We're seen as the organization that is the bucket for failed social policy. I can't define who comes to us or how long they stay. We get the people for whom nothing else has worked, people who have fallen through all of the other social safety nets. They can't contain them, so we must. That's our job: contain them, control them.
Nas se doživljava kao ustanovu u koju dolaze propali socijalni slučajevi. Ja ne mogu odrediti tko dolazi k nama i koliko dugo ostaje. Dolaze nam ljudi kojima ništa drugo nije pomoglo, ljudi koji su prošli kroz ostale socijalne sigurnosne mreže. Oni ih ne mogu zadržati, pa to moramo mi. To je naš posao: zadržati ih, kontrolirati ih.
Over the years, as a prison system, as a nation, and as a society, we've become very good at that, but that shouldn't make you happy. Today we incarcerate more people per capita than any other country in the world. We have more black men in prison today than were under slavery in 1850. We house the parents of almost three million of our community's children, and we've become the new asylum, the largest mental health provider in this nation. When we lock someone up, that is no small thing. And yet, we are called the Department of Corrections. Today I want to talk about changing the way we think about corrections. I believe, and my experience tells me, that when we change the way we think, we create new possibilities, or futures, and prisons need a different future.
Tijekom godina, kao zatvorski sustav, kao nacija, kao društvo, postali smo jako dobri u tome, ali to vas ne bi trebalo veseliti. Danas zatvaramo više ljudi od bilo koje druge zemlje na svijetu. U zatvorima danas imamo više crnaca nego za vrijeme ropstva 1850. Udomljujemo oko 3 milijuna roditelja djece naše zajednice i postajemo novi azil, najveći opskrbljivač mentalnog zdravlja ove nacije. Kada nekoga zatvorimo - to nije mala stvar. A ipak, nazivamo se Popravnim odjelom. Danas želim govoriti o promjeni načina pristupa "popravljanju". Vjerujem, a i moje iskustvo me tome uči - da promijenom načina razmišljanja, stvaramo nove prilike, ili budućnosti, a zatvori trebaju drugačiju budućnost.
I've spent my entire career in corrections, over 30 years. I followed my dad into this field. He was a Vietnam veteran. Corrections suited him. He was strong, steady, disciplined. I was not so much any of those things, and I'm sure that worried him about me. Eventually I decided, if I was going to end up in prison, I'd better end up on the right side of the bars, so I thought I'd check it out, take a tour of the place my dad worked, the McNeil Island Penitentiary.
Proveo sam čitavu svoju karijeru, preko 30 godina, u popravnim odjelima. Pratio sam tamo svog oca. On je bio vijetnamski veteran. Popravni rad mu je pristajao. Bio je čvrst, odlučan, discipliniran. Ja sam bio malo od navedenog i siguran sam da mu je to smetalo kod mene. Na koncu sam odlučio - ako ću završiti u zatvoru, neka to bude s prave strane rešetki, pa sam pomislio provjeriti kako to izgleda, poći u razgled mjesta gdje je otac radio - Kazneni zatvor McNeil Island.
Now this was the early '80s, and prisons weren't quite what you see on TV or in the movies. In many ways, it was worse. I walked into a cell house that was five tiers high. There were eight men to a cell. there were 550 men in that living unit. And just in case you wondered, they shared one toilet in those small confines. An officer put a key in a lockbox, and hundreds of men streamed out of their cells. Hundreds of men streamed out of their cells. I walked away as fast as I could.
To je bilo ranih 80-ih kada zatvori nisu izgledali onako kako ih vidimo na TV-u ili u filmovima. Izgledali su puno gore, u svakom pogledu. Ušao sam u kaznionicu koja je imala pet katova. Osam muškaraca po ćeliji. U čitavoj zajednici - 550 muškaraca. I, ako vas slučajno zanima - dijelili su jedan toalet u tim malim kavezima. Policajac otključa lokot i stotine muškaraca izjuri iz svojih ćelija. Stotine muškaraca izjurilo je iz ćelija. Otrčao sam što sam brže mogao.
Eventually I went back and I started as an officer there. My job was to run one of those cell blocks and to control those hundreds of men. When I went to work at our receptions center, I could actually hear the inmates roiling from the parking lot, shaking cell doors, yelling, tearing up their cells. Take hundreds of volatile people and lock them up, and what you get is chaos. Contain and control — that was our job.
Ipak sam se tamo vratio i počeo raditi kao službenik. Vodio sam jedan zatvorski odjel i kontrolirao stotine muškaraca. Kada sam prešao u naš prijemni centar, mogao sam čuti zatvorenike kako se svađaju na parkiralištu, tresu vrata ćelija, viču, kidaju svoje ćelije. Uzmite stotine nestabilnih ljudi i zaključajte ih i ono što ćete dobiti je kaos. Zadrži i kontroliraj je bio naš posao.
One way we learned to do this more effectively was a new type of housing unit called the Intensive Management Unit, IMU, a modern version of a "hole." We put inmates in cells behind solid steel doors with cuff ports so we could restrain them and feed them. Guess what? It got quieter. Disturbances died down in the general population. Places became safer because those inmates who were most violent or disruptive could now be isolated. But isolation isn't good. Deprive people of social contact and they deteriorate. It was hard getting them out of IMU, for them and for us. Even in prison, it's no small thing to lock someone up.
Jedan od načina kako da to učinkovito svladamo bio je novi tip stambene jedinice nazvan Intenzivna upravljačka jedinica, moderna verzija "jazbine". Stavili bismo zatvorenike iza čvrstih, čeličnih vrata s malenim otvorima kako bismo ih mogli obuzdati i hraniti. Pogodite što se dogodilo! Postalo je mirnije. Generalno uznemiravanje je zamrlo. Mjesto je postalo sigurnije jer su ovi zatvorenici, koji su bili najviše nasilni, sada mogli biti izolirani. Ali izolacija nije dobra. Lišite ljude socijalnog kontakta i postat će gori. Bilo je teško izvlačiti ih iz Intenzivne upravljačke jedinice, kako njima, tako i nama. Čak i u zatvoru, nije mala stvar nekoga zaključati.
My next assignment was to one of the state's deep-end prisons where some of our more violent or disruptive inmates are housed. By then, the industry had advanced a lot, and we had different tools and techniques to manage disruptive behavior. We had beanbag guns and pepper spray and plexiglass shields, flash bangs, emergency response teams. We met violence with force and chaos with chaos. We were pretty good at putting out fires.
Idući posao bio je u jednom od najgorih državnih zatvora gdje su bili zatočeni neki od najnasilnijih zatvorenika. Do tada je industrija jako napredovala i imali smo različite alate i tehnike za ukroćivanje neposluha. Imali smo sačmarice i suzavce te štitnike od pleksiglasa i timove hitne intervencije. Dočekivali smo nasilje silom, a kaos kaosom. Bili smo poprilično dobri u stišavanju vatre.
While I was there, I met two experienced correctional workers who were also researchers, an anthropologist and a sociologist. One day, one of them commented to me and said, "You know, you're pretty good at putting out fires. Have you ever thought about how to prevent them?" I was patient with them, explaining our brute force approach to making prisons safer. They were patient with me. Out of those conversations grew some new ideas and we started some small experiments. First, we started training our officers in teams rather than sending them one or two at a time to the state training academy. Instead of four weeks of training, we gave them 10. Then we experimented with an apprenticeship model where we paired new staff with veteran staff. They both got better at the work. Second, we added verbal de-escalation skills into the training continuum and made it part of the use of force continuum. It was the non-force use of force. And then we did something even more radical. We trained the inmates on those same skills. We changed the skill set, reducing violence, not just responding to it.
Tamo sam upoznao sam dvojicu iskusnih popravnih socijalnih radnika koji su bili i istraživači - antropolog i sociolog. Jednog dana, jedan je rekao: "Znaš, ti si prilično dobar u smirivanju. Jesi li ikada razmišljao o tome prevenirati problem?" Bio sam strpljiv s njima, objašnjavao naš brutalan pristup kojim smo štitili ostale. Oni su bili strpljivi sa mnom. Iz ovih razgovora su izrodile neke nove ideje pa smo započeli s malim eksperimentima. Prvo, počeli smo trenirati službenike u timovima umjesto da ih šaljemo po jednog ili dvojicu u državnu akademiju. Umjesto četiri, dali smo im deset tjedana treninga. Zatim smo eksperimentirali s modelom obuke gdje smo uparili novog službenika sa drugim, starijim službenikom. Obojica su napredovala u poslu. Drugo - uveli smo verbalne vještine smirivanja u proces treninga i učinili ih dijelom kontinuuma sile. To je bilo korištenje sile bez upotrebe sile. Tada smo učinili nešto još radikalnije. Trenirali smo zatvorenike tim istim vještinama. Promijenili smo skup vještina, smanjili nasilje, a ne samo odgovorili na njega.
Third, when we expanded our facility, we tried a new type of design. Now the biggest and most controversial component of this design, of course, was the toilet. There were no toilets. Now that might not sound significant to you here today, but at the time, it was huge. No one had ever heard of a cell without a toilet. We all thought it was dangerous and crazy. Even eight men to a cell had a toilet. That small detail changed the way we worked. Inmates and staff started interacting more often and openly and developing a rapport. It was easier to detect conflict and intervene before it escalated. The unit was cleaner, quieter, safer and more humane. This was more effective at keeping the peace than any intimidation technique I'd seen to that point. Interacting changes the way you behave, both for the officer and the inmate. We changed the environment and we changed the behavior.
Treće - kada smo povećali prostor, isprobali smo novi tip dizajna. Sada je najveća i najkontroverznija komponenta ovog projekta bila, naravno, toalet. Toaleta nije bilo. Sada, vama to možda nije ništa značajno, tada je to bila velika stvar. Nitko nikada nije čuo za ćeliju bez toaleta. Mislili smo da je to opasno i suludo. Čak je i ćelija sa osam muškaraca imala toalet. Taj je mali detalj promijenio naš način rada. Službenici i zatvorenici su počeli komunicirati te se razvila neka vrsta prisnosti. Bilo lakše detektirati sukob i intervenirati prije nego je eskalirao. Odjel je bio čišći, tiši, sigurniji i humaniji. Ovo je imalo više efekta u očuvanju mira od bilo koje druge tehnike zastrašivanja dosad. Interakcija mijenja način ponašanja, kako službenika, tako i zatvorenika. Promijenili smo ambijent i promijenili smo ponašanje.
Now, just in case I hadn't learned this lesson, they assigned me to headquarters next, and that's where I ran straight up against system change. Now, many things work against system change: politics and politicians, bills and laws, courts and lawsuits, internal politics. System change is difficult and slow, and oftentimes it doesn't take you where you want to go. It's no small thing to change a prison system. So what I did do is I reflected on my earlier experiences and I remembered that when we interacted with offenders, the heat went down. When we changed the environment, the behavior changed. And these were not huge system changes. These were small changes, and these changes created new possibilities.
Potom, u slučaju da nisam naučio lekciju, odlučili su mi dodijeliti zapovjedništvo i tu sam se odlučno primio promjene sustava. Mnoge stvari se koriste za promjenu sustava: politike i političari, zakoni, sudovi i parnice, unutarnje politike. Promjena sustava je teška i spora, a često te i ne dovede gdje si htio doći. Nije mala stvar promijeniti zatvorski sustav. Ja sam razmišljao o svojim prijašnjim iskustvima i sjetio se da kada postoji interakcija, situacija se smiruje. Promijenili smo atmosferu, ponašanje se promijenilo. To nisu bile velike promjene sustava. Ovo su bile male promjene koje su stvorile nove mogućnosti.
So next, I got reassigned as superintendent of a small prison. And at the same time, I was working on my degree at the Evergreen State College. I interacted with a lot of people who were not like me, people who had different ideas and came from different backgrounds. One of them was a rainforest ecologist. She looked at my small prison and what she saw was a laboratory. We talked and discovered how prisons and inmates could actually help advance science by helping them complete projects they couldn't complete on their own, like repopulating endangered species: frogs, butterflies, endangered prairie plants. At the same time, we found ways to make our operation more efficient through the addition of solar power, rainwater catchment, organic gardening, recycling. This initiative has led to many projects that have had huge system-wide impact, not just in our system, but in other state systems as well, small experiments making a big difference to science, to the community. The way we think about our work changes our work. The project just made my job more interesting and exciting. I was excited. Staff were excited. Officers were excited. Inmates were excited. They were inspired. Everybody wanted to be part of this. They were making a contribution, a difference, one they thought was meaningful and important.
Potom sam postavljen za nadzornika malog zatvora. Istovremeno sam radio na magistarskom radu na fakultetu Evergreen State. Surađivao sam s puno različitih ljudi, koji su imali drugačije ideje i došli su iz drugačijih sredina. Jedna od njih bila je ekologinja prašuma. U mom malom zatvoru ona je vidjela laboratorij. Razgovarali smo i otkrili kako bi zatvori i zatvorenici mogli pomoći unapređenju znanosti tako da pomognu dovršiti projekte koje oni nisu mogli dovršiti sami, poput repopulacije ugroženih vrsta: žaba, leptira, ugroženih prerijskih biljaka. Pronašli smo načine kako operaciju učiniti učinkovitijom dodavanjem solarne energije, sakupljanjem kišnice, organskim vrtlarenjem, recikliranjem. Ova inicijativa je dovela do mnogo projekata koji su imali ogroman utjecaj na sustav, ne samo u našem sustavu, već i u drugim državnim sustavima, maleni eksperimenti stvarali su veliku razliku u znanosti i u zajednici. Način na koji razmišljamo o svom poslu mijenja naš posao. Ovaj projekt je učinio moj posao zanimljivijim i uzbudljivijim. Bio sam uzbuđen. Osoblje je bilo uzbuđeno. Policajci i zatvorenici su bili uzbuđeni. Bili su inspirirani. Svatko je želio biti dio ovoga. Davali su neki doprinos, stvarali su razliku, bili su značajni i važni.
Let me be clear on what's going on here, though. Inmates are highly adaptive. They have to be. Oftentimes, they know more about our own systems than the people who run them. And they're here for a reason. I don't see my job as to punish them or forgive them, but I do think they can have decent and meaningful lives even in prison. So that was the question: Could inmates live decent and meaningful lives, and if so, what difference would that make? So I took that question back to the deep end, where some of our most violent offenders are housed. Remember, IMUs are for punishment. You don't get perks there, like programming. That was how we thought. But then we started to realize that if any inmates needed programming, it was these particular inmates. In fact, they needed intensive programming. So we changed our thinking 180 degrees, and we started looking for new possibilities. What we found was a new kind of chair. Instead of using the chair for punishment, we put it in classrooms. Okay, we didn't forget our responsibility to control, but now inmates could interact safely, face-to-face with other inmates and staff, and because control was no longer an issue, everybody could focus on other things, like learning. Behavior changed. We changed our thinking, and we changed what was possible, and this gives me hope.
Pojasnit ću o čemu se ovdje točno radi. Zatvorenici su vrlo prilagodljivi. Moraju biti. Često znaju više o našem sustavu od ljudi koji ga vode. I ovdje su s razlogom. Ne gledam svoj posao kao na kažnjavanje ili opraštanje zatvorenicima, i mislim da oni mogu imati pristojne i smislene živote u zatvorima. Stoga, pitanje je bilo: Mogu li zatvorenici živjeti pristojne i smislene živote i, ako mogu, kakvu razliku bi to donijelo? Otišao sam s tim pitanjem do najdubljeg kraja, gdje su bili smješteni najnasilniji prijestupnici. Sjetite se, te jedinice su za kažnjavanje. Tamo nema vedrine. Tako smo mislili. Onda smo shvatili da, ako bilo koji zatvorenik treba program, to bi onda bili ovi zatvorenici. Zapravo, oni su trebali intenzivan program. Promijenili smo razmišljanje za 180 stupnjeva i počeli tražiti nove mogućnosti. Osmislili smo novu vrstu stolca. Umjesto za kažnjavanje, stavili smo ga u učionicu. Mislili smo na svoju odgovornost prema kontroli, a zatvorenici su se mogli sigurnije družiti, licem u lice, s drugim zatvorenicima i osobljem, a kako kontrola više nije bila problem, svatko se mogao fokusirati na svoje stvari, poput učenja. Ponašanje se promijenilo. Promijenili smo način razmišljanja te sve što se dalo i to mi je dalo nadu.
Now, I can't tell you that any of this stuff will work. What I can tell you, though, it is working. Our prisons are getting safer for both staff and inmates, and when our prisons are safe, we can put our energies into a lot more than just controlling. Reducing recidivism may be our ultimate goal, but it's not our only goal. To be honest with you, preventing crime takes so much more from so many more people and institutions. If we rely on just prisons to reduce crime, I'm afraid we'll never get there. But prisons can do some things we never thought they could do. Prisons can be the source of innovation and sustainability, repopulating endangered species and environmental restoration. Inmates can be scientists and beekeepers, dog rescuers. Prisons can be the source of meaningful work and opportunity for staff and the inmates who live there. We can contain and control and provide humane environments. These are not opposing qualities.
Ne znam hoće li ove stvari funkcionirati. Mogu reći da sada funkcioniraju. Naši zatvori su sigurniji za osoblje i za zatvorenike, a kada su zatvori sigurni, možemo usmjeriti svoju energiju na nešto više od same kontrole. Smanjiti recidivizam bi bio naš krajnji cilj, ali ne i naš jedini cilj. Iskreno, prevencija zločina daje puno više prostora ljudima i institucijama. Ako se oslanjamo samo na zatvore za smanjivanje stope kriminala, bojim se da u tome nikad nećemo uspjeti. Ali zatvori mogu učiniti nešto što nikad nismo mislili da mogu. Zatvori mogu biti izvor inovacija i održivosti, repopulacije ugroženih vrsta i obnove okoliša. Zatvorenici mogu biti znanstvenici i pčelari, treneri pasa. Zatvori mogu biti izvor smislenog rada te prilika za osoblje i zatvorenike koji tamo žive. Mi možemo zadržavati i kontrolirati, možemo i osigurati ljudske uvjete. To nisu suprostavljene vrijednosti.
We can't wait 10 to 20 years to find out if this is worth doing. Our strategy is not massive system change. Our strategy is hundreds of small changes that take place in days or months, not years. We need more small pilots where we learn as we go, pilots that change the range of possibility. We need new and better ways to measure impacts on engagement, on interaction, on safe environments. We need more opportunities to participate in and contribute to our communities, your communities. Prisons need to be secure, yes, safe, yes. We can do that. Prisons need to provide humane environments where people can participate, contribute, and learn meaningful lives. We're learning how to do that.
Ne možemo čekati 10 ili 20 godina da bismo vidjeli je li ovo vrijedno činjenja. Naša strategija nije masovna promjena sustava. Naša strategija su stotine malih promjena kojima trebaju dani ili mjeseci, ne godine. Potrebno nam je više malih istraživanja gdje učimo kako se kretati, istraživanja koja mijenjaju raspon mogućnosti. Potrebni su nam bolji načini mjerenja utjecaja na angažman, na interakciju, na sigurnu atmosferu. Potrebno nam je više prilika za sudjelovanje i doprinos zajednici, vašoj zajednici. Zatvori trebaju biti sigurni - da! Sigurni - da! To možemo napraviti. Zatvori trebaju osigurati ljudske životne uvjete u kojima ljudi mogu participirati, doprinijeti i učiti voditi smislene živote. Mi poučavamo kako to činiti.
That's why I'm hopeful. We don't have to stay stuck in old ideas about prison. We can define that. We can create that. And when we do that thoughtfully and with humanity, prisons can be more than the bucket for failed social policy. Maybe finally, we will earn our title: a department of corrections.
Zato sam pun nade. Ne trebamo ostati sa starim idejama o zatvorima. Možemo to definirati. Možemo to stvoriti. I kada to učinimo pažljivo i humano, zatvori mogu postati više od kante zakazale socijalne politike. Možda ćemo, napokon, zaslužiti svoju titulu: popravni odjel.
Thank you.
Hvala vam.
(Applause)
(Pljesak)