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The Green Corrections Challenge-National Institute of Corrections

August 11, 2014 by

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Radio Program available at http://media.csosa.gov/podcast/audio/2014/04/green-corrections-challenge-national-institute-corrections/

[Audio Begins]

Len Sipes:  From the nation’s capital this is DC Public Safety. I’m your host Leonard Sipes. The program today is Green Corrections produced by the National Institute of Corrections. We have two guests by our microphones. From Oklahoma via Skype, Mike Connelly. He is an instructor at the University of Oklahoma. And by our microphone we have Stephanie Davison; she is a Program Manager for FHI 360. The program, again, is Greening of Corrections. And we have an exciting announcement, ladies and gentlemen. We have a Green Corrections Challenge today. And I want to give out a couple websites, NICIC, National Institute of Corrections, nicic.gov/greencorrections and nicic.gov/greencorrectionschallenge. To Mike and Stephanie welcome to DC Public Safety.

Stephanie Davison:  Thanks for having us.

Len Sipes:  Okay.

Mike Connelly:  Yeah. Thank you.

Len Sipes:  All right, now, Stephanie, I’m going to start off with you. What is Green Corrections?

Stephanie Davison:  Green Corrections are the multiple ways that the corrections community can be engaged in sustainable and cost saving activities.

Len Sipes:  Okay.

Stephanie Davison:  It ranges from greening facilities to reentry programs and everything in between.

Len Sipes:  What we’re trying to do is to be environmentally friendly within the correctional system. And that is the last conversation we had. That creates jobs, does it not, within the correctional institutions?

Stephanie Davison:  Both in the correctional institutions and outside, as offenders are exiting, it can.

Len Sipes:  Okay. So this is a win-win situation for everybody and it does save money for institutions, ordinarily gobs of money, correct?

Stephanie Davison:  Yes. States can save millions of dollars a year if they plan their programs well.

Len Sipes:  And last time that we did this program we had guests on who did talk about immense savings within their own states, right?

Stephanie Davison:  Yes. For example, Washington State, a composting program at one facility can save $30,000 a year.

Len Sipes:  Okay. So we’re just not talking about 30,000, the different states that we were talking about, millions of dollars of savings. And state correctional agencies are constantly looking for ways to save money. So this is a way of saving money, a way of being environmentally participatory, as well as providing jobs for inmates within the correctional institution. So this is a win-win-win for everybody.

Stephanie Davison:  I would add one more piece to it.

Len Sipes:  Yeah, please.

Stephanie Davison:  As offenders become more engaged in their environment and their community there can be a rehabilitation aspect to it.

Len Sipes:  Oh, that’s right. I mean we’re talking about a reentry component to this –

Stephanie Davison:  Yes.

Len Sipes:  Because they can take, these are transferable skills that they can take out into the community.

Stephanie Davison:  Yes, absolutely.

Len Sipes:  Okay. And one of those transferable skills being, we were talking about mulching a little while ago, was going into the landscaping business on the outside. I mean this could be a real bridge for a lot folks leaving the prison system, going out and finding jobs, correct?

Stephanie Davison:  Yes.

Len Sipes:  Okay.

Stephanie Davison:  Building competencies and skills through those programs.

Len Sipes:  Mike Connelly, you’re, again, an instructor at the University of Oklahoma and you have quite a correctional background we were talking about before hitting the start button. Can you tell me and tell the audience a little bit about your background?

Mike Connelly:  Well, my position before I went to University of Oklahoma was basically handle the research office for the Oklahoma Department of Corrections. Before that I was the Executive Director of Sentencing Commissions in Wisconsin and Maryland and I also have done work with the Justice Research and Statistics Association working with the Bureau of Justice Assistance on technical assistance to state and local community criminal justice agencies evaluation projects.

Len Sipes:  So the bottom line is that you’ve got a heck of a corrections background.

Mike Connelly:  Or I just can’t keep a job, one or the other.

Len Sipes:  No. I think it’s a heck of a corrections background. All right, before we get into Green Corrections, because I do want to have an exploration of what is Green Corrections, where is it going, what’s happening with that, we have a Green Corrections Challenge. In fact, we’re announcing it on this program. I’m very proud that the National Institute of Corrections has chosen this program to announce the Green Corrections Challenge. What is the Green Corrections Challenge, Stephanie?

Stephanie Davison:  The challenge is a video contest that engages states, students in criminal justice programs, basically anybody interested in corrections, into entering a video about their green innovation. We figure people on the ground know what’s best and we should be learning from each other.

Len Sipes:  All right, so the whole idea is for them to submit video pieces, and that could be through their cell phones, that could be through their Smartphones, it could be through their video cameras. It doesn’t have to be, I would imagine, a professional piece. Anything that documents what is happening in correctional facilities regarding Green Corrections, right?

Stephanie Davison:  Yes. They should visit nicic.gov/greencorrectionschallenge –

Len Sipes:  Okay.

Stephanie Davison:  For the rules.

Len Sipes:  Right.

Stephanie Davison:  But they can make a video up to seven minutes –

Len Sipes:  Right.

Stephanie Davison:  It could be 30 seconds if it really captures it –

Len Sipes:  Right.

Stephanie Davison:  Telling the story of what their innovation is and the impact it’s had.

Len Sipes:  I want to see these. I want to see these, because when you say Green Corrections, and then Donna Ledbetter from the National Institute of Corrections first proposed a Green Corrections program, the first time we did this I’m saying to myself, “Wait a minute. This doesn’t all that interesting.” When you get into it’s very interesting, because it hits every facet of correctional life. So the videos could be what? Give me some ideas as to what these videos could be.

Stephanie Davison:  So they could range, they could be something like an energy performance contract and how an energy system is retrofitted. Or it could be a gardening program. It could be a reentry program where people are reentering into society, learning a skill in a green field. It might be something completely that we haven’t thought of, maybe related to correctional industries, a new way of manufacturing –

Len Sipes:  Right.

Stephanie Davison:  Within a facility.

Len Sipes:  Anything that saves money while being environmentally friendly, that’s what you’re looking for.

Stephanie Davison:  Yes.

Len Sipes:  Now that could be anything.

Stephanie Davison:  It could be anything. We would like people to focus on activities that could be replicated.

Len Sipes:  Right. But I mean that could be a different fuel within –

Stephanie Davison:  Absolutely.

Len Sipes:  The vehicles that correctional personnel use. So that could be a different kind of lighting as long as it doesn’t affect security. That could be beautifying the grounds of correctional facilities. One of the things when I spent my 14 years in the state of Maryland and went into every correctional facility multiple times was how beautiful, this is going to be a contradiction, how beautiful some of these correctional facilities were because they were maintained by inmates who took great pride in terms of how the grounds inside the wire, and outside the wire, if they were on minimum security, looked. I remember bringing visitors and media into some of our correctional facilities and they were astounded as to how nice they looked. So that’s Green Corrections as well. So this has an effect on morale of the correctional staff, this has effect on the morale of the inmates who are in these facilities. It can go on and on and on in terms of what Green Corrections is.

Stephanie Davison:  Absolutely. I love going and hearing stories from Washington State where they say when you’re in the yard it’s so much more calm, because offenders are actively participating in green practices such as gardening and landscaping. Now, Mike Connelly, now as an instructor at the University of Oklahoma are you teaching this, are you a proponent of this. I’m quite sure you were, because you’re on the radio program today. Where do you see the role of Green Corrections going?

Len Sipes:  Well, from the standpoint of state budgets, for example, I think Stephanie’s point early on about the cost savings that are generated from a Green Corrections approach is going to become even more important to facilities on state and local levels for the coming years. We’re looking at a situation where our fastest inmate groups, the aging population of inmates, those that are 50 years of age and older, those with mental health issues, which is not always the same group, physical health problems requiring medical treatment, those groups they add cost to the correctional budgets far beyond what we would call I guess the average costs of an offender would be, and those are groups that are growing the fastest. And so one of the problems that we face is not just that the prison populations are growing, but even the cost of many of those offenders grow at the same time, that we’re trying to divert a lot of offenders from prison. But if you look at a lot of the efforts to divert offenders, the offenders who would be diverted by most of the reform proposals out there are not the ones who are adding to the cost. The average, the rule of thumb for an aging offender, for example, as a cost to the correctional system is like three times the cost of the average offender.

And so and that’s going to vary obviously from the 50 to 60-year-olds as a rule won’t cost as much as the 60 to 70-year-olds and so on. But what that means is that even if we divert people, we’re successful in reducing our prison populations, even if we divert people, if they’re the ones who are the average cost offenders, and we’re increasing our aging or mental health need offenders. At the same time, for example, we would have to divert 300 offenders, the average cost for every 100 of the people who age in, at that 3 to 1 ratio. And that really doesn’t get talked about probably as much as it should. And so we’re looking at that just on top of the normal types of pressures or triggers for correctional population growth in terms of the general population growing and incarceration rates staying the same and also just the problems of state and local governments being able to keep up with the costs that are associated with it right now. It’s a rare state that is in good shape in their correctional budgets. And so one of the things Green Corrections does, as Stephanie said, is to force concentration on how do you best manage your resources and I think that will become more important as the resources don’t keep up any better than they already have been doing at the state and local levels.

Len Sipes:  Either one of you. Mandates and regulations oftentimes serve as a catalyst to implement Green Corrections. I would imagine there are EPA requirements; I would imagine there are state requirements. Stephanie, do you want to take a shot at that?

Stephanie Davison:  Yeah, absolutely. So what I find in most states is the biggest trigger for a state correctional agency to implement energy savings are a governor’s requirement –

Len Sipes:  Right.

Stephanie Davison:  To lower those energy usages.

Len Sipes:  Right.

Stephanie Davison:  And it’s very difficult within the correctional environment because you have people living there 24/7.

Len Sipes:  Sure.

Stephanie Davison:  It’s easier for other agencies that are doing it to office space.

Len Sipes:  I would imagine in terms of having experience and in terms of building prisons, I don’t remember the term Green Corrections coming up. I would assume that in terms of constructing correctional facilities Green Corrections is now an integral component of that construction process.

Stephanie Davison:  Absolutely. The American Institute of Architects has a special Green Corrections subgroup that leads it. Actually the leader of that group helped facilitate the writing of the Greening of Corrections Guidebook, as well as LEED, which is Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design by the US Green Building Council, has components that can be applied to Green Corrections.

Len Sipes:  So there are mandates I would imagine governors throughout the country, throughout the territories are saying to their correctional administrators, “Hey, this is something you need to do.”

Stephanie Davison:  Yes. Both reduce energy and sometimes have a LEED certified building.

Len Sipes:  Okay. And that’s why they end up with the National Institute of Corrections and that’s one of the reasons why we’re doing this program today, to assist people in terms of ideas, and also, again, at nicic.gov/greencorrections, and to invite ideas from the community in terms of nicic.gov/greencorrectionschallenge, right?

Stephanie Davison:  Absolutely.

Len Sipes:  All right, so partners can play an important role in the development of Green Corrections. Who wants to take that?

Stephanie Davison:  I can address that.

Len Sipes:  Okay.

Stephanie Davison:  So partnership happens at various levels. We’re thinking about it through the challenge of how states can look at other effective practices. States can also do exchange programs. I often find when one correctional officer visits a facility in another state they come back with ten new ideas –

Len Sipes:  Right.

Stephanie Davison:  That they can implement. That healthy challenge and also learning from each other is critical.

Len Sipes:  And that’s one of the reasons that the National Institute of Corrections exists at all is to exchange information with hundreds of people throughout the United States and the territories so they can figure out the best way of doing things. I mean that’s the hallmark of the National Institute of Corrections and that’s one of the reasons why the National Institute of Corrections is picking up on Green Corrections.

Stephanie Davison:  Absolutely.

Mike Connelly:  You know –

Len Sipes:  Go ahead, Mike.

Mike Connelly:  One of the areas that we need to focus on too I think are the community partnerships with churches, for example. A lot of the offenders, [INDISCERNIBLE 00:13:56] offenders, are going back to communities that will be heavily hit in the future, are being heavily hit, a number of them are what we call food deserts. And as a result, working with the churches, working with the nonprofit agencies in those types of communities to do the sort of thing that Stephanie was talking about, about working offenders into, working their skills that they’ve learned in Green Corrections back into those communities when they come back will be important.

And we actually investigated briefly, it didn’t happen, but we investigated briefly working with one of the large hospital centers in Oklahoma City at one point because they have wellness programs both for their employees and for employee families and they’re interested obviously in the health and medical care of the general community. And we explored for a while working with them to develop a kind of community garden setting in one of their properties. They weren’t able to; there was a water issue that kept us from doing that. But we were really surprised about how – we had never really thought hospitals as being a potential partner for this sort of thing, but until we got to the point where – you do tend to need water for gardens – but till we got to that point it looked like we might be able to really afford a good partnership with someone that we had never really thought of at all.

Len Sipes:  Well, the bottom is that who’s not your partner when it comes to Green Corrections because it applies to so many people in so many ways.

Mike Connelly:  Right.

Len Sipes:  But we’re more than halfway through the program. I do want to introduce, reintroduce the topic. It’s Green Corrections. The program is produced by the National Institute of Corrections. Mike Connelly is an instructor at the University of Oklahoma. Stephanie Davison – Davison –?

Stephanie Davison:  Yeah.

Len Sipes:  Is a Program Manager for FHI 360. What is FHI 360, Stephanie?

Stephanie Davison:  FHI 360 is a human development organization dedicated to improving lives in lasting ways.

Len Sipes:  Okay.

Stephanie Davison:  We take locally driven solutions and work in all 50 states.

Len Sipes:  All right, the program is really, I think, exciting in terms of the fact that we are saving state and federal correctional agencies literally millions of dollars through this use of Green Corrections, and if you’re interested in information on Green Corrections, nicic.gov/greencorrections. If you’re interested in the challenge, which is submitting a video up to seven minutes, and, again, it doesn’t have to be a professionally done video, it could be any video of what’s happening in terms of Green Corrections, in terms of any correctional facility, it could be mainline corrections, it could be community corrections, it could be offender reentry, nicic.gov/greencorrectionschallenge, greencorrectionschallenge.

All right, now in terms of measuring the success of this program, you talk about understanding the consumption of waste, water and energy use is critical to measuring reduction in use, which could be difficult in older facilities. Many states have data tracking systems for energy where they can compare information from utility bills. For waste and water consumption other measures may be necessary, a new recycling program, for example, may measure waste and recycling on a weekly basis, and also monetizing savings. So there’s a variety of ways that different correctional facilities, Stephanie, can take a look at this and measure their results.

Stephanie Davison:  Yeah. So I’d say most states go through four steps. They set a baseline and analyze current use. They implement a program. They measure use. And then they tweak it. So in the state of Maryland they’re looking at energy systems based on utility bills and tracking from there. The state of Alabama just signed a contract with Johnson Controls to look at how much they’re going to be saving in one particular facility based on certain activities that will be implemented.

Len Sipes:  Okay, all right. And this is important in terms of the buy-in of the correctional personnel at that facility. Now, look, I’ve been around corrections for a quarter of a century. It’s a tough job. Any correctional facility is just a really tough place to be. We have some people in there who are not the easiest to manage. Correctional officers are under an enormous amount of stress and strain. So we’ve got to get buy-in from correctional staff if Green Corrections is going to successful, correct?

Stephanie Davison:  Yes. That’s true.

Len Sipes:  All right, Michael, the question goes to you. So if we have the – we have to have buy-in by correctional staff, by the administration, by the average correctional officers. How difficult is that when you mention the words Green Corrections to them?

Mike Connelly:  Well, I think, well, it’s very difficult, obviously. But I think there are things that you can do to facilitate all that, one of them is exactly what Stephanie’s proposing with these videos and the dissemination of them. I think one of the most successful ways of dealing with this is just to take advantage of the interest of staff and the managers in the facilities in doing better with their resources as they’re having to triage and cut back and demonstrate to them that’s it’s not something that’s just out there, where you’re talking about tree huggers and all that sort of thing, but it’s something that actually has an impact and gets around whatever predispositions that they bring to it.

You’re talking about something that in the long run, actually as Stephanie alluded to, is going to make the facility in most cases a safer place to be and a more efficient place to be and just a more congenial place to be. And there are enough places out there that have experience with this that if they’re promoted and the people who have led to the point where they are, such as the Sustainability in Prisons Program that you see in Washington and now extending to Oregon and so on, have the spokespeople for those programs be available to kind of lead the way. You find your successes, you promote them, you send their leaders around, and you answer questions from these folks when you present to them. And then within the facility or within your system, as some move forward and others don’t, you make special effort to recognize and reward and award the people who are actually making the effort and over time that should have a payoff as well. Don’t you think that’s true, Stephanie, I mean?

Stephanie Davison:  Absolutely. I see promoting leadership of the people on the ground who are going to be making the changes over time will have the biggest success. When you look at Washington State, as you mentioned, Dan, who’s the leader of the Sustainable Prisons Project, started out as an officer and has moved up to the second ranking position within the state in the field of corrections.

Len Sipes:  Well, I want to you a story from a prison Maryland’s lower eastern shore where they went through a lot to maintain the yard and beautify the yard basically using recyclable materials. And the place looked nice, it really did. And anytime you walked inside of that prison you were sort of surprised by how nice the grounds looked. There was a disturbance at that correctional facility and the inmates involved in the disturbance went to great length not to bother the plants and everything else, the shrubbery and the plants that they erected. So it seems to me that they even during tough times took pride in what they had and that had to, it shows that that this is something that was important to them, which creates safer institutions. I think, Michael, I think you’re right. I think Green Corrections creates safer saner correctional institution and makes it a nicer place for correctional staff and inmates. And I think that that’s maybe not an issue that’s brought up enough.

Mike Connelly:  Oh, I agree. I think that’s how it has to be promoted. I think just everybody hears that you need to change your light bulbs and you need to get a more fuel efficient car and all that and I think you become kind of immune to those types of admonitions. But it’s when you’re able to relate it to their day to day work activity, they’re able to see the progress like you’re describing right there, and they’re able to take ownership of it both as offenders and as staff, that you’re going to end up seeing that long-term institutionalization and that commitment to it by staff. And when the people come in, when you have turnover, they’ll get oriented to it in the same way.

Len Sipes:  Are we retrofitting prisons and correctional facilities to make them more energy efficient, is that possible? A lot of the prisons that I experienced in Maryland were just old facilities and they had to be terribly inefficient from an energy saving’s point of view.

Stephanie Davison:  Yes. Older facilities that can be retrofitted are usually the places where you have the easiest gains; they’re sort of the low hanging fruit for energy savings.

Len Sipes:  But it’s not like any other building, it’s not like an apartment building, it’s a high-security facility. So retrofitting can be really difficult within the correctional setting.

Stephanie Davison:  Right. Which is why partnership really comes in.

Len Sipes:  Okay.

Stephanie Davison:  Relying on your state Department of Energy, relying on utility companies that have expertise can really be helpful. And then you can have energy performance contracts. So if the state enters into that and they don’t save $400,000 a year, that company has to give them that money. It’s guaranteed savings.

Len Sipes:  Mike, and then we’re talking about correctional industries. Correctional industries, most people may not know this; it is the job creation part, the job training part within correctional facilities throughout the country, correctional industries. I mean in Maryland, my heavens, it was meat processing, it was [PH 00:24:34] sewing, it was manufacturing. I mean everybody understands that the prisons make license plates. That’s part of correctional industries. But it goes so much more. I mean I even had inmates doing my reading articles from newspapers throughout the state and doing a daily analysis for me. So correctional industries can be an important part of this, right?

Mike Connelly:  Yeah, definitely. It can. I mean one of the concerns that you usually run across with correctional industries is that they’re going to be competing in some way with private industries and you get people complaining about that. But one of the things about there is such a need for both skill levels in the parts of the offenders but also for the materials, that if there were states to start or continue along lines developing their correctional industries to supply those needs to the businesses that are forming around Green Corrections, and green economy is one of the growing areas of our economy, the correctional industries had to play a much, much bigger role both in preparation of the offenders and in doing the supplying of more than – we would buy our desks and chairs and things like that at DOC in Oklahoma, but there’s no reason in the world why the materials that you’re talking about, the retrofitting for – if you’re talking about some of the water harvesting and conservation sorts of things that could be going on, that could be done in ways that would actually probably be beneficial to the businesses that are out there and not necessarily get in the way or cause any kind of political problems with the usual constituencies.

Len Sipes:  Which gets us right back to job creating. We only have a couple minutes left. One of the things that I did want to point out, that there’s a document called the Greening of Corrections:  Creating a Sustainable System. And that can be accessed through the National Institute of Corrections library. And, again, the website for Green Corrections is nicic.gov/greencorrections. Stephanie, if somebody orders the book, what will they see when they order this manual from the National Institute of Corrections?

Stephanie Davison:  So within the guidebook it highlights four areas of corrections that you might want to quote, unquote “green”. One being the facility itself, one being your education and training program, next is reentry, and then also correctional industries, finally, there also sort of a checklist and how-to for how you would implement within your own state or locality.

Len Sipes:  Well, before we end the program I do want to get back to Green Correction Challenge nicic.gov/greencorrectionschallenge. I mean in essence the National Institute of Corrections is crowd sourcing ideas and asking the larger community to submit those videos. Again, it’s up to how many minutes, seven minutes?

Stephanie Davison:  Up to seven minutes.

Len Sipes:  But it could be a 30 second buy-in video.

Stephanie Davison:  Absolutely. Anything that gives us a picture of what you’re doing and how someone else could replicate it.

Len Sipes:  And, again, it could be shot on your cell phone, your tablet, it doesn’t have to be a big fancy production, you’re just talking about a bit of documentation in terms of what’s happening.

Stephanie Davison:  Yeah. Tell us your story, formally or informally.

Len Sipes:  Tell us you story. And you’re going to be taking all of these videos and doing what with them, advertising [OVERLAY] –?

Stephanie Davison:  That’s great. In October we will be holding a symposium in which challenge winners will be announced, we’ll also be hosting these online, and then doing a series of webinars featuring the best practices that we’ve seen in the videos.

Len Sipes:  Wouldn’t it be nice, instead of the public’s perception of correctional facilities as dark and dank places, where they see all of the shrubbery and the flowers and the beautification projects going on, wouldn’t that be a nicer image of what corrections is and how people can relate to the fact that the greenery and the recycling has or could have a positive effect on the lives of the people who’ve got to go into that institution every day?

Stephanie Davison:  Absolutely. If people could really see how Green Corrections can help an offender reintegrate into their community and be a benefit to that community, that would be a best case scenario.

Len Sipes:  Because, Michael, we have 30 seconds. The bottom line in all of this is that, again, as you said, this creates jobs. I mean it’s one of the fastest growing sectors of our economy is not Green Corrections, but environmentally friendly practices. So the person comes out of the prison system, he’s qualified for a variety of jobs in that green community.

Mike Connelly:  Yeah. And that’s something that is going to require our correctional leadership to reorient themselves to really thinking along those lines and making sure that they’re receptive and they’re making sure that everyone below them down the organization understands this is a priority [OVERLAY].

Len Sipes:  All right, Mike, you’ve got the final word with that, because we do have to close. Our guests today have been Mike Connelly; he’s an instructor at the University of Oklahoma. Stephanie Davison is a Program Manager for FHI 360. The program today has been on Green Corrections produced by the National Institute of Corrections, Donna Ledbetter specifically, we always thank her for her wonderful programs. It’s called the Greening of Corrections at nicic.gov/greencorrections, and that video challenge, nicic.greencorrectionschallenge. Ladies and gentlemen, this is DC Public Safety. We appreciate your comments, we even appreciate your criticisms, and have yourselves a very pleasant day.

[Audio Ends]

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National Conference on Offender Reentry-National Institute of Corrections-DC Public Safety

August 1, 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/national-conference-on-offender-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. Ladies and gentlemen, we have a show today. The National Institute of Corrections Conference on Offender Re-entry, www.nicic.gov/go/vc2013. We’ll be giving out that web address all throughout the program and throughout the show notes.  We have two guests with us today. We have Bernie Izler, she is a Correctional Programs Specialist for the National Institute of Corrections at the Academy in Aurora, Colorado; and we have Captain Attila Denes. Yes, indeed, I did say Attila Denes. He is with the Douglas County Sheriff’s Office there in Colorado. – And to Bernie and Attila, welcome to DC Public Safety.

Bernie Izler: Thank you.

Captain Attila Denes: Thank you.

Len Sipes: All right. This is exciting. This is a national conference on re-entry, but it’s a virtual conference, and that opens it up to anybody whether it is a community person, whether it is a businessperson, whether it’s an aide to the mayor, an aide to the governor, a student, a college professor; it doesn’t matter. You’re inviting everybody into this national conference, correct?

Bernie Izler: Yes, we are.

Len Sipes: All right. Bernie, it’s June 12th from 9 AM Mountain to 2:00 in the afternoon?

Bernie Izler: Correct.

Len Sipes: Alright, June 12th, 9 AM Mountain; that’s 11:00 Eastern Time. I don’t know what it’s like, what it is for the rest of the country. 9:00 AM Mountain Time there in Aurora, Colorado, and we go to the afternoon. So this is exciting stuff. What called you to create a national conference on offender re-entry? What caused the National Institute of Corrections to create a conference, a national conference, but in this case, do it via personal computers?

Bernie Izler: Okay, well first of all, re-entry in Corrections is everybody’s business is re-entry, and we also were trying to pick a topic in which we could get stakeholders and others in the community, whoever had an interest in this, that they could be involved, and one of the ways to do that is to go virtual with a conference, and that way, people don’t have to travel. There’s no cost involved except people’s time, as accessible as possible, so that was our two-pronged purpose with a virtual conference.

Len Sipes: And the really interesting thing about this is that a lot of the virtual conferences that I go to, it’s listen-only but in this case they’ll be able to watch and listen and ask questions, correct?

Bernie Izler: Correct. It’s kind of like there’ll be a thread of discussion with each of the presentations so that it’s kind of like when you’re at a regular conference and the speaker gets done, and there’s that line standing waiting to talk to the presenter. That thread of discussion is that line; it’s where you can ask that question, and the presenters will be able to talk to you, answer your questions. You can ask them a question, and that’ll go on even post-conference, as well as there’ll be threaded discussions where people can talk to each other, talk to their peers. They’ll just be open-type discussions where they can go in and introduce themselves and basically ask, you know, “Hey, I’m doing this kind of work in re-entry. What are you doing? What works for you?” They can throw that question out there, and they can network with each other.

Len Sipes: Oh, that is so neat. That is so neat because one of the most important parts of any conference is the networking. I think in some cases what takes place in the hallways and in the meeting rooms is just as important as what happens during the conference, so people can really have that same experience.

Bernie Izler: Yes, you’re absolutely right, reaching out to other people in the same kind of situation. They may not know each other. I’m sure there’s people, when it comes to one of our presentations on education, I know in looking at the list of people who are coming, there’s other people who are involved in education with this population, and they can reach out to each other and find out what they’re doing and support each other.

Len Sipes: That is really interesting. Give me some of the topics that you’re going to be covering at the conference, please.

Bernie Izler: Okay, well first of all, educational pathways to success, mental health, creating a cross-systems collaboration with that, cognitive behavioral programs with offenders, the victim’s role in offender re-entry.  There’s one particular program that’s called Starting Over Core, and that’s an offender-led group. Justice-involved women and the special things they deal with. Employment is huge where I think we have three presentations having to do with employment. Sentencing, where it starts, and also juvenile re-entry initiatives, and then our keynote speaker, Ed LaTessa will speak on what’s effective on reducing recidivism.

Len Sipes: What works, what’s evidence-based.

Bernie Izler: Yes. Correct.

Len Sipes: And that’s one of the things, ladies and gentlemen, I think and I see is really taking a lead on is helping the rest of us within the correctional system understand what is evidence-based, what does work, and my hat goes off to the National Institute of Corrections. Boy, in my public’s relations career, they’ve helped me out on a couple different occasions in terms of training and in terms of access, and you’re going to find that the National Institute of Corrections is probably one of the easiest federal agencies to deal with, certainly one of the easiest federal agencies I’ve ever had to deal with. Okay, Attila, where did you get that name and tell me that’s a family name?

Captain Attila Denes: Well, it’s a very common name in Hungary where my parents originated from, and when they came out here, they decided to give me a name to remember my heritage by, and boy darn, did they ever.

Len Sipes: Boy. That’s sort of like “A Boy named Sue,” that Johnny Cash song, I think it was, from decades ago. Now I’m really dating myself.

Captain Attila Denes: Oh yeah. Well, it stands out in a crowd. If there are 300 people in a crowd and someone says, “Hey, Atilla!” – I know exactly who they’re talking to.

Len Sipes: Captain Attila Denes, he’s with the Douglas County Sheriff’s Office. There again, Colorado is well represented in terms of this program. Where is Douglas County?

Captain Attila Denes: Douglas County is on the southern rim of the Denver Metro area. We’re a community of about 300,000 people, and on the topic that we’re going to be discussing, it’s actually a partnership with the Arapahoe/Douglas Mental Health Network which is one of the community mental health centers in the Denver Metro area with a service population of around 600,000 folks. So we’re kind of a mid-sized community on the south end of Denver, and that’s what we’re going to be talking about.

Len Sipes: Now, what you’ve done is be able to go out and put together a collaboration of organizations to address mental health and other issues in terms of people coming out of the jail system there, correct?

Captain Attila Denes: That’s correct. Well, collaboration is kind of a vogue topic right now, and it’s certainly something that everybody’s talking about in the academic, scholarly world, you know, very hot topic of how do we combine all of our resources and thoughts and everything because since we’re all basically working with the same population, just in different silos, how do we break down some of those silos and overcome the resistance to working together that sometimes develops in our organizations so that we can actually accomplish greater things, that synergy that everybody talks about. It’s a pretty exciting topic, and definitely you sometimes get the pushback of well, collaboration is great and synergy is great but if you’ve got no money, how is that really going to help us? – And the reality is that there are really practical ways that it can.

Len Sipes: Well, yeah, it can. There’s no doubt that it can but we come, Captain, you and I have been in the criminal justice system for a long time. We’re hard-bitten; we’re cynical, and we are under the mindset that unless government ponies up and actually funds the stuff, it’s really not going to happen. In many cases I’ve heard from practitioners is that they reach out to people and try to form a collaborative relationship with people in the community, and they’re looking at them saying, “Hey, I’m overburdened as it is, and I’m underfunded as it is, and we’re relying heavily upon volunteers, and you want to bring 300 or 400 additional people into my program? We can’t handle that.” So, how do you get around that?

Captain Attila Denes: Yeah, well, it’s a challenge, and looking at it from the front end, it looks like this monumental thing that’s almost impossible to overcome but the reality is that the process of overcoming that is pretty simple. It’s not really rocket science. There have been a lot of scholarly articles published on it. You know, the—

Len Sipes: Oh, there’s an endless amount of literature about collaboration. Oh, there is.

Captain Attila Denes: Oh, exactly.

Len Sipes: And as my friends in the practitioner community are saying, “Okay, yeah, the research –.” It’s really easy for researchers in D.C. to say collaboration. They’re not the ones who have got to go out and live with this on a day-to-day basis. Try doing it, not talking about it but try doing it, but you’ve done it.

Captain Attila Denes: Exactly. Exactly. And, you know, there are different challenges depending on what community you’re dealing with. I worked with NIC on a crisis intervention team’s leadership program that was spearheaded out here in Aurora in 2010, ’11, ’12, and one of the things that we heard from these leadership teams that came out from state prison systems across the U.S. was, you know, “Collaboration is great and putting together these stakeholder groups is great but we’re kind of a closed system. We don’t really have strong ties with the outside community. We’re pretty much self-sufficient, so what do we do in place of that?” And so sometimes it requires a little bit of work to identify who exactly represents the various components of the stakeholder systems that we want to get involved in. I know that sounds high-level but it’s pretty practical when you break it right down.

Len Sipes: But you, being that you’ve done it and you’ve done it successfully, that’s why the National Institute of Corrections wants you to present at the National Conference on Offender Re-entry, and it’s a different name. That’s the name that I gave it. www.nicic.gov/go/vc2013. The VC stands for Virtual Conference. That’s one of the reasons why the National Institute of Corrections wants you to present because you have cynical idiots like me who can’t get together with the program versus somebody who has done what you’ve done. You’ve done it successfully. So you have lessons for me and for everybody else in terms of the fact that a) it can be done, b) how to do it successfully.

Captain Attila Denes: Exactly. And, you know, not to bust our arms patting ourselves on the back out here but the reality is that we were, whether it was by fluke or by design, we were able to come up with a system that worked pretty well, and the great thing about it, looking back on it now ten years down the road is that we have accomplished things that we never would have imagined possible at the front end, and that’s the really exciting piece of this.  You know, the way that this all started, back in 2002 was really a patrol-based law enforcement initiative called Crisis Intervention Team’s Training which was developed back in Memphis all the way back in 1987, and it was kind of spreading like wildfire across the western United States, and Colorado picked up that program in 2002 as a result of a legislative initiative. It was a task force that was in panel back in ’99 that recommended that we establish a CIT program, a statewide-coordinated program to roll it out across the state, and that really started up in 2002, and one of the key components of that planning piece for CIT training was putting together a steering committee, a local steering committee comprised of administrative and executive-level stakeholders from all these different groups that dealt previously in isolation with the same population, the population of people that are constantly going through that revolving door of criminal justice involvement, constantly coming into contact with the police and with the jails, and then going back out onto the street, under the supervision of probation or parole or whatever, and how do we impact those people and impact that population effectively, understanding that we all have limited budgets; we have limited staff; you know, how do we try to maximize that impact?  So we brought together these stakeholders who initially were pretty reluctant to talk very openly with each other because we recognized that, “Yeah, sure, we’re dealing with the same population but we have our own rules and policies and laws that govern how much information we can share and how our money can be used and all this,” but what was kind of magical about that process was, as we started going to each other’s steering committee meetings and working taskforce meetings and working group meetings and all these different meetings, and it was the same group of usual suspects, so to speak, showing up around the table, we started to get to know each other. There was this face-name recognition that developed, and we started to understand each other’s roles within the system, and our specific limitations, and what resources do we bring to the table, and things like that/  And that’s when we started to realize, if we start to share some information, share some resources, I can open up a little bit and say, “Okay, you know what? I can bring this to the table, and if we’re rolling out this training program, I can offer up this, this, and this. And then my colleague across the table in a different system, mental health center or the advocacy role, NAMI, whatever, you know, they can pony up something else, and we all start bringing our respective pieces to the table, and we found that we were able to build a really effective program that was originally just designed around that one small concept, how do we build a local CIT training program?

Len Sipes: But the bottom line, Attila, because I’m going to go for the break quickly, and then we’re going to pick back up, but the bottom line in all of this is that, without the community, in terms of offender re-entry, we’re dead. Without collaboration, we’re not going to get it done because we simply do not, in many cases but particularly jail systems, we do not have the budget for mental health. We do not have the budget for employment. We do not have the budget for substance abuse. Without community collaboration, any sense of successful offender re-entry is dead in the water.

Captain Attila Denes: Yeah, exactly. Exactly.

Len Sipes: And I would imagine, Bernie, that’s the whole idea behind bringing in people like Attila, bringing in people like Captain Denes is to make sure that success stories from the field and what works from an academic point of view, from a research point of view, is all encapsulated within one conference.

Bernie Izler: Correct. The idea of a collaboration is not just that we have limited resources but also to be effective. We really need each other because most of our population, our offenders, when they go out in the community, they don’t have just one issue to deal with. They have multiple issues, multiple barriers to successful re-entry, and so the collaboration also is a way to be much more successful than working individually.

Len Sipes: I want to reintroduce our guests today and the topic. Ladies and gentlemen, the National Institute of Corrections is holding a National Conference on Offender Re-Entry. Everybody should go to this website, and it’ll be in the show notes: www.nicic.gov/go/vc2013. www.nicic.gov/go/vc2013. V is for Virtual Conference VC. This will all take place on June 12th, coming up real soon, 9 AM Mountain Time and the rest of you can figure it out in terms of what applies to you, from about 9:00 in the morning to 2:00 in the afternoon.  It is for everybody. It’s not just for those of us within the criminal justice system. Whether it be a preacher, whether it be a community leader, whether it be the aide to the mayor of Milwaukee, whether it is the aide to the governor of the state of California, everybody is welcome in terms of this national virtual conference. You can watch – it’s just not listen mode. You can watch what’s going on; you can listen in, and you can ask questions, and you can make contacts with everybody else at the conference. Did I summarize it correctly, Bernie?

Bernie Izler: Yes, you did, thank you.

Len Sipes: Okay. Now, I would imagine for the National Institute of Corrections, this was a pretty significant undertaking. I mean, you all had to say to yourselves at a certain point that we in the field no longer have the money to go to conferences, and this is probably a more powerful and more effective way to do a national conference on Offender Re-Entry. I’m assuming you’re saying, “Hey, this is a no-brainer considering everybody’s fiscal constraints. Let’s do this virtually through computers where anybody can sit in in their home, anybody can sit in in their office and participate in this national conference.

Bernie Izler: Yes, correct. As you talked about earlier about NIC being focused on service, one of the things that really caught my attention with the virtual conference is that we can reach down to the smallest jail, to any corrections professional; we can reach out to anybody, and when you have walk-in conferences, you only have people there who can afford to be there. So this was another way to really reach out and serve our community as well as corrections.  So .yeah, it was quite an undertaking because it was new and so it was a huge learning curve for us in putting this together and how it works and how it’s going to work for the field itself, just technology alone. How do we make sure that as many people as possible can access it because we know in corrections that we have firewalls and so on that, so, how’s that going to work, and how can we be successful getting to that group as well as the community?

Len Sipes: Well for what it’s worth, I’m going to more and more virtual conferences, more and more instead of attending. Even in Washington, D.C., where I’m located, even in terms of traveling three or four stops by subway and walking three or four blocks, which is pretty easy and pretty accessible, I’m finding more and more of these issues are taking place via my computer, and we’ve got the same firewalls that everybody else has and that doesn’t seem to be a problem, so more and more, we’re going to see more virtual conferences, more virtual meetings, more of these issues discussed via computer.

Bernie Izler: Yes, and the other thing that’s really great is we have, on June 5th, whoever’s registered will be able to come in to look at the site and access the on-demand presentations, and then on the 12th will be the live and the on-demand, and then all of it will be recorded. So that will be available after the conference too, so not only a matter of travel and so on, but time, so if there’s one presentation that you didn’t get to see live, once the recorded versions are up, if you’ve got an hour or so at your workplace, you can say, “Hey, I want to go in and look at that,” and you can still see it.

Len Sipes: But isn’t that, I mean, all of this, in terms of a virtual national conference, in terms of podcasting and what I’m doing, in terms of you recording it and placing it so other people can download, I mean, I ride in from the train from Baltimore to D.C. every single day, and yes, I’m crazy, for those of you who know how long that takes, but I get to read all the stuff from NIC. I’m the best-read person in my organization because I have two hours a day on the train so I read all of your material. Wouldn’t it be nice to be able to download that through iTunes or download it through the National Institute of Corrections website and be able to participate, virtually, while I’m sitting, riding on my train ride from Baltimore to D.C. or back and forth? That, I think, is where all this is going. Don’t you agree?

Bernie Izler: Yes. I don’t know that we have that capacity with this conference but looking down the road, we’ve started to think in terms of what’s next and, certainly that’s what’s next. It will be a link for people on our website that they can go to it. I’m not exactly sure that we’re there yet with podcasts or that kind of thing but certainly on particular mobile devices, they’ll be able to access it.

Len Sipes: Oh, I’ll be more than happy to come out and train you on podcasting, not necessarily on Skype with all the problems we had before the beginning of the show. Hey, Captain Denes, again, convince everybody out there in the practitioner community, again, those of us hard-bitten and cynical about everything that comes along, convince the rest of us that this is something that everybody needs to participate in.

Captain Attila Denes: Oh, well, I think that just what we gain from each other is something that, it’s hard to picture the end result when you’re on the front end of it, you know. Like I was describing earlier, our collaboration here with the Mental Health Center and with NAMI and with all the other stakeholder groups, centered around just putting together a patrol-based training initiative, a crisis intervention team’s training, and we soon realized that, you know what, where this is really happening is in the local jails where people with mental illnesses and substance abuse disorders are over-represented three or four times versus what you would find out in the general population, and so the folks that are working with that population inside really needed those skills almost more than the patrol officers dealing with them on the outside.  And so as we started getting into that, then we started realizing, you know what? Maybe there’s some case management that needs to happen here. Not only are we trying to defer people from criminal involvement on the front end but sometimes these folks do end up in jails and prisons, and, you know, I’m not telling you anything you don’t already know there but as we’re getting ready to release them back out into the community, how can we connect them with services in advance of their release so that they’re not going through that revolving door over and over again.  So that whole piece of community re-entry was something we started talking about here in Arapahoe and Douglas Counties back in like 2003, 2004, and so we instituted a real small program at first, just one or two case managers at the re-entry level, working in the local jails, and we found that it was so effective that these same stakeholders started showing up at these conference tables over and over and over again. We thought, okay, what’s next? Where else can we go with this? And so one of the next things that happened was what we initially called Mental Health Court, which was a specialty problem-solving court for people with felony charges, nonviolent felony charges, who could be safely deferred from criminal justice involvement through evidence-based direct case management services and intensive treatment, and so, we now call that program the Wellness Court but it’s enormously successful here in Colorado.  That led to a Metro area, in the Denver Metro area, we had about a year-and-a-half long cross-systems services and gaps analysis that was facilitated for us by the National GAINS Center, and again, huge numbers of people showing up at these meetings, stakeholder groups from all across all different systems, and we realized, again, we’re all dealing with the same population but we’re dealing with them in isolation. How can we break down those walls, break down those silos, overcome institutional inertia, start sharing resources and information so that we’re not dealing with the same people over and over again but instead we’re getting them into effective treatment programs, diverting them from criminal justice involvement, making it so that they’re not filling our jails and prisons. That’s what it was all about.

Len Sipes: But everybody out there has exactly the same problems you do there in Douglas County. It doesn’t matter whether in Minnesota, Hawaii, Alaska, the state of Maryland, everybody has the same issues, so the bottom line is that they can learn from you and they can contact you and you can contact others. It’s a matter of sharing what works at the local level. Is that not the heart and soul of this conference?

Captain Attila Denes: Absolutely.

Len Sipes: Okay, and that’s one of the reasons why you’re there. So again, Bernie, the whole idea is to share what works at the local level by real people dealing with real problems, dealing with the same circumstances everybody else is dealing with. If Attila Denes can get it right, and the sheriff’s department there in Douglas County can get it right, that means everybody else can do it correctly and solve the same problems, and then again, that’s the whole idea behind this conference.

Bernie Izler: Yes. Well, and it’s also a mixture of we tried to get two successful programs in different areas as well as some experts in the field, like Professor Latessa, who’s going to talk about evidence-based practices. So it’s a mixture of both because sometimes the experts are like, “Okay, it’s a place to start, somewhere.” And then how does that look in the community? And you’re right; it can look very, you know, you may have the same problems but as Captain Denes said, it can look very different in each community as to what you have available and so on. So yeah, so it’s a mixture of all of those things.

Len Sipes: But the fact that they can reach out to Attila and actually talk to him and email him – Atilla, I’m not quite sure you want me to say this – but the fact that they can is encouraging because all these systems are sharing the same problems and the same concerns, so why not everybody get together through this national conference and help each other out?

Bernie Izler: Yeah, and that’s what the threaded discussions are about. Like I said, for each presentation, there’ll be a threaded discussion, and so our presenters will be monitoring those, and when you go in a register you sign up and you can say in each thread if you want it sent to your email, and then whatever goes on in that thread will come to your email.

Len Sipes: Oh, that’s so cool.

Bernie Izler: And then, also to our presenters, so they can see what the discussion is so the discussion will continue.

Len Sipes: You know, Bernie, I just wanted to ask you this question before we leave the program. This had to be scary for you. I mean, this is the first time NIC is doing something on this scale in terms of re-entry, correct?

Bernie Izler: Correct. Yes, I’ve had several times where I’ve been up at 2:30 AM in the morning, wide awake going, “Oh my gosh, what if we create it and nobody comes?” So yeah, and I’ve had a wonderful team here at NIC. There’s a lot of different people at NIC that have participated and made it possible. Our goal was 1,000, and once we passed that number, I’m not having those 2:30 A.M. wake-up calls. So we’re very excited that we’ve passed our goal and that it can go on, and having it up recorded online for four months, I’m very hopeful that we could even double that number.

Len Sipes: Oh, you’re going to easily double that number. In fact, I can tell you right now that you’re going to get 3, 4, 5 times the amount of people downloading it than listening to it live. All of my friends who do stuff live say that it’s 5, 10 times the amount of people that come in after the live presentation so you’re going to get your 1,000. I would bet my Buick that you’re going to get at least 5,000 people exposed to your conference but most of them are going to come in afterwards. Final minute, Bernie, Attila, final issues you want to discuss?

Captain Attila Denes: One thing I just wanted to throw out there from the cost standpoint is the criminal justice system is probably the least cost-effective method of obtaining mental health and substance abuse treatment. There are tons of community services that provide those same services at a much reduced cost and so from a taxpayer’s perspective, collaboration is the way to go.

Len Sipes: Alright, Bernie, final words? Thirty seconds.

Bernie Izler: Just that we welcome everybody to the conference. We’re very excited about it. We think it’s a very timely topic. Please, come and register for the updates. Our agenda came out today so people can look at that and just go to www.nicic.gov/go/vc2013.

Len Sipes: And you’re going to have a link to this on the front page of the National Institute of Corrections website, correct?

Bernie Izler: I am hoping so soon. We’ve kind of put this publicity out in pieces, so kind of—

Len Sipes: Okay. That would be a good idea because a lot of people may not remember the address but they will know National Institute of Corrections.

Bernie Izler: Yes, and when they go to the website, if they can’t find it, if they just type in [PH 0:29:31] tough key to door key, they’ll find it.

Len Sipes: Got it. Okay. Ladies and gentlemen, the National Institute of Corrections Conference on Offender Re-entry: www.nicic.gov/go/vc2013, June 12th from 9 A.M. Mountain to 2:00 in the afternoon. Ladies and gentlemen, this is DC Public Safety. We appreciate your calls, we even appreciate your criticisms, and we want everybody to have yourselves a very pleasant day.

[Audio Ends]

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Transition from Jail to Community-Urban Institute-NIC-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/transition-from-jail-to-community-urban-institute-nic-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, we have an extraordinarily interesting program today, the Transition from Jail Project, funded by the National Institute of Corrections, and our folks from the Urban Institute are back at the microphone. We have Jesse Jannetta, who’s been before our microphones before, been on our television show. He is a Senior Research Associate with the Urban Institute; and Janeen Buck, again a Senior Research Associate, again with the Urban Institute: www.urban.org. This particular program has its own website: www.jailtransition.com. www.jailtransition.com. What I want to do before turning the microphones over to Janeen and to Jesse is to read a one-paragraph description of this project and then we talk about re-entry from jail systems. This is from their executive summary. In 2007, the National Institute of Corrections partnered with the Urban Institute to develop and test an innovative, comprehensive model for effective jail-to-community transition. Designed to address the unique challenges and opportunities surrounding jail re-entry, the Transition from Jail Community Initiative advances systems-level change through collaborative and coordinated relationships between jails and local communities to address re-entry. Enhanced public safety, reduced recidivism, and improved individual reintegration outcomes are the over-arching goals of the model. And, the other fact that I want to do before turning it over to my guests – 9 million people are released from jail systems every year versus 700,000 from state prisons. Again, Janeen Buck and Jesse Jannetta from the Urban Institute, welcome to D.C. Public Safety.

Janeen Buck: Thank you so much. It’s great to be here today, Len.

Len Sipes: All right, this is an extraordinarily interesting program because I’ve had discussions with staff members and, you know, they tell me, and from my own experience, there’s nothing tougher than a jail. I mean, it is extraordinarily difficult to run an urban jail. It is chaotic; it is noisy; it is just loud, and if it has a booking center attached to it you’re talking about hundreds of thousands of people processing in and out of this chaotic atmosphere every single day. How in the name of heavens do we plan on doing a re-entry program within an atmosphere of a large urban jail? Who wants to take that?

Jesse Jannetta: Well, I can start, Len. I think that really what you’re describing is one of the fundamental challenges that the TJC model and project is trying to address is just how quickly the jail population turns over. Everyone goes to jail; that’s where you go. If it’s a booking facility after you’re arrested, to you have people are in there bonding out or being released in pre-trial status pretty quickly. You have people there awaiting trial if they haven’t been able to make bond or if they’re not going to be released. You have parole and probation violators.  So it’s a very diverse population coming in and out often pretty quickly, and so what TJC is trying to do, among other things, is to help jurisdictions think in a data-driven way about who they’re looking for to intervene with in terms of how likely they are to reoffend, in terms of the needs that they have, so that they can take whatever resources they have and target it where it’s going to have the biggest positive impact on their local community, and so they’re not trying to deal with the whole haystack, so to speak, but they’re really looking for the needle.

Len Sipes: All right, a yes or no question – can this be done within this very chaotic, I mean you’ve done the research and you had jurisdictions where you tried this. I mean, obviously it can be done but the average person sitting out there who knows Corrections is saying, “No, this can’t be done.” It can be done, Janeen?

Janeen Buck: It can be done, and in fact it was done. We started our work and partnership with the National Institute of Corrections, as you mentioned, in 2007. Our first task was really to work with NIC and a large group of external advisors that drew from jail administrators, community-based service providers, local law enforcement – a whole host of folks who were very familiar with this issue, if not on the front lines of this issue, to devise a flexible and comprehensive model for jail transition and then to go out and actually test that model in the real world setting of six communities.  So we started with six communities in 2008. We started working first with Denver, the city and county of Denver, which was a more urban jail setting, as you mentioned.  Then we also worked with a smaller, more rural county, Douglas County in Kansas, which was a much smaller jail. We started working there to implement the model, and we expanded to four additional sites the following year in 2009, working with one of the largest jail systems, Orange County, bringing them on in 2009.

Len Sipes: Orange County, California?

Janeen Buck: California, yes, as well as a number of other sites, again, that were diverse with respect to size, structure of their system, and we found that, yes, they were able to implement the model.

Len Sipes: What are the key elements of the model?

Janeen Buck: Well, I think, first and foremost, and I think Jesse would agree with this, it’s really collaboration. It is a systems approach that requires, like re-entry does, working across systems, so it’s the jail and the community and other members of the criminal justice system as well coming together to really jointly own this issue and work together collaboratively to create a model that works for them.

Len Sipes: Is the whole idea exposing or attaching people caught up in the criminal justice system to services on the outside, is that the heart and soul of it?

Jesse Jannetta: I think it’s both because what you want to do is have a process that starts in the jail, and again you have often pretty short periods of intervention or unpredictable as well. You know, people may be with you in the jail for a while but you may not know that at the outset of their time there, but even if it’s just doing in-reach from community-based organizations into the jail to start meeting and identifying potential clients, you want a piece of it to begin pre-release, if at all possible.  And the other fundamental I would say is what we call the triage approach so that you’re trying, through data, doing a pretty minimal, in terms of resource, risk-to-reoffend screener at booking so that you can see particularly who your higher-risk portion of your population is. That’s who you want to target first and foremost for programming, and at the same time who are the people who are lower risk who you want to keep into a more minimal intervention track. So again, you’re really focusing the resources that you have and the time and energy that you have, which are limited, on the people who need it the most and that the community needs to get at the most.

Len Sipes: Okay, so you’re talking about the three categories of people who come into the jail system: those who are booked, those people who are there on a pre-trial basis, and those people that are serving short sentences. You’re talking about all three populations.

Jesse Jannetta: Right, and I think that jurisdictions have come down that we’ve worked with in different ways on that. Some have preferred to work only with the sentence population; others have said if they’re in the right risk category and if they have the identified needs, we’ll start working with them regardless of whether they’re there on pre-trial or sentence status because many people, you know, if they’re in the jails for a substantial period of pre-trial, if and when they are sentenced, they may be sentenced to time served. So if you’ve been in the jail for three months awaiting the completion of your adjudication, you may then be sentenced. The judge will say, “Well, the three months you’ve been in jail already is sufficient to be the sentence,” and so if you wait to work with them, you will have missed your window of opportunity for intervention.

Len Sipes: Technical assistance was provided to the jails?

Janeen Buck: Um-hum.

Jesse Jannetta: That’s correct.

Len Sipes: And what sort of technical assistance?

Janeen Buck: Well, we went in and helped first really get a handle on the jail population that was there, again, working this angle of a data-driven approach. Who’s in your jail? How long are they there for? What kind of information do you have about your jail population? Again, I think bringing evidence-based practice or best practice to bear and providing technical assistance around that, so as Jesse mentioned, having a universal screener for risk of re-offense which allows you to get a very quick sort on your jail population and which really drives that next approach, thinking about, where do you put your resources, who should go on for in-depth, a risk needs assessment to help drive decision-making around services that need to be received through provided technical assistance around both kind of re-entry practices with respect to screening and assessment and looking at programming, evidence-based programs, as well as evaluation-related technical assistance.

Len Sipes: All right, so we’re talking about collaboration. We’re talking about getting everybody together, figuring out what’s in the community, how can these community resources be brought to the attention of people who are in the jail system, in the three categories of the jail system, providing technical assistance, making sure that they know what they’re doing, using objective risk instruments, triaging people to ferret out the people who don’t need services to those people who desperately need services. – And I’m assuming afterwards, after you do all that, there’s some sort of connection between that individual and services in the community upon release.

Jesse Jannetta: That’s right, and I think the case planning is a key piece of that, so what you want to do through your triage process. So first you find your higher-risk folks through the screener, and then out of that group and often looking at people who are going to be in the jail for at least long enough to begin an intervention continuum; those are the people who would get a full-risk needs assessment to tell you what they need, and then that’s got to be tied into the case plan so that you’re taking this is what we know about, what we need to address to reduce their likelihood of recidivism, and these are our goals. This is who we’re trying to connect them to, both the programming in the jail and then in the community.  Something that we did a lot of work on in the participating communities is talking about and trying to have continuity of approach between the way the programming’s delivered in the jail and in the community. So as you’re addressing substance abuse, for example, which is a common issue in this population, are the in-jail programs and then the people providing that programming in the community you’re trying to hand people off to, are they doing this kind of work in the same way or are they even really aware of how each of those pieces of the system is addressing it because if you hand somebody off from a substance abuse program in the jail that’s doing things in one way, and then they go into the community and it’s a completely different modality and philosophy, that can be really counter-productive particularly with the client who may feel like, “Well, I don’t know who to listen to. I’m getting different messages.” Whereas, if you can integrate that, then what you can try and do is build on a common approach and have them be mutually reinforcing.

Len Sipes: Okay. Now I’m going to put on my – oh, go ahead, please, Janeen.

Janeen Buck: And I would just add to that – I think another key piece was even developing that shared knowledge and understanding around screening and assessment, and using to the extent that you could a shared instrument so that there was that continuity of understanding around the needs too.

Len Sipes: Right, everybody’s singing from the same sheet of music, right?

Janeen Buck: Exactly, and you build a common vocabulary that makes sense.

Len Sipes: Okay. I’m going to put on my practitioner hat, and you dealt with these individuals as how many jurisdictions, Janeen?

Janeen Buck: Well currently all together right now we will have been working with 14. We worked with 6 in the first round.

Len Sipes: 14, and that’s a lot of jurisdictions. All right, I would imagine the average person is saying, pardon my sexism, “Lady, don’t you understand how difficult it is to run a jail? We’ve got to do this and that,” and it’s going through their minds. A dozen issues are going through their minds. “Do we really have the time to do this and is this really going to be successful?” There had to be a certain level of cynicism on the part of hard-bitten criminal justice administrators when this issue was first brought up.

Jesse Jannetta: I would say that although one thing to bear in mind is we had a competitive application process for the opportunity to be in a TJC site, so we are working with jurisdictions that in a sense —

Len Sipes: That want you there.

Jesse Jannetta: — put their foot forward. But with that said, and particularly when you’re talking about a large collaborative endeavor, the jurisdiction or the person who wrote the application for the jurisdiction may feel that way but there’s a real diversity of opinion within everybody in that jurisdiction about how feasible it was, and we have had to deal with that as well as, you know, we started with two sites in ’08, another four in ’09, working with them in phase one through the middle of the financial crisis when spending of all kinds of resources of all kinds in local government have really been in retrenchment, and that did bring skepticism. But I think that one of the things that was really heartening in what we found in phase one is the degree to which our local partners said, “No, these budget cuts” – and some of our participating jurisdictions experienced quite substantial budget cuts in some of the core, whether it was the sheriff’s department or probation or the community providers – but that for them was not a reason not to do TJC but was in fact a reason that the kind of strategic approach that we’re doing, they felt was as important as ever because now resources are even more limited, and it’s all the more important that we’re making sure we’re using them in as targeted a way as possible, and they really hung in there through some tough times.  You know, a lot of local jurisdictions, the degree to which there was already some degree of programming or connection to community resources, there’s a lot of great stuff going on at the local level and a lot of jail re-entry activity going on all around the country. So while there is that skepticism, we also had the opportunity through TJC – and this started when we brought together our network of jail practitioners at the beginning – to build on what everybody has been doing at the local level and learning already –

Len Sipes: Enhance it. Improve it.

Jesse Jannetta: — and put it together into a common approach, and then try and bring that out to the field.

Len Sipes: The second question I want to get to right before the break and that is this – you know, I’ve been in this business for a long time – a lot of people at the community level don’t particularly appreciate people caught up in the criminal justice system. They find them hard to deal with versus a very motivated person. This is the classic example from a drug treatment provider who a woman has three kids and she’s strung out on cocaine, and she desperately wants to get off of it for her sake and her kids versus my guy on parole or mandatory supervision who was forced into it by a judge or by the member of the parole commission. They say, “I’d much rather have the woman who wants to be there than the person who was forced to be there.” So was there any resistance in terms of expanding the number of contacts through the jail systems?

Janeen Buck: I don’t think there was resistance to that. I think people were on board with that. I do think having the information at their disposal about who to target, when, and how much was very helpful, having that evidence-based approach, both from the community and the jail side. Does that make sense? Jesse, what would you add?

Jesse Jannetta: Yeah. What I also say, if you’re a community organization working on a lot of different social issues, it’s a really open question, and part of the data-driven approach that we can do can illuminate this. How different is that really from what you’re already doing? I mean, if you’re a community organization working with people who have serious mental health issues in the community; you’re working with a population that’s in and out of jail, same with addiction issues. People at the career centers, a lot of the folks who are coming in off the street who really need help, getting attached to employment have been criminal justice involved.  So in many cases, you know, the fundamental insight is on the community side, whether you know it or not, you’re already working with the population that’s in and out of the jail so why don’t we collaborate so that that work can be more effective? I think that a lot of community organizations, even if they’re relatively new to this effort, found that that was the case that they’re not finding new people.

Len Sipes: Well, right after the break I do want to talk about some of the successes that you’ve had. I mean, there has to be many successes considering the amount of jurisdictions that you were in. But ladies and gentlemen let me reintroduce both my guest and the program. We have Janeen Buck, Senior Program Associate, and Jesse Jannetta, again, Senior Research Associate rather from the Urban Institute: www.urban.org. The specific website for this project, the program is called the Transition from Jail Project, www.jailtransition.com. www.jailtransition.com.  Janeen or Jesse, certainly you have your fair share of success stories from this. I mean, people are sitting there going, “Okay, now I get the concept, and now Leonard has defended the practitioner community by these over-eager and over-optimistic researchers,” but this is something that’s necessary. I mean, we’ve been talking about using jails as a triage facility and connecting them with community resources for years but people have said, “We just don’t have the resources to do that.” So, out of all the jurisdictions that you’ve been with and interacted with, give me some success stories.

Janeen Buck: I think really all of our jurisdictions have been success stories, specifically with that. You know, they had very committed networks of community-based partners and providers. Some, obviously, had much broader networks than others but everybody really came to the table through this and were very committed, and I think to Jesse’s point right before the break, it’s important to note that many of the providers who were at the table knew these people, knew that their clients were a part of the jail population, had a stake in coming to the table, and I think they were excited to be a part and invited to the table and to help because they really were already owning this issue but to work collaboratively in that way. That said, I think we saw in all of the jurisdictions that we were working in an expansion in terms of the network of community-based providers, community participation that was at the table, both at an assistance level in terms of collaboration but also in terms of the nuts and bolts coming to the table, doing in-reach, or being willing to change or modify their practice to have that continuity of approach. Jesse, what would you add?

Jesse Jannetta: The biggest thing that I would add is I think it’s fair to say that when we started phase one, not one of those jurisdictions was really having validated risk and need information guiding who was getting programming services in the jail and in the community.

Len Sipes: Which is crucial.

Jesse Jannetta: And sites reached different degrees to which that information was driving the process but every one of them had it. Every one of it had it integrated in a process where it was, in fact, informing who was getting program services so they were moving towards this point where they were confident or gaining confidence that now we are serving who we want to. You know, in most jurisdictions that we’ve worked with, if you ask who determines who gets programming in the jail, the answer number one is usually the inmates. It’s their volition, and often it’s the judges for some of the mandated programming, and what they wanted to do is say, “No, we as a system have to say who ought to be in that programming,” and then, you know, there’s challenges convincing the inmates to do it or sometimes, you know, if you have to go back to the bench to get them to be on board with that strategy but if you can’t even say who’s supposed to be getting the programming, you could never get there strategically, and they got there, I think.

Len Sipes: Help me with my misunderstanding. Is this solely an in-house program or is it a connection to the community program or both?

Jesse Jannetta: I would say both, and I think it may be easiest to give some examples. A good one I think is in the city and county of Denver, so what they did is do a lot of work on enhancing their continuum between the Jail Life Skills Program that they have where their jail program officers were doing programming of a lot of different kinds, and then they had community capacity through what was called the Community Re-entry Project, and the primary hand-off they were trying to do is get people to go to the Community Re-entry Project which had capacity to do a lot of different kind of services there or refer out, and I kind of think of that as the hub and spoke.  So they were trying to identify who were the priorities to get programming in the jail, get them in Jail Life Skills, have them meet initially with staff from the Community Re-entry Project prior to release, and then get them to go there where a lot of things that they needed could be handled there at CRP or they could refer out. – But that was the primary door they wanted people to go through in the community.

Len Sipes: And was there meaningful success in terms of hooking people into programs? I mean, once you figured out, in terms of your objective risk instrument, who needed services and who didn’t – I mean, and anybody who’s been on the floor of a booking center or the floor of an intake area of a jail, it’s pretty obvious who needs psychiatric treatment as they walk in through the door; who’s withdrawing from drugs as they’re walking in the door. We know that many offenders commit their crimes while under the influence of some substance. It’s pretty easy to understand that this is a population in dire need. So considering the dire need of that population, do you feel that the jurisdictions really succeeded in terms of hooking the right people up with the right services?

Janeen Buck: Yeah, I think that they did. Is there room to grow? – I’m sure there is but I think over the life of the technical assistance period, we really saw a movement toward that in each jurisdiction. Jurisdictions implemented cognitive-based restructuring programs where it used that risk-and-assessment information to really link the right individuals to those services.

Len Sipes: Okay, so thinking for a change, teaching people how to make good judgments throughout life, yes.

Janeen Buck: Right, exactly, kind of a foundational piece to thinking about change, how you’re looking at your circumstances, and using that kind of as a foundation for linking them and building that continuum of other services. So to answer your question, I think they did. Again, I think we saw substantial movement there. We’re doing a sustainability assessment in the six sites, going back to look and see what’s been sustained since the technical assistance period ended, how are they building on things, and we’re seeing in the jurisdictions that we were working in, they’ve kept the screening and assessment procedures. They’re still using them. They’re thinking very strategically about who to target for programming, and they’re continuing to build their continuum of programs and thinking very much about risk and need and who to put there. So I think we saw movement there. I think it’s something that will continue to stand.

Len Sipes: So in all the jurisdictions that you work with from a technical assistance point of view, they embraced this, they embraced it seriously, and more people are being plugged in to more programs, and more importantly, the right people are being plugged into the right programs?

Jesse Jannetta: I think yes, and I think they’re –

Len Sipes: That’s extraordinary!

Janeen Buck: Yes, it is.

Jesse Jannetta: And in programming that in many places didn’t exist. I mean, we had several that didn’t have any cognitive-based programming were able to implement Thinking for a Change. Several put in programming units in their jail facilities so that the people living in that housing unit were all people who were in the target population for programming, and the programming was delivered there which wasn’t happening. I mean, they didn’t have the screening and assessment information. – And the other thing, although this was in some ways the biggest TA challenge, making a lot of progress in having an ability to measure –

Janeen Buck: I was just going to say that, yes.

Jesse Jannetta: — to do performance measurement around their transition processes. You know, there is huge limitations in the data systems locally. So they know that data-driven processes are the way to go, they know that these things they’re doing are important to measure but it’s very hard to do it. Some of that is about the data systems they have. I often think a bigger limiting factor is the number of trained staff who know how to pull that information, analytical capacity in the counties. There may only be a few people who know it, and there are huge claims that those skills are very valuable, and often the people who know how to do that are shared not only with the jail or the justice system but with the entire county, so it’s challenging to get down into the data and know what’s going on but really valuable.

Len Sipes: We only have about four minutes left. What message would you give to other correctional administrators throughout this country that run jails? Again, the numbers are enormous compared to those released from prison. 700,000 come out of the state and federal prisons every year versus 9 million coming out of the jail systems. So to the jail administrators, correctional administrators that you’re talking to – mayors, governors, aides to mayors and governors – what message would you give to them as a result of your experience as part of this National Institute of Corrections-funded project?

Jesse Jannetta: There are tremendous resources already going to the population that is going in and out of the jails but often not in a very coordinated or coherent way. Most jurisdictions, without getting a dime of additional resources, can be more effective in working with that population if they use something like the TJC model to be more strategic. – And to the community partners, people who are not criminal justice system or don’t work in jails, most people coming out of jails aren’t under probation supervision. They walk out of the jail with no necessarily formal responsibility to anyone in the criminal justice system. So for jail transition to work, other community partners have to step up to the plate and be willing, as full partners, to work with those folks coming back from the jail, and people in the criminal justice system, for this to really work, have to be willing to invite in the community partners and let them participate as full partners, otherwise you’re going to be really limited in what you’re able to do.

Len Sipes: Go ahead, Janeen.

Janeen Buck: And to add to that, I think, you know, part of collaboration and inviting people in too is being willing to share information back and forth about practice. I think, again, speaking to the importance of that data-driven piece to being able to measure what you’re doing and not just the outcome of “is it effective,” but do you have data? Are you willing to share that information to see that you are serving the right people, that you’re serving them in a timely fashion, that you’re addressing their needs; and being open to looking at the data, I think to use that to make system improvements, which was a key part of the TJC model too.

Len Sipes: And I would imagine the strength of all of this is a team approach in terms of working with these individuals caught up in the criminal justice system. So it’s just not the Salvation Army; it’s just not mental health people; it’s just not substance abuse people; it’s just not people helping women with children, or people with HIV. It is supposedly, I am assuming, a comprehensive approach of trying to bring as many partners to the table as to this one person as humanly possible which gets us the biggest bang, possible bang for our dollar, correct?

Janeen Buck: Right. That’s absolutely right, and jurisdictions did that in different ways. The jurisdictions that we worked with in Ken County, they really brought everybody together. They had a strong community base there, had substance abuse providers, mental health providers, working with correctional officers in the jail, really had a team approach from not just a coordinated case plan but coming to the table together and discussing cases together.

Len Sipes: There is hope. What you’re telling me is that, from years of experience, funding by the National Institute of Corrections, a researched technical assistance project from the Urban Institute, there is hope. People listening to this and saying, “There is no way I can do it in my chaotic jail,” what we’re saying is that you can.

Jesse Jannetta: Right.

Janeen Buck: Right, and there are tools available for this.

Jesse Jannetta: Yeah. You know, we’ve had the opportunity, as we’ve said, to work with 14 jurisdictions. There are 2,800 jail systems in the United States, and IC knew that our impact would be really limited in only the 14. So the model is deep-dive in these 14 different places, capture everything that we’re learning, make it available to everyone else. The project website is the place to go for that. If we’ve done what we’re supposed to do, what you need is there.

Len Sipes: Okay. Jesse Jannetta, you’ve got the final word. Ladies and gentlemen, the program today is the Transition from Jail Project, funded by the National Institute of Corrections. Our guests today have been Janeen Buck, Senior Research Associate, and Jesse Jannetta, again, Senior Research Associate from the Urban Institute: www.urban.org. The website for this program is www.jailtransition.com. www.jailtransiton.com.  Ladies and gentlemen, this is D.C. Public Safety. We appreciate your comments; we even appreciate your criticisms, and we want everybody to have themselves a very pleasant day.

[Audio Ends]

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Motivational Interviewing in Corrections-National Institute of Corrections-DC Public Safety Radio

June 13, 2012 by

Welcome to “DC Public Safety” – Radio and television shows, blog and transcripts on crime, criminal offenders and the criminal justice system. We currently average 90,000 page views a month.

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Radio Program available at http://media.csosa.gov/podcast/audio/2012/03/motivational-interviewing-in-corrections-national-institute-of-corrections-dc-public-safety-radio/

[Audio Begins]

Len Sipes:  From the nation’s capitol, this is DC Public Safety. I’m your host, Leonard Sipes.  Ladies and gentlemen, today’s program is going to deal with motivational interviewing in corrections.  The whole idea of motivational interviewing is something that is really of interest to people throughout the criminal justice system, especially in corrections.  It’s a way of gaining the trust of the people that you’re dealing with, the offender population, the client population.  It’s a way of motivating that individual to do the things that that person should do.  We have two national experts with us today.  The show, by the way, has been arranged by the National Institute of Corrections.  We have Bradford Bogue.  He is Director of Justice System Assessment and Training. He has been a motivational interviewer trainer since 1993.  His Web address is j-stat.com.  We also have Anjali Nandi.  Anjali is currently the Program Director for the Center for Change, a state licensed adult outpatient drug and alcohol treatment facility in Colorado. She’s been a member of the International Motivational Interviewing Trainer, a network of trainers since 2003 and to Bradford and to Anjali, welcome to DC Public Safety.

Anjali Nandi:  Thank you.  It’s a pleasure to be here.

Len Sipes:  Okay.  Bradford, what is motivational interviewing?

Bradford Bogue:  Motivational interviewing is really a form of holding a conversation with somebody to draw out their and help and find their motivation for changing some of the things that are troubling them.  We talk about it as being a style, and it’s sort of situated somewhere between following and listening on the one hand and directing and teaching on the other hand.  It’s kind of an integration of those two very common conventional styles for holding conversations.  And we talk about that place between those two as being guiding.  It’s a place where we guide someone to find their own solutions.  And it’s particularly adept at helping people work through their ambivalence to change, which is a very normal part of changing behavior.  So that’s it in a—

Len Sipes:  Anjali, what is your take on motivational interviewing?

Anjali Nandi:  I think Brad captured it well.  The only thing I will add is that there are primarily two pieces to motivational interviewing, one is a real focus on relationships and then the other is being strategic about what we’re looking for as the client is giving us information about themselves, looking for particular language and things like that.

Len Sipes:  Okay one of the—

Anjali Nandi:  So that’s the only thing I would add.

Len Sipes:  I want to point out to the audience, “Motivational Interviewing in corrections, a comprehensive guide to implementing motivational interviewing in corrections” is available from the National Institute of Justice – I’m sorry – The National Institute of Corrections, U.S. Department of Justice, and we’ll have the link within the show notes. But the bottom line to both Bradford and Anjali is to try to get the individual who is caught up in the criminal justice system – and I understand this goes way beyond the criminal justice system.  But in terms of our bailiwick, what we’re trying to do is to prompt change in that individual and this is a method of prompting that change, correct?

Bradford Bogue:  Yes, that’s right.  I would say it’s with that person and emphasize “with” rather than “to” because prompting often is something we do to somebody but it’s working with and holding that conversation and structuring it in a way that the person is more likely to come up with their own reasons for change.

Len Sipes:  And, Brad, you’re the one, you’re the author of this document that I just mention from the National Institute of Corrections, correct?

Bradford Bogue:  I’m a co-author with Anjali.

Len Sipes:  Oh, both of you were involved in this, okay.

Bradford Bogue:  Yes.

Len Sipes:  Now the part of the document that I like the best is comes on page 52.  It says, “People make their best efforts to change when motivation comes from within and maintaining one’s autonomy of choice.  The notion that people ultimately decide for themselves whether they will change a given behavior is universal and an important attribute as a human being.”  So basically, unless it comes from that person it’s not going to work.  Whatever we in the criminal justice system try to do with that individual that unless it comes from that person, unless it comes from deep inside that person that they want to change, that they want to get involved in change, it’s not going to happen, correct or incorrect?

Bradford Bogue:  Anjali, what do you say?

Anjali Nandi:  Well I’m hesitating a little bit because it’s not entirely correct.  I don’t want to give the impression that if the client comes in and says, “You know I don’t really want to do this.”  But we say, “Okay, well then leave and come back when you’re motivated.”  Motivational interviewing is actually helping the person find these motivators.  Even if there are things that the client doesn’t want to do when they first come in.  So oftentimes when a client comes into our agency they don’t want to do there.  They are upset about being there.  And we look for what their goals are and sometimes they’ll say to me, “Well my goals, my only goal is not to see you any longer.” And to me that’s an excellent goal.  And it’s something that I will absolutely help them work towards because it works in the larger perspective as well to keep them away from crime.

Len Sipes:  It’s the matter of breaking through a barrier?  Help me understand this.  Is it a matter of breaking through a barrier?  We can’t – we, and as far as the criminal justice system, cannot just sit in front of a person and read them the riot act.  We cannot just sit in front of a person and tell them this is what you need to do.  This is how you need to do it and now go out and have a pleasant day.  This involves somehow, some way, breaking through that person, reaching that person, understanding that person, figuring out what motivates that person and to try to get that person to understand that there’s a better way of doing things.

Bradford Bogue:  Well to try to be motivationally adherent with motivational interviewing you can do that.  You could read them the riot act, but you’re not likely to get results related to changing behavior.  The results you’re likely to get from that is a possible reaction effects from the client which they dig in deeper, because all you’re offering them is the very thin side of the argument.  If you’re taking on the side that why they should change when you’re reading them the riot act, all you’re giving them is the side why they may not want to change.

Len Sipes:  Right.  So there is going to be almost immediate resistance to that sort of encounter?

Bradford Bogue:  It would create discord, yes.

Len Sipes:  Okay and so what are the techniques?  What is the secret sauce in terms of getting through to a person who’s resistant to change?

Bradford Bogue:  Well, Anjali, how about I start out with a couple big chunks and then you follow up.  How would that work?

Anjali Nandi:  That sounds great.

Bradford Bogue:  Okay.  Leonard, a couple – looking at it very globally, motivational interviewing is about two basic components.  One is what we call the motivational interviewing spirit, the spirit of MI, and that has to do about how – really how the individual practitioner, the staff person is with themselves, how they relate to themselves, and how they relate to other people in general and it’s as much unconscious as it is conscious.  It’s just how you hold yourself and how comfortable are you in your skin and what do you project onto the world in terms of your view of other people.  So that’s kind of the foundation piece and we talk about that as being the music in MI, and then the lyrics are the technical skills that we learn.  And many of the technical skills are used in many other therapeutic strategies as well.  But some are unique to MI.  And they have – we scaffold them up and I think Anjali could – I’d like to hear her chime in on this too.

Len Sipes:  Go ahead, Anjali.

Anjali Nandi:  So, yes, Brad has sort of laid out the larger picture.  There’s the spirit and then there’s the skills. Within the skills, I would say there is some, what we call, basic or micro skills like open questions or affirmations or reflections which are really at the heart of motivational interviewing.  But I think an important piece here is learning to listen to what the client is saying and listen for change or listen for their own motivations, listen for discrepancies as they’re talking.  So while a lot of it are these kind of skills that we can teach, a huge part of learning motivational interviewing is learning what to listen for and how to work with what you’re getting from the client.

Len Sipes:  And if you’re getting – so help me out because I’ve done gang counseling on the streets of the City of Baltimore.  I’ve done a year of running a group in a prison system. I’ve done jail or job core kids.  These kids and these younger individuals are oftentimes very difficult to reach.  It’s very difficult to find that magic moment in their lives that you can reach out to them and draw them in the conversation and have them truly interact with you in a meaningful way.  Many of these individuals come from extraordinarily difficult backgrounds, harsh backgrounds. They don’t trust you.  They don’t trust us within the criminal justice system.  What breaks through that barrier?

Bradford Bogue:  Well part of it is relational.  Just building – going through a very set process of engaging people.  I shouldn’t have said “a very set” but a kind of a natural process of engaging someone and helping them work through their ambivalence about even – as Anjali suggested earlier – about even being there in the first place, about working with you.  And so, learning to work with that and touch on and be willing to draw out from the client, what their doubts are, what their hesitations are and ambivalence about being there and then as you build a relationship and find that the person is getting more engaged, then you can begin to focus where you want to go and where the client wants to go, most importantly, in your engagement and what’s troubling them.  And as you begin to get a focus on that, then drawing out from the client very deliberately what their motivations might be, some of the things that – what their strengths are around that particular change target and the reasons and their needs and some of their desires and so that process – we talk about — the new way that we’re looking at MI is really talking about four processes and we talk about engaging, focusing, evoking and planning.  And it’s these are kind of like stair steps and one builds on the other so that at any given time there might be a need to go back to the earlier previous process and then move forward.  So it’s kind of recursive in that way.

Len Sipes:  Is this basically sales?  Is this the same central point that sales people learn about in training when the sales person is training, actively listening to the individual, being really in tune with what it is that they’re interested in, being reflective of what it is that they have to say, all of these are basic sales techniques, correct?

Anjali Nandi:  Well, there is a sales component to it I think except there’s a fundamental difference.  And, to me, a part of that difference is that what I’m selling them on is their own motivation, their own reasons, their own strengths and ability rather than what I want.  I mean if I’m selling somebody something, I have a real goal there to get them to buy this particular item.  Whereas here I’m trying to look for what it is that will support them the most.  So I think that’s one of the differences.  Bard, maybe you can see some others.

Bradford Bogue:  Well I think, I agree with Anjali that there’s some similar aspects but one of the – when you’re selling, I don’t believe you’re having compassion for the other person and having their best interest at heart is really necessary to sell somebody. It might be necessary to collaborate with them.  It might be even necessary to draw out from them their reasons to purchase something, but it isn’t necessary to really respect their boundaries and to appreciate them.  And that’s where – those are aspects of the spirit I mentioned earlier.  They’re really essential for motivational interviewing to build that – to find that trust for people to do the heavy lifting necessary to make some changes in their life.

Len Sipes:  Motivational interviewing has been around for quite some time.  This is nothing new, according to the document.  It’s been around for decades, correct?

Bradford Bogue:  That’s right.  Well it’s been around but it’s still not well known within many sectors, and if it is known, it may only be known nominally and not practiced at a deeper level of proficiency yet.  It takes some doing to learn how to use motivational interviewing.

Len Sipes:  But from reading the document, I got the sense that it’s used within the psychiatric profession, the medical profession, a lot of the professions where it’s vital to maintain or to establish a relationship with an individual within the medical model that this concept has been around for a while.

Bradford Bogue:  Yeah, the development of MI, it’s ARC.  It’s really interesting.  It started out originally just for people with alcohol problems.  It quickly – and it was developed in response to some of the kind of polarizing or punitive approaches that we were using back in several decades ago in the addiction’s field here in this country.  And then it spread quickly to other chemical and then non-chemical addictions such as addictions or anorexia or other disorders.  And then, after that, it continued to spread much to the amazement of the originators, William Miller and Stephen Rollnick, and into healthcare and to a wider – much wider variety of problem behavior issues than they ever imagined.  Post surgery, renal patients, male on male, unsafe sex, all kinds of things, diabetes, and often there’s been clinical trials that have followed the interest and found the evidence that it’s working in these areas.  So motivational interviewing is spread like top seed to many different kinds of social service sectors and continues to spread now.  But now, unlike many of the previous sectors where there might have been small agencies, if there were any agencies or individual therapists, now it’s motivational interviewing is coming into corrections.  The significant different is it’s coming into large bureaucracies.  Typically for corrections you don’t just have one corrections person working corrections in some jurisdiction.  You have organizations and quite often they’re very large involving thousands and thousands of people.  And that entails their organizational culture and all the intrigue and levels and filters and red tape that comes with that.  And so it’s a new kind of engagement to implement motivational interviewing in these larger sectors.  And it’s really an interesting wonderful one too because it’s looking like it’s bringing in a kind of humanizing effect on some of our very punitive or correctional organizations.

Len Sipes: I want to reintroduce our guests, more than half way through the program, Bradford Bogue.  He is the Director of Justice System Assessment and Training.  He has been a motivational interviewer trainer since 1993.  The address is www.j-sat.com.  Also at our microphones today, Anjali Nandi.  She is with the Center for – currently the Program Director for The Center for Change, a state licensed adult and outpatient drug and alcohol treatment facility in Colorado, www.center-for-change.com.  All right. So the idea is that this has been around for a long time within the medical profession, and it works.  I mean that’s the point — either Anjali or Bradford, that is the point is that this has a long history of success in terms of motivating individuals within the medical model, correct?

Anjali Nandi:  That is correct.  I think what Brad was pointing out also is how the implementation though is different and difficult, more difficult I think in the corrections field and that’s why this first part of the book focuses on implementation issues in corrections.

Len Sipes:  Yeah and that’s one of the reasons I want to bring – but first I want to fully establish the fact there is a strong body of success.  So if we’re moving this from the medical model into the correctional model, the folks within the correctional system need to understand that there’s a strong scientific basis for this being a practical and workable and successful application.  So we have to agree to that first.  And then we move to corrections.

Bradford Bogue:  Leonard, absolutely true.  So motivational interviewing is on the SAMHSA registry for evidence based practice as well as some others.  And there’s been over 200 random clinical trials on motivational interviewing and the volume of research continues to expand progressively around motivational interviewing.

Len Sipes:  Right and so that’s the principle fault.  It has a long history of success within other fields and now we’re bringing it to corrections and, Bradford, you mentioned that there’s some times a bit of a difficulty in terms of bringing it to the correctional system.  Probation and corrections, I mean it’s a huge entity. I mean there are seven million people under the custody of correctional agencies, either in prisons, jails or in parole and probation supervision.  So and we’re a hard nosed cynical lot and we certainly want the best for the individuals that we deal with.  We certainly want to see them succeed.  But what you’re saying is that it’s time for those of us, if we want to be successful, if we want to get drug addicts into treatment, if we want to get mental health people involved in treatment, if we want that to be successful, if we want them to find jobs, we’ve got to do motivational interviewing because – not because it’s the right thing to do.  We do it because it works.

Bradford Bogue:  Well, yes and it works in a few ways.  It works first of all and foremost with our clients and we need to do a lot of research in the criminal justice system.  Not much has been done with motivational interviewing at this point.  There’s only – but so more of that needs to follow.  But from the research that has been done in other related fields like addictions, folks with cocaine problems or opiates or what have you, we know that it works.  The other thing that it does, though, that makes it the right thing to do, is it’s looking like it helps people that are practicing it as well.  And so there’s evidence that people practice MI, for instance, in the prisons in Sweden who adopted six or seven years ago, I believe, motivational interviewing across the whole nation’s system, they ran some trials and found that with clinical trials that it reduces the cortisone or stress levels of people that are using it as opposed to people that weren’t trained in it.  So it gives people that are working in the system a better sense of agency in what they’re doing day to day and working with other people.  It gives them a purposeful – it clarifies and helps them within in terms of what their mission is and one interaction to the next working with different people.  I like – you know there’s a line from Shakespeare, that kindness is the one virtue that does double duty.  It’s good to the person it’s bestowed on and it’s good for the bestower.  And I see that every – each experience I have training or coaching in motivational interviewing.  Anjali, what’s your take?

Anjali Nandi:  I think you’ve captured it. Not sure what to ask [INDISCERNIBLE] twice given for sure and impacts the clients and in a lot of way makes things easier for me as a practitioner as well.  In trainings, after delivering a training, I will receive a follow up email from people who have been in the training who say it used to feel like I was boxing with a client the whole time and now it feels like I have this conversation and then I leave and it really is up to the client to take the next step and there’s the sense of calm that seems to be experienced by the folks who are using motivational interviewing.

Len Sipes:  But I’m still struggling to find that secret sauce, that magic moment in terms of your interacting with a person either on parole or probation or within the correctional setting what it is that we’re trying to do.  I mean we’re trying to find that spark, that interest in that individual and we’re trying to find that glimmer, that hope, that sense of – you know one of the things I always wanted to do is to become a carpenter or one of the things I always wanted to do was to shake this drug habit of mine but I’ve never been able to do it.  But it doesn’t come that easy.  It doesn’t come that straightforward.  They’re just small pieces of humanity that you latch onto and reach out to and investigate. I mean is that what we’re talking about?

Bradford Bogue:  Well I think it’s experienced in moment to moment in a myriad of ways but the common theme across that is that people – when someone is working with them and applying a motivational interviewing a style or engaging on I should say is that they get to hear themselves think and they get to reflect a little bit and that reflection brings up quite often those ah-ha moments for the individual.  But they get to reset, recalibrate who they are and where they want to be with their – so there’s lots of small little opportunities to be had in a conversation.  And I think motivational interviewing it is fascinated with what the language is that we use.  We’re always looking at the kind of language that we use with the clients and the kind of language that they use in turn and how the language we use influences the language that they use and based on that kind of understanding and knowledge we can then begin to more systematically kind of help them focus and find the kind of solutions that they might want to find.

Len Sipes: It’s interesting that you should say that because just last week I did a radio show with Garrett College in terms of a very successful juvenile justice program where two thirds were successful where ordinarily 70 to 80 percent are unsuccessful.  So they had a wonderful result, and I kept hammering away what was the secret sauce, what was the key ingredient, and she kept coming back to the fact that it was the way that we address them, the way that we treated them, the way that we interacted with them.  It sounded as if she embraced the whole concept of motivational interviewing from the very beginning.  She said it was the way staff approached the juvenile population.  Instead of from a custodial approach, it was from a helping approach, a humanistic approach, and she said that that made a huge difference in terms of their rate of success.

Bradford Bogue:  Yeah, Leonard, I’d like to read you something, a quote from a researcher and expert in corrections that says that regarding “how effective any officer is working with offenders will depend to a great extent upon his conviction about people, his respect for them as human beings with all their shortcomings, his appreciation of the uniqueness of each person with whom he is working, his belief in the capacity of people to change and his conviction that true change must come from within.”  That was written 51 years ago in 1961, and I probably don’t need to tell you or probably many in the audience that we’re still struggling with how to bring that part of ourselves to work, you know, that sees the best in other people.  And I think motivational interviewing is not something that’s readily trained.  In fact, we’re not even sure training is the ticket to the movie much less the movie.  The evidence on developing motivational interviewing skills that we have through random controlled trials on training motivational interviewing where we randomly assign different practitioners to different conditions.  You read the book.  You just go to a training and this group over here goes to coaching only for instance, those kind of studies indicate the key ingredients are really getting imperial objective feedback from someone who has trained to code what you’re saying and doing with the client imperially and coaching.  Those are the keys.  And we got into this book – just to give you a quick background in this—

Len Sipes:  We only have a couple minutes left.  Go ahead.

Bradford Bogue:  Okay.  I’ve been training motivational interviewing in corrections for about 19 years and The National Institute of Corrections early on was the only agency that was willing to kind of explore getting tape critiques and giving people feedback through tapes and they began to do that more and more.  At the same time many motivational interviewing trainers were beginning to learn that out approach of train and pray was really bankrupt in terms of bringing motivational interviewing into correctional entities at any significant level and that we needed to shift the paradigm away from just assuming training could do the job and adapt a paradigm that’s more about staff development and following through with tape critiques and coaching.  So we talk about it as wave one, which is the first 10 years that we were trying, experimenting with bringing motivational interviewing into corrections simply through training.  You know send your staff to a two or three day training for instance and then wave two where we still may train, but we’re really interested in the follow up is where the action is and getting tape critiques from folks and then follow up with phone coaching or face to face coaching and get them into a cycle.  It usually takes three or four cycles through that of taping and coaching to get people to a level of proficiency where they really, according to the research, likely to get those nice effects in terms of the outcomes they want.

Len Sipes:  Okay, we have to close with that, Brad.  I guess today – our guests today have been Bradford Bogue.  He is the Director of Justice System and Assessment Training. He has been a motivational interviewer trainer since 1993, www.j-sat.com.  Also joining us today, ladies and gentlemen, has been Anjali Nandi.  Anjali is a Program Director of the Center for Change, a state licensed outpatient drug and alcohol treatment facility in Colorado.  Ladies and gentlemen, this is DC Public Safety.  We’re up to 133,000 requests on a monthly basis. We appreciate your letters.  We appreciate your emails.  We appreciate your phone calls and in feedback in terms of the program and we want everybody to have themselves a very, very pleasant day.

[Audio Ends]

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