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.
Mi smo organizacija koja je prihvatilište za neodgovarajuće društveno ponašanje. Ne mogu da definišem ko dolazi kod nas ili koliko ostaje. Mi dobijamo ljude kod kojih ništa drugo nije uspelo, ljude koji su prošli kroz sve druge mreže društvene sigurnosti. One ne mogu da ih drže, pa moramo mi. To je naš posao:
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.
da ih držimo i kontrolišemo. Tokom godina, kao zatvorski sistem, kao nacija i kao društvo postali smo dobri u tome, ali to ne treba da vas raduje. Danas zatvaramo više ljudi po glavi stanovnika, nego ijedna druga država u svetu. Imamo više crnaca u zatvoru danas, nego što smo ih imali za vreme ropstva 1850. Kod nas su roditelji skoro tri miliona dece iz naše zajednice i postali smo novi azil, najveća institucija za mentalno zdravlje u ovoj zemlji. Kad zatvorimo nekog, to nije mala stvar. Pa ipak, zovemo se Odeljenje za korekcije. Danas želim da pričam o promeni načina na koji razmišljamo o korekcijama. Verujem, i iskustvo mi govori, da kada menjamo način na koji razmišljamo, stvaramo nove mogućnosti, ili budućnosti, a zatvorima treba drugačija 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 celu svoju karijeru, preko 30 godina, u Korekcijama. Nastavio sam zanimanje svog oca. On je bio veteran iz Vijetnama. Zatvorska služba mu je odgovarala. Bio je jak, čvrst, disciplinovan. Ja nisam baš bio takav i siguran sam da ga je to brinulo. Na kraju sam odlučio da ako ću da završim u zatvoru, bolje da završim sa prave strane rešetaka, pa sam pomislio da ga pogledam, da obiđem mesto gde je moj otac radio, zatvor na ostrvu Mek Nil.
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 i zatvori nisu bili baš onakvi kao što ih vidite na televiziji ili u filmovima. Mnogo toga je bilo gore. Ušao sam u deo sa ćelijama koji je imao pet spratova. Bilo je osmoro ljudi po jednoj ćeliji. Bilo je 550 ljudi u tom odeljku. I, u slučaju da ste se pitali, delili su jedan toalet u tim malim zatvorenim prostorima. Čuvar je stavljao ključ u katanac i stotine ljudi je izbacivano iz svojih ćelija. Stotine ljudi je izbacivano iz svojih ćelija. Otišao sam odatle najbrže što sam 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.
Kasnije sam se vratio i postao čuvar tamo. Moj posao je bio da upravljam jednim od tih ćelijskih blokova i kontrolišem te stotine ljudi. Kad sam otišao da radim u našem centru za primanje, mogao sam da čujem zatvorenike kako dolaze sa parkinga, drmaju vrata ćelija, viču i rasturaju svoje ćelije. Kad zatvorite stotine agresivnih ljudi, dobijete haos. Držanje i kontrolisanje - to 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.
Naučili smo da to radimo efikasnije pomoću nove vrste odeljka za smeštanje zvanog Odeljak za intenzivno upravljanje, moderne varijante samice. Stavili smo zatvorenike iza čeličnih vrata sa priključcima za lisice da bismo mogli da ih obuzdamo i damo im hranu. I znate šta? Postalo je tiše. Neredi su se smirili. Mesta su postala sigurnija jer su najproblematičniji zatvorenici sada mogli da budu izolovani. Ali izolacija nije dobra. Ako uskratite ljudima društveni kontakt, postaće gori. Bilo je teško premestiti ih iz Odeljka za intenzivno upravljanje i nama i njima. Čak i u zatvoru, nije mala svar zatvoriti nekog.
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.
Moj sledeći posao bio je u jednom od onih zatvora gde su smešteni problematičniji zatvorenici. Do tada, industrija je mnogo napredovala, i imali smo razne alate i tehnike za suzbijanje problematičnog ponašanja. Imali smo "beanbag" puške i suzavce i štitove od pleksiglasa, ručne bombe, ekipe za reagovanje u nezgodama. Odgovarali smo na nasilje silom i na haos haosom. Bili smo dobri u gašenju požara.
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.
Dok sam bio tamo, sreo sam dva iskusna zatvorska radnika koji su takođe bili istraživači, antropologa i sociologa. Jednog dana, jedan od njih mi je rekao: "Ti si dobar u gašenju požara. Jesi li ikada razmišljao kako da ih sprečiš?" Bio sam strpljiv s njima i objašnjavao im našu primenu sile da bismo učinili zatvore sigurnijim. Oni su bili strpljivi sa mnom. Iz tih razgovora rodile su se neke nove ideje i počeli smo sa malim eksperimentima. Prvo smo počeli da obučavamo naše čuvare u timovima, umesto da ih šaljemo po jednog ili dvoje na državnu akademiju. Umesto 4 nedelje obuke, dali smo im 10. Onda smo eksperimentisali sa šegrtskim modelom, gde smo uparivali novo osoblje sa veteranima. I jedni i drugi su se poboljšali. Drugo, ubacili smo veštine verbalnog smirivanja situacije u obuku i to je postao deo primenjivanja sile. To je bila nenasilna primena sile. A onda smo uradili nešto još radikalnije. Obučavali smo zatvorenike u tim veštinama. Promenili smo repertoar veština smanjujući nasilje, a ne samo odgovarajući 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, kad smo proširili naše veštine, probali smo novu vrstu dizajna. Najveći i najkontroverzniji deo ovog dizajna bio je naravno toalet. Nije bilo toaleta. To vam danas možda ne zvuči bitno, ali tada je bilo itekako. Niko nikada nije čuo za ćeliju bez toaleta. Svi smo mislili da je to opasno i ludo. Čak je i osam ljudi u ćeliji imalo toalet. Taj mali detalj je promenio način na koji radimo. Zatvorenici i osoblje su počeli da dolaze u kontakt češće i otvorenije i da razvijaju odnos. Bilo je lakše otkriti konflikt i intervenisati pre nego što eskalira. Prostorija je bila čistija, tiša, sigurnija i humanija. To je bilo efikasnije u održavanju mira od bilo koje tehnike zastrašivanja koju sam video dotad. Međusobni kontakt menja način ponašanja, i službenika i zatvorenika. Promenili smo okruženje i promenili 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.
Zatim su me, za slučaj da nisam naučio lekciju, postavili u centralu i tamo sam naleteo pravo na promenu sistema. Mnogo toga radi protiv promene sistema: politika i političari, zakoni, sudovi i parnice, unutrašnja politika. Promena sistema je teška i spora, i često vas ne vodi tamo gde hoćete da idete. Nije mala stvar promeniti zatvorski sistem. Tako da sam razmišljao o svojim ranijim iskustvima i setio se da kad smo stupali u interakciju sa prestupnicima, strasti su se stišavale. Kad smo menjali okruženje, menjalo se ponašanje. I to nisu bile velike promene sistema. To su bile male promene i one su stvorile
So next, I got reassigned as superintendent of a small prison.
nove mogućnosti.
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.
Onda sam prešao na mesto upravnika malog zatvora. I u isto vreme sam završavao školu na koledžu Evergrin Stejt. Dolazio sam u kontakt sa ljudima različitim od sebe, ljudima koji su imali različite ideje i dolazili iz različitih profesija. Jedna žena je bila prašumski ekolog. Gledala je moj mali zatvor i ono što je videla bila je laboratorija. Razgovarali smo i otkrili kako zatvorenici mogu da pomognu napretku nauke tako što bi im pomagali u projektima koje ne mogu sami da završe, kao što je ponovno naseljevanje ugroženih vrsta: žaba, leptira, ugroženih prerijskih biljaka. U isto vreme, našli smo načina da učinimo našu operaciju efikasnijom kroz dodatak solarnog napajanja, sakupljača kišnice, gajenja organskog bilja, recikliranja. Ova inicijativa je dovela do mnogih projekata koji su imali veliki društveni uticaj, ne samo u našem sistemu već i u sistemima drugih država. Mali eksperimenti mnogo doprinose nauci i zajednici. Način na koji mislimo o našem radu menja naš rad. Ovaj projekat je učinio moj posao zanimljivijim. Bio sam uzbuđen kao i osoblje, čuvari i zatvorenici. Bili su inspirisani. Svi su želeli da budu deo toga. Davali su doprinos za koji su mislili da je značajan i važan.
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.
Da razjasnim šta se tu dešava. Zatvorenici su veoma prilagodljivi. Moraju da budu. Često znaju više o našim sistemima od ljudi koji ih vode. I ovde su s razlogom. Ne vidim svoj posao kao kažnjavanje ili praštanje, ali mislim da oni mogu imati dobre i smislene živote čak i u zatvoru. To je bilo pitanje: mogu li zatvorenici imati dobre i smislene živote, i ako mogu, kakav bi značaj to imalo? Postavio sam to pitanje u vezi sa zatvorima sa najnasilnijim zatvorenicima. Sećate se, Odeljci za intenzivno upravljanje su za kažnjavanje. Tamo ne dobijate benefite kao što je programiranje. Tako smo mislili. Ali onda smo počeli da shvatamo da je baš ovim zatvorenicima potrebno programiranje. U stvari potrebno im je intenzivno programiranje. Tako da smo promenili razmišljanje za 180 stepeni i počeli da tražimo nove mogućnosti. Pronašli smo novu vrstu stolice. Umesto da koristimo stolicu za kažnjavanje, stavili smo je u učionice. Nismo zaboravili svoju odgovornost da kontrolišemo, ali sada su zatvorenici mogli da komuniciraju bezbedno, licem u lice sa drugim zatvorenicima i osobljem, i zato što kontrola više nije bila problem, svi su mogli da se fokusiraju na druge stvari, kao što je učenje. Ponašanje se promenilo. Promenili smo naše razmišljanje i ono što je moguće,
Now, I can't tell you that any of this stuff will work.
i to mi daje nadu.
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 mogu da vam kažem da će bilo šta od ovoga funkcionisati. Mogu da vam kažem da sada funkcioniše. Naši zatvori postaju sigurniji i za osoblje i za zatvorenike, a kada su naši zatvori sigurni, možemo da usmerimo energiju u nešto više od kontrole. Smanjenje recidiva može biti naš konačni cilj, ali nije jedini cilj. Iskreno, sprečavanje zločina zahteva mnogo više od mnogo više ljudi i institucija. Ako se oslanjamo samo na zatvore da smanje zločine, bojim se da nikad nećemo uspeti. Ali zatvori mogu da urade neke stvari za koje nismo mislili da mogu. Zatvori mogu biti izvor inovacije i održivosti, naseljavanja ugroženih vrsta i obnove okoline. Zatvorenici mogu biti naučnici i pčelari, spasioci pasa. Zatvori mogu biti izvor smislenog rada i prilika za osoblje i zatvorenike koji žive tamo. Možemo da držimo i kontrolišemo i obezbedimo humano okruženje.
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.
To nisu suprotstavljene stvari. Ne možemo da čekamo 10 do 20 godina da otkrijemo da li to vredi raditi. Naša strategija nije velika promena sistema. Naša strategija je stotine malih promena koje se dešavaju u nekoliko dana ili meseci, a ne godina. Treba nam više malih vodiča gde ćemo učiti u hodu, vodiča koji menjaju opseg mogućnosti. Trebaju nam novi i bolji načini za merenje uticaja na angažman, na interakciju, na sigurna okruženja. Treba nam više prilika da učestvujemo i doprinesemo našim zajednicama, vašim zajednicama. Zatvori treba da budu sigurni. Možemo to da uradimo. Zatvori treba da obezbede humana okruženja gde ljudi mogu da učestvuju, doprinose, i uče da smisleno žive.
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.
Mi učimo kako da to uradimo. Zato imam nade. Ne treba da ostanemo pri starim idejama o zatvoru. Možemo to da definišemo. Možemo to da stvorimo. I kad uradimo to promišljeno i ljudski, zatvori mogu postati više od prihvatilišta za neodgovarajuće društveno ponašanje. Možda konačno zaslužimo svoj naziv:
Thank you.
Odeljenje za korekcije.
(Applause)
Hvala vam.