesn’t seem to be crystal clear, and sometimes the folks in the academic community are a bit more, they come from advocacy more than they do research.  And so they feel comfortable with where we are regarding re-entry. They want re-entry to work. They want people who are released from the prison system to succeed. Everybody seems to be dedicated to that but different people are coming along and saying, and some states have said, “We’re getting 30% reductions, 35% reductions, 50% reductions,” and then they back off those statements. So the practitioner community is confused by the lack of guidance and the lack of clarity in terms of what works, what doesn’t work, what is meant by evidence-based, and how you implement that. That gets to the heart and soul of your over-promising and under-delivering continuum, correct?

Dr. Joan Petersilia: Yes, and I actually think they have every right to be confused. If you ask the question, which is what they’re asking, is what works and what can the research offer them in terms of program design in order to get what works, and this is really complicated because the research community offers a number of things. What we often hear about is kind of the risk-responsivity program, you know, kind of the evidence-based corrections, which is driven from a psychological model.  Let me just state that what it basically tells people to do is in a risk assessment, it is an individual approach which highlights cognitive or therapeutic approaches. It is a psychological model. Now that model actually is one way of doing things, and certainly, as we know from the literature, that might work with some people particularly who are moderate and high-risk individuals, and that we get some. There are some re-entry programs and there are some good programs that do that. That individualized model is very, very expensive and so when we tell practitioners to take that individualized, which is really therapeutic model. It is an individual, psychological, counseling-based model, highly expensive. – And not only is that not appropriate for many offenders, it also is not, in some ways, the kinds of models that also practitioners believe really work.  And let me contrast it with a community-based model which I think doesn’t get nearly, because it’s so difficult to evaluate, but I think it doesn’t get nearly the kind of respect that it should, and I’m talking about the programs that I actually have seen work in my own 30 plus years. It involves much more than just an individual probation officer speaking with a probationer. It involves getting those community-based organizations to be the effective hand-off or collaborator to effective interventions, and I think what we do when we sell the cognitive behavioral approach and the evidence-based approach, we’re forgetting what I think academics have proven time and time again is that formal social control, such as that a probationer or parole agent can do, is probably only the jumpstart of real reform for an individual.  It’s going to take connecting that person eventually with family, churches, work, housing, and of course that individual counseling model doesn’t really get to any of those additional things, which are life skills. You know, at some level, they do. They talk to the person about motivational therapy, and they try to get him confident and all of that, or her.

Len Sipes: Right. Making the right decisions.

Dr. Joan Petersilia: But it’s just not enough, and I think that’s the frustration that practitioners often feel. They know that these community-based programs are often some of the best programs they operate. They’re very expensive. There’s actually very little data because, as I said, it’s very hard to evaluate, but I think that’s the frustration. In their heart they know one type of program works and yet what they’re being told is kind of evidence-based, is this much more narrow but easy-to-evaluate programs, and I think there’s a tension there.

Len Sipes: Though some people have said that, “Look, I was told that evidence-based was drug test everybody and now we’re drug-testing all of these offenders at the lower level and we’re bringing them back into the criminal justice system but they don’t pose a risk to public safety, but we were told that drug testing everybody was evidence-based.” They will say that, “We’re told to get people into programs in the community but the programs in the community are being cut, and we’re told to work on a collaborative basis,” and I believe that. I mean, I thoroughly believe that it should be done on a collaborative basis with community organizations, but community organizations are stretched to the limit.  So that leaves practitioners with a sense of what truly is evidence-based and what isn’t, and certainly there’s a certain point where, to do these well, these programs should be funded and funded in such a way that we control the budget so we can make sure that we get the biggest bang for our buck because if they’re turning them over to a local community-based organization, they’re basically ceding control of that individual to the community-based organization, and so when they go out and commit a robbery or a homicide, and people start pointing fingers at the criminal justice system, they can say, “Well, we simply don’t have the money to do this as comprehensively as we would like.” Again, the frustration.

Dr. Joan Petersilia: Well, and I think it even has another aspect that we’re going to see for the first time that I think we have never seen in that the pressure to actually discharge. So now, if you don’t want that responsibility, I think you’re absolutely right. Nobody believes that they are investing in exactly the kinds of programs that would lead to long-term success, these kind of broad-based, community-based initiatives, so what they often can invest in is kind of these much more narrow programs, and I’m not sure that they even think they have the money to invest in those.  So I’m seeing at least here in California, and I think this is happening elsewhere, because of the budget crisis, we are discharging people much faster, and part of us are thinking, “Well, that’s a good thing.” I think, personally, we over-expanded who we put on probation and parole, etcetera, and we kept people involved in community corrections for perhaps longer than they needed to be but now we’re doing exactly the opposite, and because the state doesn’t want to be responsible for them and doesn’t have the money to really provide them the services that they know they need, the best way they can do to not be responsible is to simply discharge somebody.  Let me just give you an example for California that I don’t think that maybe your readers have realized but in California, in just the last 18 months, our prison population – average daily prison population – has declined by 25,000, and since 2007, we’ve actually reduced our prison population by 42,000.

Len Sipes: That’s amazing.

Dr. Joan Petersilia: 42,000 people that were in prison just in 2007 are not in prison, and on parole, the decline has even been more dramatic. Just in the last 18 months, we’ve down-sized our prison population by two-thirds. We used to have 120,000 people on parole in California; today we have about 60,000. The question is, and many people are celebrating this huge decline, but the question I ask myself, as somebody who really celebrated the pressure for decline, is where have all those individuals gone? And many of them are now discharged.  We used to discharge people at 3 years. We’re now discharging parolees at 6 months, and I’m now getting calls from parolees who ask a question I never thought I would ever hear which is, “How do I get back on supervision because I really need those services.” And I don’t think any of us who were advocates for the decline of kind of government and correctional control understood that that wasn’t the endgame. The endgame was not to simply downsize without services. It was to downsize with a plan, and I think that there is some problem with the academic community because I think that some of us were advocating the downsizing of prisons as if that was the endgame, and I think it’s not.

Len Sipes: You’ve called it the biggest penal experiment in modern history in terms of a recent article. Ladies and gentlemen, we’re more than halfway through the program. Dr. Joan Petersilia is before our microphones, and she is an Adelbert H. Sweet Professor of Law there at Stanford University. She is a faculty Co-Director of the Stanford Criminal Justice Center, and again, as I summarized at the beginning of the program, one of the most respected criminologists in the United States.  Joan, here’s my fear. My fear is that there are elements there within California that are now contesting what California calls realignment that has just as many implications for parole and probation as it does for mainstream corrections as it does for jails. Now they’re beginning to say that what’s happening is beginning to add to the crime problem in California, which is at historic lows, and so the fear that I have is that because we over-promise sometimes in terms of what we can do and in terms of community corrections, that individuals will be caught up in crime, the crimes will be extraordinarily well-publicized, and somebody will come along and reverse all of this, and then the pendulum will swing, as you said, in terms of your comment, in terms of over-promising and under-delivering, that the pendulum will swing and will go back in the opposite direction and this wonderful opportunity to provide services, although services are being provided, that’s part of the budget there in California, but the question is are they being provided systematically? Are they using evidence-based practices? Are they doing enough to make sure that they’re reducing recidivism by as much as humanly possible? Those are a lot of issues, and much depends upon it because some people say as California goes, the rest of the country goes.

Dr. Joan Petersilia: Well, I do think you’re right in that we are running here in California the biggest criminal justice experiment, I think, that has ever been undertaken in this country, and part of what makes it so unique is that California has invested, already in just the last 18 months, invested $2 billion in terms of giving communities discretion about how to use their criminal justice dollars. So the state basically put out funding with a formula, depending on how many people you would have sent to prison prior to this realignment law, and they sent the county a check, and they basically said, “We want you to use this on evidence-based corrections but we trust the local community enough to you decide what program would best work. So we’re sending you the check and we’re now closing the doors. You can’t send this certain class of prisoner who would have gone to prison historically – the door is shut.” Over 500 felonies in California were changed as a result of realignment, where they used to go to prison and now the maximum penalty for those 500 crimes is a jail sentence.

Len Sipes: A jail sentence of six months?

Dr. Joan Petersilia: A jail sentence of up to one year with time served will equal six months, and so counties were said, “You can send them all to jail if you want, and if you can afford the capacity and if you have the capacity, or we’re giving you money to invest in community-based alternatives.” We’ve got 58 counties here in California that are running every experiment imaginable. Some are investing in expanding their jail capacity. Some are investing in electronic monitoring. Some are doing day reporting center. Basically $2 billion being spent over just 18 months, and it will continue, and it’s now constitutionally-guaranteed. That money will now, it’s in our state constitution, will fund this community-based experiment. Counties, I think the first year, honestly, I think it was too much, too fast. We here at Stanford have four grants to look at the impact of this realignment experiment across California, and what I’m really noticing, after the first year, which honestly I thought really was – the counties were just unprepared, and their first knee-jerk reaction was to send everybody that used to go to prison, just send them to jail. Now, they’re starting to actually do some really important and interesting experiments. They’re funding non-profits; they’re bringing in sheriffs.  One of the most interesting things that I’m observing in California is that sheriffs are taking the lead for community corrections. They are starting to operate their own programs. They’re working closely with probation and parole. They are becoming the spokesmen for an effective community-based correction. And what we saw in the last intermediate sanctions movement which was kind of in the 1980s and 1990s which I wrote about in those periods; about kind of what did we learn from that whole decade?  The one thing we learned is that community corrections didn’t have a really credible spokesperson. Nobody kind of believed or took seriously what a probation chief said because they were seen as too pro-offender. But you’ve got the sheriff saying the exact same thing in many of these counties now, and now people are listening, and I think that is going to be the real promise in some of our counties where they are really trying some of, I think, the most innovative things we will see, and of course our evaluation which will continue for the next several years will try to highlight some of these best practices that we will in fact see as California does this downsizing.

Len Sipes: Whether people within the practitioner community throughout the rest of the country or the general public realize it or not, the biggest correctional experiment in this country’s history, possibly one of the biggest correctional experiments that the world has known, is currently happening right now in California. So the bottom line is that there is a consensus, correct, that done correctly, somewhere between 10% and 20% is what we can expect in terms of the reduction of recidivism, of people coming back to the criminal justice system. That does seem to be a consensus amongst the criminological community, correct?

Dr. Joan Petersilia: Yes, that is definitely a consensus, and we need to make everyone know that because we’re setting programs up for failure when we say that recidivism can be reduced by 50%, per se. Never in the history of corrections, here in the United States or anywhere, has recidivism ever been reduced in a serious population by 50%, so right off the bat we’re making false promises, and we will never be able to deliver. So I think one of the first things we can do with radio shows like this is set our expectations at a realistic level.

Len Sipes: Now, what we can do in terms of the provision of evidence-based practices plus with good evaluations to really hammer away at what works and what doesn’t work, there is the possibility of increasing it beyond 20% but it’s not going to be 50%, it’s not going to be 40%. We can tweak it and get it above 20%, done well and rigorously evaluated, correct?

Dr. Joan Petersilia: Correct, and the other big thing is who are you dealing with, and so people also, it’s not just the program element; it’s what’s the target population. We’re talking about youth, first offenders, adult probationers, adult felons, adult parolees, they all represent quite different populations and they’re harder to treat and harder to get those large reductions in recidivism. So those two things together – it’s not just the program model and the community it’s all about, but we’ve got to overlay that with what’s the target population.

Len Sipes: Part of the discussion on the target population and what is evidence-base is that there is a segment of that population that we shouldn’t bother with at all. Bringing them into the criminal justice system, my example a little while ago of drug testing everybody, bringing them back into the criminal justice system serves no purpose. If you use an objective risk instrument, which I understand is certainly not perfect, but an objective risk instrument, if they score in the lower categories, then maybe we should not be interacting with them vigorously at all to marshal whatever resources we have to look at higher-risk offenders. Are we correct or incorrect?

Dr. Joan Petersilia: We’re very correct at that, and one of the things that we now do that I think has been the biggest advance in the last 10 years in criminology is solid, good, risk-prediction instruments. If we have just one more moment, I’d like to make what I think is an important point —

Len Sipes: Please.

Dr. Joan Petersilia:  — on this evidence-based – you know, we’re all wanting evidence-based programs, and in fact in our California realignment legislation, it says people should be funding with these dollars evidence-based corrections. What is a practitioner to do? Where are they to find what are programs that are evidence-based? It’s the definition of evidence-based that I also think confuses practitioners, and if we don’t have a body of evidence that shows a program works, it doesn’t mean it doesn’t work. It simply means we haven’t an evaluation that shows that it works.

And let me say this again because I think people will go up to crimesolutions.org or any of the websites that have a listing of programs that have been show in the past through rigorous evaluation to reduce recidivism, but 99% of all programs in criminal justice that we are doing today or have done historically have ever been subject to re-evaluation, to any evaluation, and so I think this is also the frustration with practitioners. They say, “Well, my program, the ones that I know work best, aren’t on that approved list of programs.”  And so if you in fact say that you have to fund programs that are on that approved list, you’re only picking from like 1% of programs that just happen to have an evaluation attached to them, and we know that funding for drug program treatments has always been the most evaluated program because they get major sources of funding from the National Institute of Drug Abuse, so the regular garden-variety, criminal justice intervention doesn’t show up often in those lists of evidence-based programs.

Len Sipes: But that’s what confuses them because the Washington State Public Policy Institute, I always screw that up, came along with an overview of substance abuse programs within the criminal justice system. They gave recidivism reduction rates of reductions of 4% to 9%. So that’s, again, what they’re saying, “Well, gee, where are the big reductions?” So that’s the confusion. Is there a point where people within the criminological community of your stature need to come together and lay out specific guidelines for the rest of us in terms of how we should be proceeding?

Dr. Joan Petersilia: Well, I think that would certainly, you know, I could imagine that helping. What I do in my own world here, and I think what the research community needs to do, is pick a state, pick a county, pick a location. I think that this stuff is so complicated that I’ve now, for at least the last five to seven years, focused solely on helping California, and I think that the research community cannot really speak as one voice because across the states we have different sentencing structures. We have different prisons. Certainly some prisons are therapeutic in themselves, have a lot of programming, some have re-entry. The communities that greet people are different. Everything is so, you know, we don’t have a national system of sentencing and corrections so it’s very hard for any national body, I think, to speak truth to power, if you will, because unless you know that system and the details of that system, you’re just talking at generalities.  So my hope is that academics who care about this issue will attach themselves to kind of their own local situation, and particularly I think where the game is now for academics is in-state legislatures. They need help. They’re facing budget crisis. They want crime solutions. We need to be much more forceful at getting what we know to those people who have to pass legislation, have to understand what do we mean by evidence-based, and then we have to attach evaluations to kind of legislation that gets passed, and so that would be my wish.

Len Sipes: For the final minute of the program, I’ll give one example. A practitioner comes to me and says, “Alright, I understand that objective risk instruments would certainly help us figure out who to deliver services to. What is the best objective risk instrument out there?” My response: “I have no idea.”

Dr. Joan Petersilia: Well, there are some excellent risk assessment tools. There are several. I also think that no risk assessment tool, unless validated with your population, is going to be sufficient.

Len Sipes: Agreed, but my only point was that neither one of us knew where to go for that list of objective risk instruments so he could begin his assessment.

Dr. Joan Petersilia: Hmm. Hmm. Well, I don’t want to endorse any particular, because now they’re all proprietary. That’s the other thing is that now you have to pay an arm and a leg, and what I would tell people is yes, there are some well-known that now everybody uses but I tell people here in California —

Len Sipes: About 30 seconds.

Dr. Joan Petersilia:  — until it’s validated on a California population, I wouldn’t trust it.

Len Sipes: I hear you. Dr. Petersilia, you have got the final word. Joan Petersilia, ladies and gentlemen, has been our guest today. It’s been a real honor, again, one of the best-known and respected criminologists in the country. www.law.stanford.edu. www.law.stanford.edu.

Ladies and gentlemen, this is DC Public Safety. We really do appreciate all the comments, we even appreciate your criticisms, and we want you to have yourselves a very pleasant day.

[Audio Ends]

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Filed Under: Audio Podcast, Corrections-Prisons, Interviews with Policy Makers, Parole and Probation, Reentry, What Works Tagged With: , , , , ,

Green Corrections’ Impact on Cost Savings and Reentry-National Institute of Corrections-DC Public Safety

May 31, 2013 by

Welcome to “DC Public Safety” – Radio and television shows, blog and transcripts on crime, criminal offenders and the criminal justice system.

The portal site for “DC Public Safety” is http://media.csosa.gov.

Radio Program available at http://media.csosa.gov/podcast/audio/2013/04/green-corrections-impact-on-cost-savings-and-reentry-national-institute-of-corrections-dc-public-safety/

[Audio Begins]

Len Sipes: From the nation’s capital this is DC Public Safety. I’m your host, Leonard Sipes. We have a really interesting show today, ladies and gentlemen. We have a show on green corrections which is more than the concept sounds. What we’re talking about is economic development, what we’re talking about is saving millions of dollars for state correctional facilities throughout the United States. We’re also talking about inmate training today and using green corrections as a way of transitioning offenders from the prison system to the larger community. We have via Skype from the State of Washington, Washington Department of Corrections, Dan Pacholke. He is assistant secretary, www.doc.ua.gov. Also, we have Stephanie Davison. She is a senior program officer for FHI360, www.fhi360.org. Again, both Dan and Stephanie are here to talk about green corrections. Dan and Stephanie, welcome to DC Public Safety.

Dan Pacholke: Thank you.

Stephanie Davison: Thank you.

Len Sipes: All right. Good. Before we start, what is FHI360, Stephanie?

Stephanie Davison: FHI is an international development organization dedicated to improving the lives of individuals internationally.

Len Sipes: Okay and you’re under contract to the National Institute of Corrections which is the producer of today’s show, Donna Ledbetter, was kind enough to set up this show today. So you’re under contract to the National Institute of Corrections of the US Department of Justice, correct?

Stephanie Davison: Yes, we’ve coordinated several activities for green corrections through NIC for the last few years.

Len Sipes: All right. Stephanie, the first question goes to you. What in the name of heavens is green corrections?

Stephanie Davison: Green corrections is a series of programs in which correctional system can operate the prison system to be more environmentally friendly and hopefully save money and then also operate education and training programs for offenders geared toward job placement once they exit.

Len Sipes: And that’s pretty interesting because we’re talking before the program, Dan, that the State of Washington had save, what, well over $3 million by implementing green corrections?

Dan Pacholke: Yes and between the years 2005 and 2010, we saved about $3.5 million by using basically, you know, environmental greening principles.

Len Sipes: And give me a sense as to what you mean by environmentally friendly principles?

Dan Pacholke: Well, I mean – I mean some of it comes down to reducing your carbon footprint. We have zero waste garbage sorting centers, composting. We’ve done a lot on different energy packages, strategies to save water, strategies to save waste water, so just in some of those bulk areas about, you know, ways in which you spend money that aren’t wise or unproductive so we’ve reduce a lot of expenditures in those areas and ultimately we’ve asked questions about why we buy things only to throw them away and try to eliminate those items upstream also.

Len Sipes: People don’t understand, Dan, that the correctional systems are like big cities and I don’t know how many prisons that you operate there in the State of Washington but each and every one of them – when I was with the Maryland Department of Public Safety, we had 23 correctional facilities throughout the state. They all held between 2000 to 3000 individuals. I mean they were operating like little cities so there are, I would imagine, endless opportunities to go green and save any state a tremendous amount of money.

Dan Pacholke: Absolutely. I mean there’s what, 2.3 million people incarcerated in federal state and county prisons and jails across the country.

Len Sipes: Right.

Dan Pacholke: And as you look at some of these strategies that, you know, as we’ve kind of talk about it, at least a couple of them, you know, we’re giving you examples of a relatively mid-sized prison system so if you apply that you know across the country I mean there’s lots and lots of money that can be saved just in the sense of savings and on top of that you can begin to use prison as a mechanism to assist a community in meeting other needs as well.

Len Sipes: Well, it’s an amazing concept. I’m really enjoying this because in this day and age where all of us within the criminal justice system are charged with saving taxpayer dollars. I mean we would do that regardless but nevertheless. I mean this is one way of saving tax paid dollars and providing job training for people coming out of the prison systems. Stephanie Davison, why don’t you tell me a little bit about that concept of training people – training inmates for jobs in green corrections?

Stephanie Davison: Right. So training individuals for green jobs is very similar to training individuals for regular jobs. You’re just tweaking what you’ve done.

Len Sipes: Right.

Stephanie Davison: For example, FHI has worked with the State of Minnesota to green their programs in which we worked with their teachers to think about how to use green products and green training concepts…

Len Sipes: Okay.

Stephanie Davison: …to connect inmates to jobs in green fields after exiting.

Len Sipes: But give me a sense as to what sort of jobs are we talking about.

Stephanie Davison: Sure [PH] jobs. So almost any job can be made green.

Len Sipes: Right.

Stephanie Davison: A common one would be carpentry. You may be using green cleaning products green finishing materials. You’ll also learn how to produce your products where you create less waste.

Len Sipes: Okay. But are there specific training like an electrician, like a plumber, like any other person involved in hard skills. I mean is there green corrections that would lead to a career path?

Stephanie Davison: It can, yes. There are a lot of green certifications. They’re valued in different ways within different communities throughout the US. For example the US Green Building Council has a lead certificate to do construction in green manners.

Len Sipes: Okay.

Stephanie Davison: That can be great. It requires some time so it’s not necessarily valued in every community.

Len Sipes: Right. But I mean there are hard and fast jobs where that inmate can come out into the community and find himself or herself employed as a result of being involved in green corrections.

Stephanie Davison: Yes. Some of the solid ones would be landscaping.

Len Sipes: Okay.

Stephanie Davison: That’s considered a green job. It’s something you can be trained within the correctional facility especially states like Washington have gardens that could be used to train offenders.

Len Sipes: Right.

Stephanie Davison: And then they can be – enter those sorts of jobs once they exit.

Len Sipes: Okay, Stephanie. Dan is not light up. So you’re going to have to answer this question. Why would the National Institute of Corrections, which is part of the bureau – Federal Bureau of Prisons, part of the US Department of Justice, why would the National Institute of Corrections care about green corrections? Why would they’d be involved?

Stephanie Davison: I think there are two reasons. One is it can save the taxpayer’s money…

Len Sipes: Right.

Stephanie Davison: …and, two, it can have benefits to the offender upon reentry.

Len Sipes: Okay.

Stephanie Davison: There are jobs. There are also some behavioral aspects that we can talk about different programs that can benefit an offender when they leave.

Len Sipes: Okay. Talk to me about the behavioral aspects.

Stephanie Davison: So there are some programs and I’ll let Dan jump into this little bit more such as dog training programs that they’ve learned or from experience can find that offenders within the yard are calmer. There’s less incidence of violence and then when they exit, reentry is often smoother.

Len Sipes: Dan, you mentioned in the pre-show about this concept of making safer correctional facilities. In the 14 years that I spent with Maryland Department of Public Safety, our philosophy was anything that made that day productive for that inmate created a safer prison facility. I would imagine you will go along with that thought?

Dan Pacholke: Absolutely and I believe that’s one of the reasons why NIC is interested. In addition to cost containment and cost savings for reentry, on top of that what you want to do is make for a safe operating environment in the prison both for the staff that work there and the offenders that live there as well. So part of what can be done, I supposed, in the greening effort is to create opportunities for an inmate to contribute and I use that word opportunity to contribute because it’s meaningful activity in the sense – from the sense of an inmate. So whether it’s dog restoration or training dogs or whether it’s working with endangered species, both plants and animals, or whether or not it’s contributing to scientific research, what the inmates gain from that is the sense that they’re contributing to a broader social need. It’s something your family can benefit from. It’s something the community can benefit from and what we’ve found is that inmates that are involved in those kinds of activities tend to be less likely to violate rules. It makes them more – a more therapeutic environment in that regard. So it does enhance institutional safety and ultimately begins to change the nature of prisons so that community partners and organization see a prison as a benefit to someone that can contribute to local geographic community needs and there are several states that are doing environmental restoration today.

Len Sipes: How many states are involved in green corrections, either one of you?

Stephanie Davison: I would say a large proportion of states are involved to one degree or another.

Len Sipes: Okay.

Stephanie Davison: For example, many states are involved just because the governor has set forward executive orders that reduce the set goals for energy reduction over time.

Len Sipes: Right and, Dan, give me an honest answer here. I’ve been in the criminal justice system for over 40 years and somebody came to me and said, Leonard, you’re now going to be doing green corrections. I would have sat there and went, eh? What is green corrections? Because the order came down on high from the governor’s office to reduce expenditures but when – after talking with you and talking with Stephanie, I get the sense that this has major payoffs economically, major payoffs in terms of the safety of the institution, and major payoffs in terms of reentry upon release.

Dan Pacholke: It does. I mean when you think of corrections, the center of the plate is always like evidence-based practices, doing things that reduce the likelihood that inmates reoffend upon release. Over the last five years, we’ve been in extremely lean economic times nationally…

Len Sipes: Yes.

Dan Pacholke: …and so we tend to engage in issues that are more on the margin that are complimentary to an evidence-based framework. So on the one hand, its low cost opportunities to program offenders, to get offenders involved in meaningful activity. Engage more offenders to make the prison safer. There is the environmental economics to it. They’re going to reduce the operating cost over a long period of time, over life cycles, and then, of course, you know there is the benefit to the community that kind of goes along with that, the reentry, the job training, the skills upon release. So it’s really complimentary to that framework and it begins to broaden kind of the scope of corrections in a way that we wouldn’t have done in good economic times. I think it is the product of tougher economic times where partners are reaching out for each other in order to accomplish a goal.

Len Sipes: All right. It’s taking lemons and making lemonade.

Dan Pacholke: Correct.

Len Sipes: Yeah, yeah I like that. Now, but help me with this sense and a lot of people that are going to be listening to this program today may not be familiar with the inside of prison systems. I have always maintained that you can walk inside of a prison and either feel that lack of tension or feel the tension almost instantaneously as soon as you walk in through the front door. Feel free to correct me, feel free to disagree, but a lot of the institutions that I’ve walked into in the past that have been based upon a therapeutic environment, based upon the inmates involved in lots of different things, their days are filled with different issues where – that they find humanizing. You can walk inside of that prison and immediately feel it. You can immediately feel the lack of tension because the inmates there are – again, they’re involved in constructive activities. I’m getting the sense that some of the things that we’re talking about with green correction fills that bill. Am I right or wrong?

Dan Pacholke: No, you’re absolutely right and you can certainly, you know, feel the difference in institutions that have a lot of activity than those that don’t in such attention. So, yes, you know green corrections are the philosophy of a sustainable prison. Certainly aids to a much calmer operating tone, a much more pro-social environment, you know, in area that has greater humanity which really is an environment that’s more conducive to the educational, vocational training, or cognitive behavior change…

Len Sipes: Right.

Dan Pacholke: … is that the context to prisons begins to change in a humanizing sort of way.

Len Sipes: If all the states of the United States employed green corrections and I am going to come back to you guys for more – for a larger number of specific examples as to what green corrections is because I’m still a bit confused. I understand landscaping, I understand dealing with animals, I understand mulching, I understand that sort of thing, but I’m getting a sense that it does go a little bit beyond that. I may be missing that but in essence what we’re dealing with here is stakeholder buy in. We’re talking about is that you don’t do this on your own. I would imagine the state of Washington and other states have to reach out to other people to help them implement a green corrections program. Either one of you can talk to me about that?

Stephanie Davison: So when we worked with several states, they find external partners both from other state agencies and then community-based organizations are critical.

Len Sipes: Okay.

Stephanie Davison: For example, in Maryland, they used the Department of National – Natural Resources…

Len Sipes: Right.

Stephanie Davison: …to give inmate opportunities to do restoration projects within their community. That’s critical.

Len Sipes: Okay. So they take the prelease offenders and they go out and they do restoration projects.

Stephanie Davison: Yes.

Len Sipes: Okay. Okay. So, again, help me with the cynical side of spending 40 years in the criminal justice system. Okay. So they go out and dig holes and put in trees. I mean but we are talking about the possibility of jobs upon release. So anybody can go out and dig a hole put in a tree.

Stephanie Davison: Right.

Len Sipes: So help me understand that.

Stephanie Davison: So they’re learning how to maintain the tree and either an urban forest or a traditional forest over the long term.

Len Sipes: Okay.

Stephanie Davison: So that’s an important skill. Another example in Maryland is right to know they were leaning how to deconstruct an old prison and then they’ll build signs made out of the old bricks.

Len Sipes: Really?

Stephanie Davison: It’s an interesting project.

Len Sipes: And that’s – and that’s the Maryland Correctional Institute at Jessup?

Stephanie Davison: Yes.

Len Sipes: Yes. That’s the prison you’re talking about.

Stephanie Davison: Yes, I am.

Len Sipes: I’ve been in there a thousand times under – under nasty circumstances.

Stephanie Davison: Yes.

Len Sipes: And I’m so happy when they closed the prison down. So they’re taking the – their dismantling the prison and they’re doing what with it?

Stephanie Davison: And they will be using the bricks from the prison to create signs within the community.

Len Sipes: That is neat.

Stephanie Davison: It’s a cool project and it’s great because the old building won’t be going into the waste stream.

Len Sipes: Right.

Stephanie Davison: And all of those products will be in a very visible way contributing to their community.

Len Sipes: Well that’s neat. Maryland should start a buy-a-brick program. This is an authentic brick. You know what we used to call that institution?

Stephanie Davison: No, I don’t.

Len Sipes: The cut.

Stephanie Davison: Oh.

Len Sipes: Yes and it has a world famous because it was an old prison it was called the cut, some people say he was named after the railroad cut that ran by it and the other people say it was nicknamed the cut because of the all the stabbings at the place. So it has a very, very – just in case the listeners are remotely interested, it has a very unique background. Ladies and gentlemen we’re doing a show today on green corrections and I find this really interesting. Dan Pacholke, he’s the assistant secretary of the State of Washington Department of Corrections, www.doc.wa.gov. Stephanie Davison, she is a senior program officer with FHI360. It’s www.fhi360.org. They are a contractor to the National Institute of Corrections of the Federal Bureau of Prisons of the US Department of Justice and they’re trying to implement this concept of green corrections throughout the United States. There is a website that I do want to say which is a website at the National Institute of Corrections specifically focusing on green corrections, www.nicic.gov/greencorrections. I’ll give that one more time now and at the end of the program, www.nicic.gov/greencorrections. Donna, I hope I got that correct, okay. I’m getting a thumbs up. All right. Where do you we go to with all of this? I mean are states really buying into this? Are states really – I mean you said the bulk of the states, Stephanie. Is this is something that they’re enthusiastically pursuing or they’re saying, oh, my gosh, here’s another mandate from the governor, another mandate from the federal government although I don’t think it’s a mandate. I think they’re simply guiding. So as you go out and talk to hard bitten state correctional administrators when you talk to them about green corrections, what sort of reception do you get?

Stephanie Davison: It really varies on the state and it depends on who you’re talking to. If you’re talking to someone who needs to save money…

Len Sipes: Right.

Stephanie Davison: …then they buy into it right away.

Len Sipes: There you go.

Stephanie Davison: They understand it. If it’s an officer working the yard, it’s a little different.

Len Sipes: Okay.

Stephanie Davison: And we found that buy in is really important with those individuals.

Len Sipes: Okay.

Stephanie Davison: So – and I’ll let Dan speak to this a little bit more but we found it’s important to have an understanding of why green is important when you’re trying to do it at a grassroots level. When you’re trying to get the officer to get on board that they have to understand the why.

Len Sipes: Right. But they do see the obvious. I mean look, I’ve been in, as I said before, some prisons where there are a lot of programming and the officers within the prisons with lots of programming are much happier human beings because the level of violence goes down and, Dan, quickly correct me if I’m overselling this concept but in those institutions where there are lots of programs where they are meaningfully engaged in doing pro-social things throughout the course of the day, either GED programs or substance abuse or they’re doing work-related programs, because I think this is part of correctional industries. Dan, is this part of correctional industries in the State of Washington?

Dan Pacholke: No, it’s actually – well, it is but I mean it’s part of the Department of Corrections as a whole and certainly correctional industries is involved in sustainability activities also.

Len Sipes: Right and we should explain what the correctional industry is. It’s job programs within prisons.

Dan Pacholke: Correct. I mean it really does two or three things. It mimics real world business activity inside the prison.

Len Sipes: Right.

Dan Pacholke: So they create real world jobs. On top of that they provide, you know, job training and then ultimately they produce products that are useful to state governments and certainly our department as well.

Len Sipes: Right. But to Stephanie’s point of some of the correctional staff – I mean they may not get it, they may not understand it at the very beginning but if it calms the institution and makes their day more productive and makes their day safer, I would imagine there is a certain point where they say, oh, okay, now I get this.

Dan Pacholke: I think in the last five years that a lot of correctional staff that have been sold on the cost containment aspect of it.

Len Sipes: Okay.

Dan Pacholke: It does save money and it takes it out of areas where stuff like garbage or energy and it allows us to buy equipment or training or whatever the case maybe for line level staff. So on the one hand, I think they get the cost containment. On the other hand, as you’ve indicated, correctional officers know that meaningful activity to an offender gets them out of the housing unit, gets them involved in something and in most cases, with few exceptions, they are less prone to act out, less prone to violate rules.

Len Sipes: Now, the other thing that comes to mind is that all – most of the prisons that I’ve been in, either in the State of Maryland or beyond the State of Maryland, are pretty stark places. I mean it’s barbwired, it’s concrete buildings, it’s not designed to look nice. It’s designed to keep inmates in the prison. The first rule of corrections is I shall not escape. So we’re talking about a pretty stark environment here and I would imagine if you start using the common areas of the prison system and start landscaping them and start doing things with them that brings an environment. I mean, look, the average correctional officer has got a tough job. They are in there for 20 or 30 years. The average inmate could be in there for 10 or 20 years or longer. So they’re all in this very confined area. It’s stark. It’s not the prettiest of areas. I’m guessing that if you green up these areas and teach inmates how to sustain them being green, I would imagine that cannot transform but it can certainly add to the pleasantness of the interactions of inmates and staff throughout the course of the day. It makes simply – makes a nicer environment.

Dan Pacholke: Well, it certainly changes the culture or context of incarceration. Even in high security facilities, you can find places to create green space or you can do organic gardening or you can co-locate dog training areas next to housing units and certainly bringing dogs into living unit adds an element to it that is not typically there and will bring a calming aspect. You’ll see them laughing or smiling which is not always the case. So you know part of what you’re doing in bringing nature inside prison is you’re creating more of therapeutic environment and it’s not missed by the offender population and certainly, it creates a better environment for staff as well. So there’s great examples out there how you can do it in very high security prisons and you know all the way down to low security prisons. There are some model 2000 prisons out there today that are doing everything in the areas of gardening and garbage sorting and composting and raising tilapia, dog training, and bicycle restoration that have highly programmatic routines you know, 100 inmates involved in activities that would be greening activities.

Len Sipes: Bicycle restoration, that didn’t even cross my mind and as a fairly avid bike rider, that intrigues me. Tell me more about bicycle restoration?

Dan Pacholke: Well, once again, I mean once you adopt a green principle or sustainable principle in your mind that you want to do things that are sustainable and also that you wanted to contribute to the community, I mean, you start outreaching a little bit. We probably have four prisons that receive bicycles either from police departments or from special interest groups in the community. They bring them in. They often times contribute money. We set up an area where offenders will do bicycle restoration and then typically, they’re turned back over to community and they give them to children in need. So once again, it’s an opportunity to contribute to something larger than themselves. It’s an opportunity to give back to children. It’s an opportunity to work with community partners that are interested in the outcome that you’re going to achieve. So essentially a community begins to see you as a resource rather than a black hole behind a big wall that we just throw money into.

Len Sipes: That’s an interesting concept. I mean that is – I’ve never heard of that. I mean I’ve been in part of this system for – again, for decades and bicycle restoration, what a great idea. How long has that been going on in the State of Washington?

Dan Pacholke: Oh, you know, I think we started the first one probably 6 or 7 years ago.

Len Sipes: Wow.

Dan Pacholke: We probably have half a dozen prisons that are doing it today but along those same lines, it’s the same thing we’re going canine rescue. We have canine rescue in 12 different prisons across the state and, of course, there are many, many dog advocates and training everything up to assistance dogs. Once again, a community has a need, it’s tough environmental times, they need help. They provide training to the inmates. It is a therapeutic activity and then in the end, of course, the community, you know, gets the animal and we have 100% adoption rate. So as you start going down this line about a being a good community partner, I mean there are several states and we’re one of them that are doing environmental restoration projects whether it’s raising the endangered Oregon spotted frog or the Taylor checkerspot butterfly or endangered puri [PH] plants that there are community partners, scientists, biologists, US Department of Fish and Wildlife that need assistance in taking care of or nurturing or growing these creatures or plants. They lack funding and, of course, prisons are full of people that have nothing but time.

Len Sipes: Right.

Dan Pacholke: Many times they are pretty talented as well so – once again, it’s another way to bridge and to give inmates an opportunity to contribute and certainly give a community partner a different view inside the prison where they begin to see you as a resource that can help solve local problems.

Len Sipes: You know the more I talk to the two of you about this the more encouraged – the more enthusiastic I become because when you first hear the term green corrections, Dan, you’re not quite sure what it means and where we’re going with this but that’s true. I mean if you’re doing a lot of community restoration for inmates at the pre-release level who can safely go out, if you’re doing things like repairing bikes or taking care of wounded animals or training dogs, I mean, my heavens, how many millions of dogs are there in this country that needs some sort of intervention or they’re simply going to be put down. So it sounds as if the State of Washington is being really innovative in terms of coming up with not just pro-social things for the inmate population to do but a way for the prison to contribute to the betterment of the larger community.

Dan Pacholke: Yeah. I think that is part of what you’ll find across the country. I mean Maryland is doing steps around Chesapeake Bay, you know and Ohio is doing stuff with the Cincinnati Zoo and I think they’re about ready to start a restoration project on an endangered salamander called the hellbender and so there are different examples out there where people are beginning to engage community partners in a way that provides opportunities for inmates that are therapeutic, they teach empathy, compassion, and responsibility. At the same time, you’ll have scientists or biologists or both that are interested in these projects and ultimately, you know, we have a controlled environment where we can develop protocols around some of these science restoration project so you begin to expand the kind of agenda of greening a corrections. I mean you start with something simple like cost containment, certainly moving areas to training and jobs and then, of course, you bridge into more local geographic community needs and we’re certainly in need of many, many more environmental restoration projects across this country.

Len Sipes: It’s an amazing thought. Okay, we’re in the final couple of minutes of the programs Stephanie. Well, tell me more about – I’m hearing all these wonderful things coming out of the State of Washington and so you’re telling me that other – and Dan did mention that Maryland is doing some stuff, Ohio is doing some stuff, does everybody get green corrections?

Stephanie Davison: Not everybody…

Len Sipes: Do they understand it?

Stephanie Davison: … gets green corrections but they could.

Len Sipes: They could.

Stephanie Davison: I would encourage people to go the NIC website…

Len Sipes: Okay.

Stephanie Davison: …and look an example of – and look at a guidebook called the Greening of Corrections: Creating a Sustainable System.

Len Sipes: Right. Okay.

Stephanie Davison: We have examples from all over the country from the deep south to the progressive west and you can see how it can be done anywhere.

Len Sipes: Okay and we are talking about, as Dan said, $3.5 million worth of savings. So if you do it for no other reason besides saving taxpayers – you know, 50 times, 50 states, and seven territories x $3.5 million that’s a lot of money and I’m going to give the website out one more time before the close that will give greater time for the close, www.nicic.gov/greencorrections, www.nicic.gov/greencorrections. Okay. We’re in our final minute of the program, who wants it? Stephanie, any final wrap up?

Stephanie Davison: One final word, I’d like to say in the next few months, we’ll be releasing a challenge on challenge.gov so that…

Len Sipes: Really?

Stephanie Davison: …State Departments of Correction can share their activities with us and then we’ll be able to broadcast them and share them with a larger community.

Len Sipes: Okay.

Stephanie Davison: So keep your eyes peeled for that.

Len Sipes: So you’re going to pit one state against the other and see who’s doing the best, right?

Stephanie Davison: A little bit. We want the examples of the best work that’s being done.

Len Sipes: And, obviously, some of the best work that’s being done is being done by the Washington Department of Corrections. So, Dan, how’s it feel to be known for something else besides the day-to-day grind of corrections? I mean the people come to you and say, hey, tell me more about green corrections in the State of Washington.

Dan Pacholke: Well, I think it’s – on one hand, it’s fun. I mean it is in activity that started kind of on the margin and has worked its way more to the center of the plate. It’s really encouraging for us, I supposed all of us, just to see more growth in the area of people like Stephanie, you know NIC, other states like Maryland, Ohio, and Oregon and California. I mean there’s lots of people doing different activities out there so, you know, one of these days, we’re going to see a new prison design that’s based on sustainable principles that articulates or identifies everything that we’re talking about here. So I’m just interested in seeing more best practice come of it and learning from others and hopefully continuing to push this in a way that’s both economically beneficial as well as humanizing corrections and making the operations of prison safer.

Len Sipes: Dan, you’ve got the final word. Ladies and gentlemen, we’re doing a show today- have done a show today on green corrections produced by the National Institute of Corrections. Our guests today have been Dan Pacholke, assistant secretary of the State of Washington Department of Corrections; Stephanie Davison, she is a senior program officer with FHI360, www.fhi360.org. Ladies and gentlemen this is DC Public Safety. We appreciate your calls, letters, concepts, criticisms, and please yourselves a very, very pleasant day.

[Audio Ends]

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Filed Under: Audio Podcast, Budget Issues, Corrections-Prisons, Education and Vocational Assistance, Employment, Interviews with Policy Makers, Reentry, What Works Tagged With: , , , ,

Jobs in Corrections-Discover Corrections Website–DC Public Safety Radio

March 7, 2013 by

Welcome to “DC Public Safety” – Radio and television shows, blog and transcripts on crime, criminal offenders and the criminal justice system.

The portal site for “DC Public Safety” is http://media.csosa.gov.

Radio Program available at http://media.csosa.gov/podcast/audio/2012/11/jobs-in-corrections-discover-corrections-website-dc-public-safety-radio/

[Audio Begins]

Len Sipes: From the nation’s capital, this is DC Public Safety. I’m your host, Leonard Sipes, and ladies and gentlemen, today we’re going to be talking about jobs in Corrections. It’s an issue of great importance because the vast majority of people in this country who the criminal justice system supervises are supervised by Corrections personnel. They’re supervised by parole and probation agents or they’re supervised within prisons, they’re supervised within jails, but the overwhelming majority are again, in the community being supervised by parole and probation agents.  We thought we’d do a radio program about jobs in Corrections. We have a new website that is created by the American Probation and Parole Association called “Discover Corrections,” and “Discover Corrections,” there’s a league of agencies involved in this with the American Probation and Parole Association taking the lead. Our guest today is Mary Ann Smitz-Mowatt. She is a Research Associate for the or with the American Probation and Parole Association., and Mary Ann, welcome to DC Public Safety.

Mary Ann Smitz-Mowatt: Thank you, and good afternoon.

Len Sipes: Yep. I’m looking forward to this conversation because, you know, this is a very important topic. The quality of our criminal justice personnel means the quality of justice. It correlates exactly with the quality of justice that we end up providing, correct?

Mary Ann Smitz-Mowatt: Oh, exactly, exactly, and this website offers career-based resources for students and graduates as well as our military veterans and other individuals who are seeking their first job in this career, and for those individuals who may be trying to look at Corrections as a second career.

Len Sipes: You know, and one area during this recession that has always been hiring, and that’s Corrections.

Mary Ann Smitz-Mowatt: Yes, and not only individuals who are seeking positions as parole officers and probation officer but positions that you may not always think of as positions that are in the career field, like registered nurses.

Len Sipes: Oh, absolutely. I mean, there’s an endless number of individuals with individual specialties that corrections agencies throughout the United States whether they be federal, whether they be state, whether they be local, they need a wide array of people to staff these positions.

Mary Ann Smitz-Mowatt: Yes, exactly.

Len Sipes: Okay. The website for “Discover Corrections” is www.discovercorrections.com – www.discovercorrections.com. Mary Ann, give me a sense as to all the different agencies that are involved in the “Discovery Corrections” website project.

Mary Ann Smitz-Mowatt: Okay. Just to give you a little history, the Bureau of Justice Assistance, in an effort to address workforce development issues in Corrections – community Corrections, jails, and detention centers, as well as prisons and institutions – provided funds to the Counsel of State Government, the American Probation and Parole Association, to develop and implement this exciting website. So this innovative project is a collaborative effort overseen by APPA, and our partners are the American Correctional Association, the American Jail Association, and the Center for Innovative Public Policies.

Len Sipes: So you’ve got a lot of people involved in this and it’s funded by the Bureau of Justice Assistance of the Office of Justice Programs, U.S. Department of Justice, so you’ve got federal funding and you’ve got the biggest and best correctional agencies, and very well-respected correctional incremental justice agencies deeply involved in the project, and the American Probation and Parole Association is taking the lead.

Mary Ann Smitz-Mowatt: Yes. Yes. You know, I can’t say enough regarding our partners and the tremendous amount of work that they put into this project as well, and they really should be commended for all of the material they provided and expertise.

Len Sipes: This will be the first time in the 40-or-so years that I’ve been in the criminal justice system that if you were interested in a career in Corrections, regardless as to where you are in the United States, I mean, you could be sitting in American Samoa and access the website and say, “Son of a gun, that’s something I would like to do in New Mexico” and go for that job.

Mary Ann Smitz-Mowatt: Yes, yes, and I think when you look at the website, there are four components or key sections to the website. The first one is “Why Corrections”; the second one is “Explore the Field”; the third is “Career Resources”; and then finally you come to “Post your Job and Find your Job.” When you’re looking at the jobs that are available across the country, you’ll find that they’re in Bismarck, North Dakota, Pine City, Minnesota, East Baton Rouge, Idaho. So no matter where you’re looking, there are jobs that are being posted.

Len Sipes: And one of the things that I do want to say, Mary Ann, about the folks who are in Corrections – again, I’ve been in the criminal justice system for over 40 years, started off as a police officer, and I’ve done a lot of different things both on the correctional side and the law enforcement side, and I want to give a shout-out, I suppose, or recognition to people in Corrections. I don’t think there’s any more difficult and exciting job than being a main-stream correctional officer. I’ve been in and out of literally hundreds of prisons, or prisons hundreds of times, and I understand how difficult and how challenging and how exciting that job is; and people, I don’t think correctional officers get the respect that they deserve. I think as far as I’m concerned, as far as a lot of people are concerned in the criminal justice system, correctional officers deserve a huge amount of respect. Parole and probation agents, what we here in Washington D.C. call community supervision officers, again, that is an extraordinarily difficult job. They’re out in high-crime neighborhoods dealing sometimes with people presenting really unique challenges. These are exciting jobs. These are really interesting jobs. These are not boring jobs at all. They pay well in many instances and they have good government benefits behind them so people looking around and they’re uncertain about a career in Corrections, I’m not quite sure they need to be uncertain. I think a life in Corrections is a life of, you know, not just pure excitement from the law enforcement point of view but I think they’re very exciting, very challenging jobs. They’re never boring.

Mary Ann Smitz-Mowatt: Yeah, I agree. My first job – I was in the field for approximately 28 years based out of Minnesota – and my first job was at the Women’s Facility here in Shakopee. I believe that my first job as a Corrections officer gave me the foundation that I needed for a career in Corrections.

Len Sipes: Well, I have first-hand experience inside of prisons. I have first-hand experience riding along with parole and probation agents, and they have my endless, endless admiration in terms of their ability to protect public safety and their ability to try to help the individuals caught up in the criminal justice system. Okay, so we have a website, “Discover Corrections” – www.discovercorrections.com – and you’ve got the mainstream criminal justice agencies, correctional agencies involved in it. It’s both on the jail side, the prison side, and the community Corrections side. We’ve said it’s funded by the BJA, the Bureau of Justice Assistance of the U.S. Department of Justice. So how has it been? I mean, have you been successful? Has it placed a lot of people? Do you think that you’re getting the interaction that you’re looking for?

Mary Ann Smitz-Mowatt: We’re beginning to analyze some of those key outcomes that you’re pointing out. We believe that people are beginning to go to the “Discover Corrections.” It’s a fairly new website. We are marketing through Facebook and other avenues but we do have close to 200 agencies that have listed jobs on the website.

Len Sipes: That’s great.

Mary Ann Smitz-Mowatt: And that also then, you know, when you post jobs, then it brings job candidates, and you see more and more people then accessing the website. But based on our initial surveys, both the job-seekers as well as the employers have provided us with very positive feedback.

Len Sipes: And you said before that there were four primary sections to the website. I’m not quite sure that I gave you full time to explain what they are. Could you give them to me again, please?

Mary Ann Smitz-Mowatt: Oh, certainly. “Why Corrections” is the first section when you’re looking at the website.

Len Sipes: What is that designed to do, “Why Corrections,” because people are confused about a career in Corrections possibly?

Mary Ann Smitz-Mowatt: Well, possibly confused or maybe wondering, “Is this the direction should I take and really what does it involve?” It explains the three components. It talks about Corrections as a critical component of the criminal justice system, and that it requires dedication, integrity, and commitment to working with individuals who come into the criminal justice system; and that also that there are rewards and that it can be highly gratifying to work in this field and help people make real life changes.

Len Sipes: Well, I’ve seen it firsthand. I have seen especially on the community correction side with parole and probation agencies, with the treatment side, within prisons, I’ve seen people turn the lives around of people caught up in the criminal justice system. It doesn’t happen every time but certainly it is just amazing to see people go from tax burdens to tax payers, and we owe, again, a debt of gratitude towards the people in community Corrections and mainstream Corrections who helped that person get there.

Mary Ann Smitz-Mowatt: Um-hum, um-hum.

Len Sipes: Now you also have personal stories on the website that I find really interesting. You’ve got some personal stories about people from my agency, Court Services and Offender Supervision Agency, and you’ve got personal stories from people throughout the country talking addressing why they got involved in Corrections.

Mary Ann Smitz-Mowatt: Exactly, and that’s I think a very important part of the website. It’s real people telling their stories, and that is in the “Explore the Field” section of the website.

Len Sipes: Okay, so that’s a good segue.

Mary Ann Smitz-Mowatt: Okay, and there are stories from wardens within our prisons, and there are probation officers. There are other positions such as there’s a nurse, there’s a teacher, and a variety of individuals who are working in our field, both in community Corrections, jails and detention, prisons and institutions.

Len Sipes: You know getting back to teachers for a second, I remember when I was representing the Maryland Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services, which was Law Enforcement and Corrections, and we had the unfortunate privilege I suppose, I can say that now, of taking over the Baltimore City Jail. The state took over the City Jail. And what was truly amazing to me is that the teachers who worked in the Baltimore City Jail who were providing educational services to juveniles and young adults, they had the second highest increase in test scores in the city of Baltimore. Maryland has, I think, the highest test score ranking in the country, and they had the second highest for the city of Baltimore in the Baltimore City Jail, and I was amazed.

Mary Ann Smitz-Mowatt: Wow.

Len Sipes: I would sit down and talk to those teachers and say, “How did you accomplish this ?” – And working with the correctional officers and working with the teachers, they told me their game plan, and then years ago I interviewed them for the radio with I was with the State of Maryland. Here are teachers working in a correctional setting, producing the second highest increase in grade average scores for an entire city. I thought that that was phenomenal, so again, it’s a wide-open field. We need lots of good people to come into Corrections not just necessarily as correctional officers but as you said, teachers and nurses and administrators and bean counters and accountants and plumbers and lawyers and ten tons of people.

Mary Ann Smitz-Mowatt: Exactly, exactly, and so then when you’re viewing the website, then you can also then go on to the third section which is “Career Resources,” and that really is designed to provide specific information. So you’re looking at a state and say you’re interested in going to Montana. Well, it will give you a snapshot of how Corrections is organized in that state.

Len Sipes: Oh, that’s great.

Mary Ann Smitz-Mowatt: Okay, and also then it provides a glossary of common terms, and also there’s a whole list of national links that you can click as a resource.

Len Sipes: So if I want to go to Hawaii, I can go to Hawaii and just work as a correctional officer. I can work as a parole and probation agent.

Mary Ann Smitz-Mowatt: You could.

Len Sipes: I could.

Mary Ann Smitz-Mowatt: There’s some openings.

Len Sipes: There are some openings. I’ll think about that in the dead of winter. All right, so have we covered three of the four sections of the website?

Mary Ann Smitz-Mowatt: Yes, and then the last one is “Post your Job and Find your Job.”

Len Sipes: Okay, and that’s pretty simple. Now anybody within the criminal justice system can post jobs?

Mary Ann Smitz-Mowatt: Correct, both private and public.

Len Sipes: Private and public. Thanks. I was going to ask that. And so anybody, a 17-year-old searching for his or her future can go to that website and say, “Wow, I’ve always wanted to go to Wyoming and they’ve got openings for parole and probation agents in Wyoming.” I mean, it’s open to anybody.

Mary Ann Smitz-Mowatt: Exactly.

Len Sipes: All right. I think it’s an exciting concept. I’m going to give the website and we’re going to move into the second part of the program. Ladies and gentlemen, we’re talking about jobs in Corrections with Mary Ann Smitz-Mowatt. She is a Research Associate with the American Probation and Parole Association. She is the administrator of “Discover Correction,” a really unique website funded by the Bureau of Justice Assistance of the Office of Justice Programs, U.S. Department of Justice, in league with some of the biggest criminal justice agencies in the country, and she is with the American Probation and Parole Association. The website for the American Probation and Parole Association is www.appa-net.org – www.appa-net.org. The “Discover Corrections” website again is www.discovercorrections.com.

Mary Ann, what has been the response of people seeking jobs o the website? Do they find it useful? Do they find it easy to navigate?

Mary Ann Smitz-Mowatt: They find it easy to navigate. I think what they would like is to see more job openings but that’s throughout the country, and of course we would like to see more job postings but more jobs are coming available, and if you’re willing to consider relocating, there are positions throughout the country that are available.

Len Sipes: Well, I remember talking to a couple of nurses decades ago who spent five years in Alaska then spent two years in Hawaii, and I’m not quite sure I’m encouraging leaving criminal justice jobs but I would imagine this gives you the same opportunity to travel the country and work for a career in Corrections. The people coming to the website, can they find what they’re looking for? That’s the bottom line. Are they satisfied with their experience?

Mary Ann Smitz-Mowatt: Yes. Yes.

Len Sipes: Okay, and have they written you back saying, you know, “Gee, I’d like to see more jobs listed,” or “I’d like to see it easier,” or what’s been their feedback?

Mary Ann Smitz-Mowatt: Yes, that’s in some of the feedback, and also, you know, I respond to individuals who use other social media outlets such as LinkedIn, and of course people will talk about, you know, it would be nice to be able to stay where they’re at however, you know.

Len Sipes: Yes.

Mary Ann Smitz-Mowatt: And then also a number of people throughout the country really recognize the need to be open to be mobile and to consider job opportunities in other areas of the country.

Len Sipes: Sure. It gives you a chance to see the nation and to get a sense as to what’s happening in other areas. If I was a young man, I would love to be a parole and probation agent in Alaska, so there you are. If anybody up in Alaska wants to hire an older individual, please contact me when I retire.

Mary Ann Smitz-Mowatt: Well, and there are openings. So when you go to the site, there is a U.S. probation officer opening in Bismarck, North Dakota. Pine City, Minnesota, there is a probation officer opening. It’s a lovely part of the country if you like northern Minnesota where it’s very outdoorsy, close to Duluth.

Len Sipes: And I’m glad you brought that up. There’s a lot of federal positions in here. There are federal parole and probation issues that are administered by the individual district courts within the federal system, and there are federal prisons, I’m assuming, that are within the system. So again, if you want to be a correctional officer and have a federal job with all of that security and all the pay that comes with it, and you want to go to a certain area of the country, boom, it’s there for you.

Mary Ann Smitz-Mowatt: Exactly. And not only are there entry-level positions but there are management and administrative positions as well, so like Salt Lake City is looking for a trial court executive. There’s the Sheriff’s Volunteer Coordinator, which can be an entry-level position. There is also the superintendent of Mental Health Services in Maine; also the Minnesota Sex Offender Program in St. Peter is looking for a facility director, and a business analysis out of Arizona, the Arizona Judicial Branch. So there’s a variety of positions.

Len Sipes: Well, you know, I’ve been on the website several times and I’m just discovering the full complexity of all the different jobs that are available especially, you know, some of these jobs are really interesting. I mean, you can make a career, an exciting career, a very interesting career in any of these. How does an agency get on your website? Is it simply a matter of calling up and saying, “Hey, I’ve got these 20 jobs I want to advertise?”

Mary Ann Smitz-Mowatt: No, you don’t even have to call. You go to the website and where you see “post your jobs,” you simply click on that and you will be able to create a login, you know, there’s a password etc., register your agency, and then begin posting your jobs.

Len Sipes: And is there a cost to agencies in terms of posting information on the website?

Mary Ann Smitz-Mowatt: Is there, I’m sorry, what?

Len Sipes: I’m sorry, is there a cost to post information on the website?

Mary Ann Smitz-Mowatt: Is there a cost?

Len Sipes: Yes.

Mary Ann Smitz-Mowatt: No. T his is free. This service is free so it’s no cost to your agency.

Len Sipes: Mmm, neat, okay. And I guess one of the final questions is launching the “Discover Corrections” website; it is an important enhancement to the field of Corrections, why? Explain why that is. In the past, you sort of were limited, I suppose. If I’m living in Baltimore, Maryland, where I currently live, the only opportunities I’m going to be exposed to are going to be those advertised in the Baltimore Sun. Now suddenly it’s the entire world opens to me, and I would imagine that’s the heart and soul of it.

Mary Ann Smitz-Mowatt: Yes. And one of the other things, when we really began to examine how we wanted to impact job searching in the Corrections field, was considering some of the feedback that we receive from students. For many students, they do not know now to access career or job information in the field of Corrections. I mean often, at least in the past, you would have to know exactly what agency you wanted to consider employment in, and then you would have to go that agency’s website, where this really allows individuals to go to one website.

Len Sipes: And have it all done right there and see all the varieties of jobs that are open to you.

Mary Ann Smitz-Mowatt: Um-hum. And it also allows employers to search resumes of registered job seekers.

Len Sipes: Oh, I didn’t know that.

Mary Ann Smitz-Mowatt: Um-hum, so that’s I think a very positive feature of the website.

Len Sipes: That is a very positive, so I can throw in my own resume upon retirement and then the good folks in Alaska would reach out and say, “Hey, Leonard, come on up. We’d love to have you,” and then my wife would divorce me but that’s beside the point.

Mary Ann Smitz-Mowatt: That’s – yes. You know, they can look for the right person because I think oftentimes in this field it is about looking for the right person in that specific position.

Len Sipes: And like any other criminal justice endeavor, we really do have to go through quite a few people to find the right person. It takes a unique human being to be successful in Corrections. Either in mainstream prisons or in terms of community corrections, it takes a unique individual to be able to do these jobs.

Mary Ann Smitz-Mowatt: I would agree. It can be challenging yet also very rewarding.

Len Sipes: Mary Ann, did we cover all the topics?

Mary Ann Smitz-Mowatt: I believe so.

Len Sipes: All right, good. Ladies and gentlemen, this has been DC Public Safety. We did a radio show today on jobs in Corrections with Mary Ann Smitz-Mowatt, a Research Associate with the American Probation and Parole Association talking about what I think is an extraordinarily good idea website, a national website, or an international website there at www.discovercorrections.com – www.discovercorrections.com. Ladies and gentlemen, this is DC Public Safety. We do appreciate your calls. We appreciate your letters. We appreciate your comments. We appreciate your criticisms. And we want everybody to have themselves a very, very pleasant day.

[Audio Ends]

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Filed Under: Audio Podcast, Corrections-Prisons, Employment, Parole and Probation, Probation Tagged With: , , , , , ,
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