Transcriber: Viviane P. Reviewer: Eunice Tan
I'm here to talk to you about divorce.
I have to admit
I'm absolutely,
positively,
100%
in favor of divorce.
(Laughter)
What else is there to do
when the marriage is dysfunctional, ineffective,
creating poor outcomes for everyone involved?
I say, nothing.
Just get it over with, and divorce already.
Now, the type of divorce I'm talking about,
it's probably a bit different than what you're thinking.
What I'm referring to is a divorce within our correctional and prison system.
Over the last 12 years,
I've worked in various parts of the criminal justice world,
with most of that focused on corrections.
The correctional system includes the agencies
that oversee an area's prisons, halfway houses,
and community supervision programs.
Now, there are generally two types of people who get into corrections work:
those who want to enforce rules and laws
and those who want to help with rehabilitation.
I started my career as a correctional officer,
like the first group of people.
I made sure inmates were following the rules
and not doing anything dangerous while they were in prison.
Eventually, I moved into correctional investigations,
where I was looking deeper into rule-of-law violations
for things like assault by staff or things like excessive use of force.
But I grew frustrated because no matter what I did,
it never really felt like things were getting better.
So I moved into community corrections,
like the second group of people.
Unlike prison,
community corrections tends to be more focused on rehabilitating offenders.
But even there,
it didn't feel like what I was doing was changing behavior
or making a lasting, positive impact.
I was fed up.
So about six years ago,
I decided I was going to figure out why our system wasn't working.
I started researching.
But instead of focusing on things like how to prevent crime,
I took a look at how we manage corrections from a systems perspective.
I studied the cultures, leadership styles, and social identities of corrections
and how those within the system view their roles and responsibilities.
And then it became clear:
the underlying reason our system doesn't work today
is because the practices of punishment
are too interconnected with our goal of rehabilitation.
Now, I suspect that most of you haven't been to prison before.
(Laughter)
So let me explain a bit how it works.
After receiving a sentence by the court, you enter the corrections system.
And we spend a lot of time interviewing and assessing you when you get there
to determine whether you go to a high- or a low-security prison.
And that is key.
Inmates are assigned to prisons
based upon how much we anticipate they're going to misbehave
while they're there.
And what that means, unfortunately,
is they aren't assigned to prisons
based upon their specific needs for rehabilitation and treatment.
If it's addiction that got you in trouble in the first place,
cross your fingers and hope
that your prison has addictions counseling and therapy
because it might not.
And then you're stuck there at this prison for however long
without access to the right treatment.
This points to a fundamental problem
with our prison philosophy in the United States.
Punishment is the foundation of your prison experience
and the priority throughout.
Rehabilitation is an afterthought
and is only lightly sprinkled,
like seasoning on a steak,
on top of a system whose core purpose is to punish.
And that is why I'm proposing a divorce.
A divorce that would once and for all
separate the practices of punishment from rehabilitation,
creating two separate tracks:
one for those requiring retribution
and one for those requiring recovery before they reenter society.
You may have heard of the revolving door of the justice system.
When people talk about it,
what they're referring to
is the 95% of offenders who will be released from prison
after serving their sentences
and the 67% who will return back to prison for a new crime
within three years -
a cycle known as recidivism.
What if I told you
that 67% of your investments would go belly-up within three years?
Or that 67% of your medical procedures
would need to be redone within three years?
You'd probably find a new financial advisor and a doctor
because there's no way you would put up with these results.
But when it comes to the correctional system,
we do.
Which is why we need a divorced, two-track correctional system:
one for punishment and one for rehabilitation.
Let's talk about track one:
punishment.
There is a population of offenders in this world who are high-risk,
who demonstrate patterns of criminal behavior,
who engage in serious misconduct,
and who have histories of violence.
And a system of punishment and incapacitation is wholly appropriate.
That doesn't mean just locking them up and throwing away the key.
For these violent and dangerous offenders,
it is appropriate to incarcerate with access to just basic programs
in a strict prison environment.
Let's talk about our penal philosophy in the United States.
Our system of punishment can be traced back
to the penal philosophy of the mid-1700s B.C.
in the Code of Hammurabi.
During his reign, he enforced his now-infamous 282 laws,
a couple of which you might be familiar with.
"If a man put out the eye of another man, his eye shall be put out."
How about
"If a man knock out the teeth of his equal,
his teeth shall be knocked out"?
Sounds a lot like "an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth"
that showed up later in the Old Testament.
At its core, this is a very retributive ideal
that shaped the way corrections would later be established
in the United States.
Let's fast-forward to pre-American Revolution times,
where there we see retribution's legacy
ingrained in the fabric of the United States
through things like public whippings, humiliations, mutilations,
and in some instances, even castrations.
Back then, crime was viewed as a sin against God,
and responses to those violations were often swift and brutal.
When we get to the early 19th century,
the system shifted to reduce physical violence
while maintaining a strict punishment structure.
The first penitentiaries in the U.S. were based upon the religious idea
that solitary confinement, forced silence, and hard labor
as well as penitence
would reform offenders and make them change their behavior.
It wasn't even until the 1870s that rehabilitation entered our prisons.
At that time, the correctional system looked to the medical community
and how they were using individualized treatment
as a means to cure patients.
If we treat patients on a one-to-one basis to cure illness,
why couldn't we do something with criminals and cure their criminality?
So prisons began using rehabilitative techniques,
like psychotherapy and counseling,
treating criminal behavior like a sickness,
which led to the establishment of the nation's first reformatory
in Elmira, New York.
And that is why some of you might be saying to yourselves,
"Exactly!
We do provide rehabilitation in the system now.
Why do we need two separate tracks?"
To that, I call shenanigans.
(Laughter)
Because remember,
our correctional systems were born of punishment,
forged through punishment,
and remain fundamentally rooted in ideals that are directly connected to punishment.
And as such, rehabilitation has never truly been attempted
separate and apart from punishment.
How is it we expect any rehabilitative effort to be successful
when punishment was and still is the core of the system?
Look, it would be like taking a taco
and jamming it in between a couple of pieces of bread
and then calling it a sandwich.
Technically, it has the elements of a sandwich,
(Laughter)
but at its core, it's still a delicious taco.
(Laughter)
I came face to face with this tension a few years ago
while touring a treatment program at a local prison.
The program had uniformed correctional staff members
to maintain security and control,
but also clinical specialists
to guide and facilitate rehabilitation and behavior change.
As I was walking around,
I came across a couple of inmates engaged in a nonviolent disagreement.
One of the goals of this program was to teach inmates
how to better manage this type of conflict
so they could have those skills before they exited the facility.
I watched as a clinician approached
and walked them through
this alternative way to have this disagreement.
They tried it, the disagreement was fixed,
and everyone went on about their day.
I'd just seen behavior change practice in action.
But then I noticed
there was a uniformed correctional staff member,
higher ranking,
watching.
Being the organizational scientist, I had to ask her what she thought.
She said, "These inmates are given too much leeway.
They are not held accountable enough."
She told me,
"They are inmates, not patients."
Translation:
they're not getting enough punishment.
I wondered,
How would this disagreement between these inmates
have been handled by this staff member had that clinician not gotten there first?
And that, again, is why we need a divorced, two-track correctional system:
one track for punishment and one for rehabilitation.
I've mentioned punishment.
So let's talk about track two:
rehabilitation.
Fifty-three percent of offenders are considered non-violent -
incarcerated for things like theft, drug possession, and property crimes.
This group would follow the rehabilitation track.
It is important to understand
that sentencing would mark the end of punishment
and that decisions made after the point of sentencing
would be directly and narrowly focused
on these individuals reentering our communities, prepared for success.
In our current correctional system,
decisions about entry into community programs
or for release from prison to parole
are often shaded by how much time has been served.
Time served is punishment at its roots.
In this new structure,
criteria would be based
not on how much punishment has been doled out
but whether the appropriate treatment has been delivered
and drivers of criminal behavior, like addiction, reduced.
This rehabilitation track would consist of treatment-based facilities
where deep therapeutic approaches
can be used
without the contamination of retribution
and staffed by people specifically focused
on treatment, social work, and behavioral health -
specialists whose attitudes, skills, and beliefs
are aligned with things like behavior change
and who are committed to modeling the appropriate conduct
to help offenders reenter our communities.
Although this is a radical paradigm shift in the U.S.,
this type of rehabilitation is happening.
We just have to look to Norway and their philosophical approach
as an example.
Now, I understand the valid criticisms of comparing the U.S. to Norway.
We differ in size, demographics, and history.
So let's focus on their prison philosophy.
Norway's correctional philosophy is specifically focused on rehabilitation,
with the end goal that all inmates will reenter society,
having reduced their risk to reoffend.
And it has allowed them to achieve an astonishingly low 20% recidivism rate
compared to our 67.
Former prison governor in Norway, Arne Nilsen,
similar to a warden here in the U.S.,
said,
"If we have created a holiday camp here for criminals,
so what?
We should reduce the risk of reoffending
because if we don't,
what is the purpose of punishment,
except for leaning toward the primitive side of humanity?"
He's right.
Now, this type of change certainly won't happen overnight.
And we are not going to be the next Norway tomorrow.
But a divorced, two-track correctional system -
punishment and rehabilitation -
is a step in the right direction.
Ultimately, such a radical change in our correctional system
will be difficult,
but not impossible.
It begins by questioning our beliefs about what corrections is supposed to be,
by initiating conversations in our communities
with like-minded people
but also with skeptics
as well as civic and community leaders
and those responsible for shaping and designing our correctional systems.
Structural change requires collective action.
So I call on you to join me in envisioning a radically different correctional system
where each track's purpose is specific and independent of the other,
where practitioners can flourish
because they are aligned with the track that they choose to work in,
and where you, as members of the community,
have your expectations met
when it comes to punishment and rehabilitation.
And where, finally, in this divorced, two-track correctional system,
we will have drastically slowed the ever-revolving door
and made our communities safer for all of us.
Thank you.
(Applause)