Behind the Walls; 4; 4 Warden

The warden of a prison is the man who is ultimately responsible for what happens. They're responsible for the well-being of the men who live and work there and for protecting us by enforcing custody. It's a precarious position. He's subject to criticism from within and outside the walls and everyone thinks he knows better than the warden does how to run a prison. The warden of the Iowa State Penitentiary undoubtedly must maintain the security of that institution. He's also presumably charged with rehabilitating the inmates but given inadequate facilities funds and personnel. It's an almost impossible task to accomplish. The state and the citizens reluctance to be interested in Iowa's correctional facilities suggests that perhaps all we really want is to have criminals removed from our site that we really don't care what happens to those kind of men. And that makes a warden's job pretty difficult. Meet Lou Brewer the warden at the Iowa State Penitentiary. Lou who has been involved in adult corrections for 17 years. He first worked at the Tennessee State Penitentiary in classifications

during the late 1950s. He came to the Iowa State Penitentiary as a counselor in 1961. He was superintendent at the Leicester Heights conservation camp from 1963 to 1965 and then spent four years as superintendent at the Riverview relief center then called the Riverview on her farm. He came to the Iowa State Penitentiary as warden in January 1969. We invite you to join us and less pack reporter for the Burlington Hawkeye with warden Lou Brewer. Behind the walls. The man responsible for the Iowa State Penitentiary is the man at the top and that is Warden Lou Brewer. Warden you have 613 inmates here is a count of the we recorded our program here 325 employees a budget of around up to four million dollars a year I think is it not now. Proximately slightly over. If you had all an unlimited supply of

money and Governor legislature saw fit to give you funds with no strings attached and spend it any way you want to. What would you do here at the prison. How would you spend it. Well that's a situation that's never been present for any school administrator and is strictly a dream and I doubt if any of us in this position have allowed us law ourselves that luxury. I think there are some things we definitely would do differently. I doubt though that we would first apply to the prison itself. I think though there are some differences of opinion among correctional administrators about the expansion of community based services that I and most maximum security wardens around the country would would advocate. You know initially that we best best maximize community based alternatives for incarceration. And I think our experiences indicate to us that a mass prison environment is a debilitating environment and that with our current knowledge

of techniques of dealing with human behavior that many times at best if we simply overcome the debilitating effects of that environment we're doing about as good as we can. So I think the first thing we would do with this one fall would be the ultimate maximization of the utilization of community based alternatives. Would this mean then that you would like to see penitentiaries such as this go out of existence. Well certainly I would like to and I hope that's our ultimate goal is to someday arrive at a sufficient degree of civilization. We can do that. I don't think we at this time have. I think that when we look at the dangerous propensities of some of the people who come before the courts and some of the people who come to this institution that we have not as yet developed a sufficient degree of alternatives are the skill to deal with all situations in the community. Nor have we developed over part of the public. The tolerance to deal with some of these problems in the community and they're do

now remain and will remain even after the ultimate development of community based alternatives some people who for some period of time and some for extended period of time will have to remain incarcerated in a controlled situation with that controlled situation and be a penitentiary that's built such as the Iowa State Penitentiary is what I guess is a massive stone and I guess that depends on where we arrive at. We've taken that initial step of the you know for community based rain off and we've had some degree of community based rain off and I can't estimate numbers. I think one of the things of the phalluses is trying to arrive at typical inmates and Panacea programs. That doesn't mean they don't exist and people are individuals and will have to move people on a case by case basis. And then when we've done that and then we take a look at what remains in the institution that of whether we call it a penitentiary or whether we call it a hospital. Whether we look at those people who remain behind and say that our primary needs are in the psychiatric service area of the

social service area. Are whether they are in the least related social skills there will have to be determined when we arrive at that point. We still are at a point now of mix in a prison population where we have people who some of whom there are needs are there to cope. That is in the economic world. Vocational skills are an economic where else simply you know all the academic and living skills. Others it's a social skill. And I don't think that we can predict with certainty what will remain when we have maximized community based alternatives. I think the past six to 10 years will considerably enhanced community based programs in Iowa. And at this institution we certainly weren't prepared for the mixture in the 600 man population that we have today. Because we were dependent a few years ago. On the assistance of the prosocial inmate who now receives

an early parole or receive who receive probation or goes on work release you say assistance can you go into that a little bit more. What role does the inmate play in in control they still have a degree of this and that you know many of our inmates we have today are are somewhat non-dangerous and many are prosocial and her attitudes. That is they accept the values that general society accepts. Some six to 10 years ago the timeframe that I mentioned earlier that probably a majority of our inmates who who were skilled whose values were very similar to those of the staff that work here. And I think staff at that time tended to be rather complacent dependent upon this inmate to do much of the instructing to do much of the positive influencing of other inmates. So the inmate then in effect helped control other inmates and helped make the prison run smoother. That's true. These people are now in other situations that we you know advocated that they should be. But the lack of their presence has made us much more

dependent upon staff and the skills of staff. And I think our staff in many ways has come to the task. But another one of these things that I would use this dream world pot of money for would be to enhance the skills of staff to deal with the current problem. That is the skills of supervision that one point didn't have to be so acute the supervision of the inmate the direction motivation was not all that difficult. A problem at least it wasn't difficult to do in a manner that met the expectations of superiors and society in general at that day and time. Dave you've talked about inmates. In the past and prosocial and how they did help kind of keep things calm and cool. Can you generalize a little bit about the kind of inmates you have now. Is it possible to generalize about them. Well no I really don't think it is and I think it's a mistake to do so I think for me to do so leads to the leads of people who might view. Or hear what I have to say and thinking that there ought to be a way to deal with this

typical inmate and not think that there is. And I think that we have to have a gamut of programs that can be made available and applied to. Individuals. We do find that there is an increasing social awareness on the part of the inmates that we have today. There's a greater percentage of them who are prone to dangerous acts. They are younger than they were a few years ago they are more militant they are more rights oriented. And the other thing is that they are more rejecting of the values of the system and more rejecting of the system rather than just just a complaint about how they got to Bundy that the system is wrong. You talk about more rights oriented I suppose if we drew up a list of the 10 most sued people in Iowa and have to go to court to defend themselves you might be on that list. You are defended I think in numerous lawsuits that are brought up by inmates are you not. Yes I am and the amount of money damages currently being asked is something that you know is even more while than that pot of money. You

said dream about that limited supply. What are some of the things that inmates sue about. Well I guess they the most frequent thing that I have faced and around the country is the matter of due process and making of decisions about inmates. This relates to parole revocation process parole granting process. Program decision security clearances primarily as relates to this institution the disciplinary action taken and the use of punitive sanctions following dictionary action especially where it extends the man's sentence delays his parole consideration. There have been suits also about religious freedom. Access to the press access to to the courts and other matters. These primarily or there is a window with the most and what the court's done on most of these suits.

Let's take a general trend do you think the courts have gone too far in favor of the inmates. No I don't. I think that they have put inmates into an unreasonable expectation and that they read of court suits in jurisdictions that don't apply to the jurisdiction that they're in and that the inmates get gets the impression that there is a legal remedy. And for a time he is delayed and facing up to his problems and getting engaged in program. We really haven't had many adverse decisions in our system or those that apply to due process. So at least in this institution really emphasizes what leave a spouse to do is OK if we really did it and we've been advised to you know to adhere to the standards that we set for ourselves. But the suing you know not of me because I've come cousin to it but the suing of line staff is you know for time kind of put them off balance and made them unsure about what's the right thing to do and what can I do without placing myself and my family in financial jeopardy. And I

think for a fourth time that the courts are primarily created confusion. And I would hope that the courts finally address themselves to some degree of finality as to what rights inmates do have. So that we can train staff and adjust them to whatever the new realities are. What rights should inmates have. What are your personal feelings on this. Well. I think they have the rights to be individual. I think they should have the right of you know to be treated like every other individual in terms of you know possessing human dignity and individuality. I think as far as you know basic services that we all expect life sustaining services should be a matter of right although sometimes it's a difficult service to deliver as far as applying the resources to deliver it. I think it's right that decisions made about inmates that affect the amount of time he spends in the institution up to have legal safeguards.

But I think that at the same time as long as we have to operate mass population institutions that the courts have to recognize certain kinds of basic realities that have to be dealt with along with these rights. And some of our needs for you know identification and safety needs and security needs and mass control needs and health needs have got to be balanced off against these individual rights so rights and realities can conflict them. They can and example might be. Let's talk about the hair rule as an example are hair regulations wearing a beard or mustache. Well we recently were sued on that issue and judge Hansen recently an opinion said that the prison did have the right to enforce an appearance standard based on the peculiar reality of the penitentiary and the need for identification safety sanitation and security at the same time the inmate and the particular age group of the majority of our shifting youthful population.

This makes him feel like that he is giving up something in terms of his personal identity that his relatives who visit him don't give up. And it is a reminder that he's in prison. But then a man who goes to prison and becomes a number has given up some personal identity anyway as you know he has. And I think that a lot of times people like to you know in any kind of deprived situation you know for a moment are in some way reach out for something that helps them to deny the existence of that reality. Let's go back to the community corrections aspect here for a moment if more community corrections programs are available in halfway houses or more probation parole agents who are around to help supervise people or other types of facilities. Pre-released centers and so forth were available. Would you estimate how many of them in terms of numbers or percentages in the institution

today might be let out on the streets and some type of supervised condition. Oh about two and a half years ago we were asked by the corrections study committee of the legislature to make them that kind of an estimate. And our administrative staff and our counseling staff reviewed each file of each inmate an institution on a case by case basis. And at that time estimated that at the minimum 40 percent could be redeployed to community situation. Unfortunately people are still applying that estimate against our current 600 when that estimate was made. The time we had 900. And I think to answer that question we'd have to go through that same kind of a process again because of the 600 we have now is not 600 of the 900 but it's made up of some new people transfer. And I guess I could I could guess that 50 percent might be in some degree of lesser control.

But again there are variables that are occurring all the time in terms of shifts of our population change in economic and social lifestyle in the community. And some of the systems around the country like California has you know developed a lot of community based programs. But the. Migration of you know extreme mixtures in their ethnic population in California the social situations in our community has complicated itself in a more rapid rate and our programs have developed. So that's a purely speculative thing that can only be dealt with on a case by case study when the situation is a reality. You mentioned an ethics situation here at the penitentiary. According to the latest figures I have from your office I think from last February approximately 20 percent of the population would be non-white mostly blacks. There are a few Indians here in Chicago's Metro. The staff is predominately white. I think you may have as many as half a dozen people blacks and I believe a Chicano correctional officer does this create problems.

I think it does. I don't think that our staff recognize it. Does south predominantly white predominantly rural in their background and although it may have been basically basically good people there are some things missing in terms of my and their frame of reference of understanding the background of these people. And I think that we may have been a little bit resistant to affirmative action programs to recruit blacks and other minorities and we have just this week they approved an affirmative action plan. And so we are negotiating with some people who in corrections and other states to try to work as recruiters. And if we're going to get black or other minorities to work in this area we're going to have to go outside our area to get them because these trained people are people you want just simply aren't here around. They aren't in this area and we're going to have to recruit them and assist them in relocation. What kind of problems has it created by not having people from minority groups to work in here. Well I don't know if we've had anything that really came to the point of

crisis. I think that I mentioned earlier that it's one of the things we're having a problem with motivation with the present day inmate and that of their unwillingness to accept. The credibility of the recommendation of the staff at this percentage of minority inmates although they have increased numbers has increased percentage wise our population has gone down. That's when we were at 900 this minority population was 13 percent and the minority people tend to come from with longer sentences for more dangerous offenses than to the whites and they tend to be tend to be more rejecting of what the quote establishment suggests they ought to do to correct their problem. And I think there has been a tendency for them to stay longer that the parole board and the staff at looking at their program accomplishments have found them somewhat wanting. And I think this is the problem that as far as motivation we need the people that have you know compatible backgrounds and compatible problems to add to the credibility

of those recommendations that we make to the inmate. That to the motivation of him attempting to accomplish those goals. Talking with some of the black inmates as we did in some earlier interviews there were a few comments made that they did attempt to form a I think they called it an Afro-American type of group A self-help organization in which blacks primarily would work with each other and try to help guys get education help them learn to read and write If that were a problem encourage him to go the right way so that if and when they got parole I'd be back out on the street and could make it out there. But their comments were that they felt like that the program was quiet and it came down from your office that you were against it. Verify that rumor. It was not quite by any of covert act on my part but by an overt and direct action on my part as my observation at that time was it was going to become a militant pressure group that I felt would attempt to become self serving that would not necessarily make the right recommendations to these people and I didn't and I felt that at that time

the other groups in the population would would organize accordingly. And I think that we can have you know culture study group wouldn't have educational groups. But I don't think that a prison with its tense environment is any place for political pressure groups to operate. And this is what you felt this would be counted as what I felt it would become. What type of groups do you have in this institution. Are there subcultures among convicts. Well they are in any organization or in formal organizations and some of them might be able to identify but some of them I would not. And since I would not be able to identify all follow my will not erroneously identify any other. OK. But you do feel that there certainly are groups that are some type the answer there. Is there any one or two or three inmates that can speak for an inmate population. No they can. Why is that do you suppose. Well I think that is some evidence that would to some degree develop a little bit more sophistication on the part of staff and a little bit more efficacy of program. I

think that a few years ago I mentioned you know our dependence upon inmates that some inmates being more aggressive and go from others tended to arrive at the top and get the label politician inmate and they could control groups. I think that there's been a recognition on the part of Staff that. We should allow you know individualized programming if possible. I think there are sufficient avenues of communications bite of what complaint you might hear from some quarters that they feel that they have access to get answers for themselves and that they don't have the need for other inmates to speak for them. How free is a communication from an inmate to you with an inmate right to you some way get in touch with you be able to talk with you directly. All inmates do right to me. I don't talk to any man many inmates directly as I once did. Again this matter of rights and formalisation of process's. Has positives and negatives. It was time when if I received

a communication with an inmate I communicated directly back. Many anytime I receive communication from inmates now which is a form of a complaint. It would be inappropriate. I have found for me to go and directly deal with that situation because if I do I condition him to come back. To that source for the solution of his problem rather than to go to the appropriate staff member for the solution of that problem. On the one hand and then secondly I would be denying him in case he disliked what I might do. A step in the formalizes grievance process of which I am the decision maker after the grievance process is issue. I think you somewhat answered my next question. One of the complaints we have heard from inmates is that they don't see enough of you. For one reason or another. Well for one reason or another they are right. I don't see as much of them as I would like to know. I begin work in this business in counseling capacity and I enjoy talking with inmates. I like working with them on an individual basis and most of the previous positions I had even though I had

administrative responsibilities I could do that. When I first came to this institution the party elders are in the initial stages to you know become aware of the climate and estimate some of the problems. I did handle an awful lot of inmate problems by direct manner. I found my mailbox from inmates getting larger and larger and larger and I found the counseling staff and first line staff having more and more free time. And I really can't be knowledgeable of us 600 inmates have a sufficient problem dealing with 300 plus employees and that of course some of the inmates arranged to make me less available by the onslaught of lawsuits which you know if you're being sued for a considerable sum of money you tend to want to be present when that matter is aired by the court. Further the development of our system has required input from me outside of the institution in terms of dealing with groups

with dealing with legislation concern for funding of the institution. And I think that I'm being unfair to an inmate. If I go into the institution and deal with his individual problem at the expense of an administrative matter that could deal with the delivery of medical service or food service or basic maintenance service. Are changes in the parole system that affect the general welfare. Well then if you can't get it individually in most cases and there certainly would be problems develop here. How about just making some appearances more frequently out in the yard. Chatting with inmates. Again this is a type of the complaint we heard as oh I guess that maybe this would help satisfy some of the. It might help satisfy some people I don't know to what degree it would help solve any of their problems. I do that to to my estimation and in my judgment as frequently as my time makes it possible for me to do so. How often would this be.

Oh I suppose I get in the institution on an average of two to three times a week. I should be in the institution at least daily or probably twice daily and stay in the institution I might interrupt. We're speaking in the administration building in a part of the building which is just outside the walls. Talking about going inside you do have to go to the turn. Yeah I recognize that part of this. This gripe is appropriate and it is right and there there's concern for organizational development and just in. The last month we've restructured the organization of staff. And four of the line department heads that previously were reporting directly to me are now reporting to the deputy work with every warden reporting to me and four staff officers reporting to me and one of the expressed designs of this was to make more time available on my own part individually to monitor the system to deal with general inmate problems to be more available to general inmate problems as well as general staff problems. That's one of the aspects and it bears directly on the question that you're asking that I feel this need as much

as the complaint is people though and systems do have to develop until you have your ducks in a row so to speak make the kind of moves that allow that to happen. One of the other things that's intended by this re restructuring the organization staff gets again at some of the things that I think need doing and in institutions and that is we have unit ties the personnel under each of these operating departments rather than having treatment personnel and maintenance personnel and office of personnel you know coming from diverse sources on a problem and going back to their own sphere of expertise. We've consolidated them into units so that they can deal with an inmate in a unit. I think one of the problems of mass population institution is you know 300 employees to try to be intimately aware of the problems of 600 inmates or 600 inmates and try to watch out for not getting caught by. Taking advice from 300 employees. And that's one of the objects of this too is to arrive at a form of

of unit management which then will lend itself to a team treatment designed to concentrate on inmate problems any concentrated matter. Well as part of the team approach are some comments we've heard from particularly your officers and counselors and here is that there seems to be. I guess an acceleration of merging roles a little bit and functions of officers and counselors. That's part of it. You've been a counselor. Is this is this a good approach do you think for the boy. I think it is I think this thing at correctional institution been whirling around with for years because the aversive treatment is a bunch of poppycock and I don't think we'll ever have either a correctional security program or a correctional treatment program until the employees operating within that program don't know which they are. I think they've got to become correctional professionals concerned with a total problem of the inmate and the total problem of the institution. What is the prime purpose of the state penitentiary right now. For looking at the walls. I think observer would have to think it's custody. Well.

We do deal and within the total framework the Bureau of Corrections its community services and its five institutions we are the one institution that maintains its program in a relatively secure environment and it is our goal to to become and remain the maximum security institution of the system. So that those people who cannot be dealt with who cannot be controlled whose behavior cannot be curbed who cannot be safely kept in less secure environments will be placed in this environment for as long as or when they are in need of a secure environ. So then this becomes the primary purpose the primary goal of the institution. No I dont think it does. I think that it becomes the locale of treatment for those people who must be controlled to a greater degree than those other people that we deal with in the system. This is not to say that this is incompatible with treatment. And if you listen to what I just said

about the fact that we are trying to operate a contrast between custody and treatment because they are parallel objectives and a professional correctional program. That one of the things we have to deal with is you can't put people in a maximum security institution devoid of treatment at the same time. All the rest of the of the system is advocating treat. But I think you know one of the things you get a lot of the complaints and the bitterness of inmates who are at the penitentiary today is that they hear all these things about the halfway houses and the furloughs and the weekend passes and the early roles that are happening to the guys out in the minimum custody dormitory at Newton and the relief center and reformatory and at Oakdale and Rockwell City but its not happening to them. And I think that they have got to be given the assurance of hope that it can happen to them if they can turn themselves around and accomplish some goals towards that end. And if they turn themselves around then we'll throw up the favorite word that the experts use of

rehabilitation. How do you define rehabilitation. Does it have. I think it's a good word to find in some place in the dictionary. I think it is a non existent thing. And I you know rehabilitation implied you know restored some previous form or were going to conform this individual to the standards of the community and with people who have been in prison two or three times that's really unrealistic. I'm not really concerned at this point. You know I would hope that if somebody is concerned with sainthood that they can pick that up at some point in the future I think what we're concerned about is successfully reintegrating the man in the community at the earliest possible time that we can safely do it. So reintegration and becomes the word I think that's what we're talking about. And we better you know face facts that you know when we re-integrating there still will be some ideas and some values that may not be compatible. To certain elements of our site. Talking about your treatment program then I'm moving away from the custody angle I suppose are you

satisfied here that you're doing all that you can. I know you're moving into an area we've talked with your treatment director Don Rotti psychologist about behavior modification. This is a term that's got a few people a little frightened I think out in the yard. No I'm not satisfied that we're doing all that we can. I think in areas like vocational training we're right now on the threshold of being able to legitimatize vocational training in the past. There was never a specific appropriation never a specific increase in the budget to this institution to allow for vocational training. Our vocational program came about. By the simple administrative appropriation of maintenance personnel into vocational training. But still with them having the responsibility of maintenance capability and I think that's always left a little taint to the inmate. They really aren't training me I'm down here in the electrical shop because we've got to maintain the electrical apparatus of the institution and we do. When I say we're on the threshold of something I think that you know some needs lesson with

our diminishing population as the legislature and as a fund become more available. And area colleges recently involve themselves in a marriage with the institution. And I think that we are close to the part where we can leave training to the trainers and education to the educators and do our maintenance is a separate thing. You know I think some of the criticism of inmates is some of those programs haven't really been legitimate. Or probably right maybe some of them don't know how they came about and what the realities and restraint factors are. But it's it's becoming much more difficult to motivate the people we have to get involved in the programs. And you know just a few years ago we had more takers for programs we have programs and now we're reaching the point where the reverse is true. The motivation is the programs are are catching up with the tapes and have been times in the past year for instance and we had programs go wanting for lack of takers. And again we got you know a motivational factor. We've expanded the counseling staff. When I worked as a

counselor some 12 years ago there were three of us to deal with 14 inmates. We now have 12. I think that we have to increase some quality control standards and training. And then of course I offend some of the concert when I tell them I'm not convinced that the Klan contact hours have gone up since the time when we had the three and three times as many inmates. But again I think that gets back you know to the development of the skills of supervision to ensure that counselors are given performance standards minimum levels of accomplishment minimum levels of contact with inmates and that they do it. The behavior modification thing. I don't know whether this will work or whether it was. I know it's been successful in some places. I know it's been an illegal attack in other places. I know it's a fearful thing on the part of inmates that there may be a variety of techniques employed. I don't think it's our intention to use that as a maximum treatment too. But we know that within the prison community that there are people that can't safely operate and commute in the prison community

without threat to other inmates and staff. And that they aren't motivated participate in the traditional programs of the general program and then they have to be withdrawn from the general prison population. Our tendency to date has been to withdraw and then they just simply sat on idle time in a cell until the time somebody decides they go back if ever. And they tend to take up an awful lot of the time of administrators and program directors of the institution. And I don't think that's right. I think the program managers and treatment directors ought to be. Maximizing their efforts on that feel a responsibility that is theirs. And so we have decided that if we're going to if these people are going to be withdrawn from the population that they deserve hope and we have seen people turn around in that situation. But further just from a simple standpoint of the management of personnel and money it is better to allocate a sufficient degree of personnel and money to this group that we maximize whatever value can come out of that program. And at the

same time it allows the general program to go on without threat from this group until they're ready to join the general program. I'll move over to. Well still in the same area I suppose better phrased it a little bit different way about the correctional officer himself. There has been certainly a great deal of discussion many things written about correctional officers not only here in Iowa but in other places are being underpaid undertrained and just simply under appreciated what's happening here at the prison with your officers. Well I've been upgraded in recent years and all those people in the correctional officer series were up to 10 percent in July 1 of this year. I don't know whether that is efficient or not. And there may have to be a further upgrade. I think money is one subject but it's not the answer all of the problem. I think people work in a business because they are an occupation and a vocation because that is one to which they are dedicated and in which they are interested. And if we think we can solve all the problems purely by money motivation I think we're rather short sighted. I think

money has to be adequate that the man can have respect in his community respect of his family and that the basic needs are met. But I think that we can if we can get people like you and people like legislatures to quit referring to them as as guards who have nothing else to do but simply watch people and property. And recognize that their basic function is interaction advice giving and direction of people's lives and develop them as correctional professionals giving them the training and the skills and selecting the right people who want to do that kind of work along with money that we can get the job done. Now at the present time I could walk in off the street with a high school diploma and sign up and become a correctional officer correct. Well we probably most people with those qualifications. My personal Odgers background is such that I would apply less scrutiny. OK fair enough but high school education would be. That's right. With reason I wish I didn't mean to be critical of it indicate that we will make

background checks and try to make some educated evaluations of people that no money is sufficient that we're getting a better choice of applicants to select from. And that recently we've been able to hire college graduates at the price that we pay and that's what I'm talking about. Money money gets you a better choice of people. And previously the money was such that what you you know applied to the high school graduate walking off the street may have been true. But now we're getting a much broader base choice of applicants and we have a register right now people wanting jobs it's filled with college graduates. And as you said the officer is a man who's going to be dealing with inmates and counseling them talking with them about things that affect their lives. Correct. You have some people of course on the staff with probably some limited formal education such as high school or limited college. How do you train them. Well I think you know we don't throw people out when we're increasing educational requirements for entry level. Who have been there

prior to that thing. But we have to if we increase you know money and increase the qualifications of the entry level worker increase the demands and expectations on the people that are here. Otherwise they tend to think that the increase in money is payment for past service and in the past couple of years we've provided an opportunity where at least two of our officers today have obtained associate arts degree paid for by the institution that they did the effort to get 35 high school diploma is granted to correctional officers of this institution the past two years who didn't previously have. I don't think you know just academia is going to get it. We've got to have an ongoing in-service training program and we've added staff to level one per person person who you may or may not interviewed on this visit. For this purpose. I think the experience people can on our own staff and be utilized I think we have to bring in outside experts. You know if we're not experts in behavior modification and maybe the officer won't be working in behavior modification unit but

he needs to needs to do it. And one of the problems with training that we advocated in presenting our budget to the legislature this year was that it's pretty difficult to pull a man away for a formalized training session when you're already short of manpower. And we asked for additional funds so that we could have some people always involved in formal training. Other than the job. Basically though beyond this the academic The formal training the classroom approach to training is a job of supervision. And we have tended to make supervisors simply because you had been there long enough to be supervised. And I think the training that we need to invest first is in our first and middle and supervisory people so that they recognize they're responsible to train the linework and give him the skills that he should have. You have about one hundred ninety five officers now approximately how many more do you think you should have. Oh I don't know that at this point that we need more officers. I think that

there's some restructuring in the institution. A physical plan is kind of old our wall arrangement our tire arrangement is rather irregular. I think we can buy some maintenance changes as construction changes that we can redeploy some of the officers that are now and not inmate contact work to inmate contact work. And I think we should take that step before we go and say we need more. I think we've got to get him to start getting maximum value out of those we have before we say we need you know great hordes of larger numbers. We've talked about community programs community corrections How about involving the community bringing the community more so into the prison. I guess we're doing that in a way right here on Abian. But are there other ways that community people should become involved or are they becoming involved that we just don't know about. Well I think they are becoming involved. They have we've used advisors in the development of vocational programs are our chaplains have volunteers involved in their program. We recently started to try to develop

a statewide system of volunteer services. This was tried in the state of Washington and. I think it's one of the better ways that we might inform the public as well as deal with this motivation problem. You know people are prone to want to go volunteer to help at the nursing home or the boys too. I think though that we can develop in the public a much greater awareness of the problems of crime and criminality if we can involve people in one to one volunteer efforts with people that are in the penitentiary. And we have I guess about a dozen match ups right now. And we would hope to develop this kind of a thing in every community in the state so that responsible people come into the institution. And be matched up on a one to one basis with inmates. Visit them just like any family member or prospect of employer. And be a friend to the individual. I think you know this not only will assist that inmate and that citizen but it will get information to the community and to the president about what needs to be done. Voluntary wouldn't be serving as a

supervisor or not not a dog not not. No that's not what we're asking do you know the parole agents jobs parole agents job the counselor's job is the Kowsar job. One of the experiences of people in Washington was that not only did this have an effect on the man's more successfully re-integrating in the community but it had an effect on solving this motivation problem because he was being advised by an objective person who didn't have a vested interest in the system that you know this vocational program really you really can get a job with that skill. You mention a vested interest in the system and of course you would have that as the warrant and the other people would work here. Now you're evaluating yourself I think from your own observations from what other people are saying and you look at the program every day and you evaluate and make decisions. Does anybody else come in and evaluate the penitentiary here or two years ago. I don't know if anyone else has come in and evaluated. We there was a self evaluation project with American Corrections Association in which we participated. This

really only relates to standards. There are an awful lot of people who come in and evaluate various segments and parts of the program. Osho standards and safety were inspected you know by. The Agriculture Department and the restaurant service you know looked at food service the health department looks at the hospital Osea looks at maintenance and safety features. The fire marshal looks there really aren't a lot of people coming in and talking about Correctional programming now because there really aren't a lot of people knowing about it now including the people probably they're in the business. And I would hope that there does develop out of this ACA self accreditation project some kind of a standard setting agency on a national basis that could come and look at correctional institutions and tell the administrators and the people at the state where they are where they are found wanting. I think in some of the other areas of social need like hospital accreditation the mental health standards that

this has been worthwhile. Recently there was the legislature provided a means for an additional person citizens aid office to look at inmate grievances. I think this could be helpful. And if they look at you know again they won't be looking necessarily from a frame of reference for expertise but if they just look at one frame of reference of objectivity they now have make complaints that float all kinds of sources the Press the governor of the courts these tend to be the same inmates saying same things and they tend to chase down one avenue and if that doesn't pay off we'll go down another street. And if the citizens age could become some kind of a funnel. I think it could be a you know a supervisory aide to myself and other people who work as managers and correctional institutions and you know in keeping us honest even us on our toes even striving to do the right thing. Out of all of this have we said anything about how you. Rate success and

running a prison. No I don't think we have less. I think there is a great deal of controversy in terms of you know what the citizens what the legislature what inmate what staff rate is success look at recidivism rates and we say Well you're failing cause people are coming back to prison. I would interject here quickly I think approximately two thirds of your inmate population are. These are people who have had two or more offenses or have been incarcerated too. And if I don't make some additional statement I leave people with the impression that we have a two third recidivism rate which I refute. OK. I think you know if you look at the people who are in prison you're not measuring people against the program with a prison from which they came or in which they now reside. The other popular major is to look at people released in a certain period of time those who came back. Again you can't count some of the same people twice. And we thought that this is an incorrect measure of success or failure. And so a year or so ago we started a tracking system so that we look at the exact person released in

the month of May. A year. Hands into your hands. And by that system 60 percent of the people we are releasing are failing within a year span of time. It's a little bit different frame of reference and saying that two thirds of the people have been in prison before. So you are developing a system. We are developing success if we want to use that term we are and we want applied on a case by case as well as by an institution by institution basis. We hope that we can develop the kind of you know accounting and control system that we can get down to measuring which programs work and which ones don't. Up until now it's it's the programs have been dependent upon who was the most persuasive individual as to which programs ought to exist and needs to be based on a tracking system. You know whether you put in the right people in the program doing the right things for them and what happens to them afterwards. But back on the success thing. You know even if you know you say that two thirds of them fail or say that we fail with two thirds of them I get a little bit defensive about. The

society saying that the prison is failing. When you send people to the prison that have individually failed the families of failure with the schools the churches and all the social institutions of the community have failed with over a period of 30 years in Spanish too we're supposed to succeed. And then you've given all those realities the many failures stacked on top of failures in the complexities of those failures. The fact that we succeed with some is a fairly good demonstration of some good efforts. We've talked about a lot of things here in this interview. Do you have a final question for you and I'll make a comment about a few days down here interviewing a lot of different people. Could you say or maybe you just said your personal philosophy your personal feelings about corrections running a prison. Well I suppose if you ask me that question five years ago are you asking for me in five years from now you probably get three different answers. You know we all tend to change situations change

in our experience either expands our constricts. Our viewpoint. I became interested in prison work at a time when I was a law student and took a job in prison and really to earn a living and I became convinced that the prison system that I went to work in was wrong and I wasn't doing the job. And that's the reason I chose to get involved in the prison system. Been convinced for years that there was a better way. And that we could deal with more people in the community and we didn't have to keep people in these mass deals for as long as we were doing. I think we've made strides to quit keeping people longer and when not necessary. But I think at the same time that we've got to recognize the basic realities of the need protect society. And if that requires incarceration over a period of time then we have to accept that reality and maximize our efforts within that setting. So I guess

in summary I feel that our basic obligation is to reintegrate people in the community at the earliest possible time that it's safe to do so if it's safe at the time of arrest probation after trial. Are released after a short incarceration. You put on work release that that's what we're in business to do. But we have to recognize all elements of that state at the earliest time that it's safe to do so and in some cases you're saying it may be a very long time. If a man is ready to go back into society that's what I'm saying. Warren I thank you for taking your time here. We've used that phrase with the inmates about taking time and of course they have a lot of it. But we do appreciate your comments and I would make a final statement here for the IAB and crew in our four days down here at the penitentiary we have enjoyed your cooperation. I think the staff has taken good care of us. We have been

allowed I believe to go in virtually every building every nook and cranny of the place that we wanted to and we have talked to. Oh heavens I don't know how many I've talked to inmates a couple of dozen or more and we appreciate it is access we feel through TV and that this we hope anyway will help educate inform the public a little bit more about the complex institution that you have under your charge down here. And if nothing else we might have educated and informed people. Thank you for coming. Thank you