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.
我們單位被看做是幫 失敗社會政策收拾爛攤子的地方。 我無法定義來找我們的 會是什麼人,或他們會待多久。 我們收的是大家都無能為力的人, 那些人全逃過了 其它的社會安全網絡。 這些網絡無法容納他們, 所以我們非收不可。 我們的工作是: 收容他們、管控他們。
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.
經過幾年,做為監獄、 國家和社會的代表, 我們變得非常擅長那件事, 但不能因而沾沾自喜。 今天我國監禁的人口比例 位居世界之冠。 今天我們在監獄裡的黑人 比 1850 年的奴隸還多。 我們收了將近三百萬名 社群裡的孩童家長, 成了新型的避難所, 國內最大的心理健康服務中心。 如果我們監禁某人, 那可不是件小事。 而且我們還被稱為矯正署。 今天我想談談 改變我們對矯正的想法。 我相信就像我的經驗一樣, 只要我們改變想法 就能開創機會或未來, 而監獄需要不同的未來。
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.
我的職業生涯都在做矯正, 超過三十年了, 追隨父親到這個領域。 他是越戰老兵,矯正教育很適合他。 他強壯、穩重、自律。 我可完全不是那樣, 我相信他之前很擔心這點。 最後我決定如果打算在監獄做一輩子, 我最好奉公守法, 所以我想先去確定一下, 參觀我爸工作的地方: 邁克尼爾島監獄。
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.
當時是八○年代早期, 監獄和你在電視、電影上 看到的不太一樣。 很多方面都比現在糟。 我走進一棟牢房,大概五層樓高。 八個人住一間, 總共有 550 個人住在那裡。 怕你不知道,我先告訴你, 他們在那些小空間裡共用一間廁所。 一位警官把鑰匙放在上鎖的盒子裡, 上百人湧出他們的牢房。 上百人湧出他們的牢房。 我拔腿就跑。 後來我回去那裡當警官。
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.
我的工作是管理其中一區的牢房, 管控上百個男人。 我在接待處工作的時候 還能聽見停車場傳來 囚犯焦躁的聲音, 他們搖房門、嘶吼、 破壞自己的牢房。 抓幾百個不定時炸彈, 再把他們關起來, 結果就是一團混亂。 收容和管控,就是我們的工作。 我們發現有種更有效率的方法,
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.
是一種新型牢房, 稱為「密集管理牢房」, IMU(Intensive Management Unit), 現代版的「地牢」。 我們把囚犯放在堅固的鋼鐵門後, 附有手銬可穿過的小窗, 這樣我們能管束他們,也能提供食物。 你猜成效如何? 變安靜多了。 大家騷動的情況消失了。 空間變得更安全, 因為那些最暴力、擾亂的受刑人 現在都被隔離了。 但隔離並非好事。 剝奪他們的社交,他們就會惡化。 要讓他們離開「密集管理牢房」很難, 對他們和我們來說都是。 即使是在監獄裡, 把人關起來都不是小事。 我的下一個任務是在 州內的重犯監獄,
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.
較暴力或較會擾亂的受刑人 都關在這裡。 那個時候這一行進步多了, 我們有不同的工具和技術 用來管理這些擾亂行為。 我們有豆袋槍、防狼噴霧劑、 塑膠玻璃防護罩、 閃爆彈和緊急應變小組。 我們以暴制暴, 以亂治亂。 我們還蠻擅長滅火的。 我到那的時候碰到兩位 經驗豐富的監獄員工,
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.
他們也是研究員, 一位是人類學者,另一位是社會學者。 某天其中一位對我說: 「你知道,你還蠻擅長滅火的, 可是你想過要怎麼預防嗎?」 我耐心向他們解釋 我們這樣的粗暴手段 能讓監獄安全一點。 他們對我也很有耐心。 那些對話讓我們有了些新點子, 之後我們就開始做小實驗。 首先,我們開始分組訓練警員, 而不是每次只送一兩個去州立訓練所。 我們不再只做四週訓練,改為十週。 接著我們用師徒制做實驗, 讓新手員工和老員工搭檔。 他們的工作情況都進步了。 第二,我們把言語降溫技巧 加到訓練系統課程中, 成為操作連續強制力的一部分, 那是武力手段中的非武力手段。 接著我們採取更根本的方式, 訓練受刑人同樣的技巧。 我們將這套技巧改為 減少暴力,而非只是處理暴力。
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.
第三,當我們增建設施的時候, 嘗試用新型設計。 當時設計上最大和最有爭議的設備 當然是廁所。 那裡沒有廁所。 現在你聽來可能覺得沒什麼, 但在當時可是件大事。 沒人聽過牢房沒廁所, 我們都認為那很危險也很瘋狂。 即使是八個人共用一間廁所。 那個小細節改變了我們工作的方式。 受刑人和員工互動變得更頻繁、開放, 而且相處融洽。 如此一來察覺衝突和干擾更容易了, 不必等到情況惡化才行。 牢房變得更整潔、安靜、 安全,也更人性化了。 這麼做能更有效率地維持和平, 更勝於要達到那種程度的任何威嚇手段。 互動能改變你的行為, 不論是官員或受刑人都是。 我們改變環境的同時也改變行為。
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.
他們怕我還沒學到這一課, 接下來我被派去總部, 我就是在那直接反對系統改變。 很多事運作起來都和系統改變相左: 政治和政客、經費和法令、 法庭和訴訟,還有內部政治。 系統改變又難又慢, 也往往無法讓你達成目標。 改變監獄可不是小事。 我當時回想自己的早期研究, 我記得和違規者互動時, 高漲的情緒降溫了。 我們改變環境的同時也改變了行為。 這些不是大幅的系統改革。 這些只是小小的改變, 而這些改變開創了新的機會。 後來我又被派去一間小監獄當警長,
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.
同時我也在修常綠州立學院的學位。 我和很多跟我不同的人來往, 他們有不同的想法, 也都來自不同的背景。 其中一位是雨林生態學者。 她看了我的小監獄, 在她眼裡那是小型實驗室。 我們討論、深究監獄和受刑人 如何能真的幫助先進科學, 透過幫助他們完成 無法獨立完成的計畫, 就像復育瀕危物種: 青蛙、蝴蝶、瀕危大草原植物。 同時我們也發現 讓運作更有效率的方法, 像是透過增加太陽能、 雨水收集、有機花園、回收。 這個計畫讓我們展開 許多造成全體大幅影響的方案, 不只我們的系統,其它州也是, 小實驗帶來大改變, 對科學和社群都是。 我們思考工作的方式 會改變我們的工作。 計畫讓我的工作變得 更有趣,也更刺激了。 我很興奮,員工也很興奮, 警員很興奮,受刑人也很興奮。 他們都受到鼓舞, 每個人都想摻一腳。 他們都做出貢獻、改變, 且都認為這些付出有意義也很重要。
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.
讓我再強調一次發生了什麼事。 受刑人都高度適應, 他們必須適應。 通常他們比較了解我們的系統 而非操作系統的人。 他們來到這裡都有原因。 我不把自己的工作看成 是要處罰或原諒他們, 但我的確認為他們能有 不錯且有意義的生活, 即使是在監獄。 這就是問題所在: 受刑人可以過不錯且有意義的生活嗎? 如果是的話,那會帶來什麼改變? 我把這個問題帶回重犯監獄, 有些非常暴力的受刑人被監禁在那邊。 記住,密集管理牢房的功能是處罰。 你不會得到額外的好處, 例如受刑人計畫。 那是我們原本的想法。 但後來我們開始了解 如果有受刑人需要計畫, 就會是這些特別的受刑人。 其實他們需要密集的計畫。 所以我們的想法有一百八十度的轉變, 我們開始尋找新的機會。 我們發現的是一種新型的椅子。 與其用椅子來做處罰, 我們把椅子放進教室裡。 我可沒忘了要管控的責任, 但現在受刑人可以安全地互動, 和其他受刑人和員工面對面互動, 因為管控不再是個問題, 每個人都可以專注在其它事情上, 像是學習。 行為改變了。 我們改變想法,改變原本可能的樣子,
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.
而這帶給我希望。 我不能告訴你這些事是怎麼運作的, 但我可以告訴你,結果很成功。 我們的受刑人對員工 和其他受刑人來說都更安全了。 只要我們的監獄很安全, 我們就能把精力放在 其它很多比管控更重要的事。 減少再犯率是我們的終極目標, 但那不是我們唯一目標。 老實告訴你,預防犯罪 要耗費很多人力和機構的大量資源。 如果我們只依賴監獄減少犯罪, 恐怕永遠都無法達成。 但是監獄可以做一些 我們從沒想到他們能做的事。 監獄可以成為改革和永續的源頭, 復育瀕危物種和環境重建。 受刑人可以是科學家、養蜂人, 也可以救援小狗。 監獄可以是有意義工作的來源、 以及員工與當地受刑人的機會。 我們可以收容、管控, 且提供人性的環境, 這些價值並不相左。 我們不能等十年、二十年去找出答案,
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.
看到底值不值得做。 我們的策略並非大體制的改變, 我們的策略是上百個小改變, 需要花幾天、幾個月去做, 但不需要好幾年。 我們學習的一路上 需要許多小領航員, 那些能改變我們潛能的領航員。 我們需要又新又好的方法 來衡量約定、互動 與安全環境的影響。 我們需要更多機會 參與和貢獻我們的社群, 以及你們的社群。 監獄必須安全無虞, 我們做得到。 監獄必須提供人性化的環境, 讓大家能參與其中、有所貢獻, 並學習有意義的生活。 我們正在學要怎麼做到。 這是我充滿希望的原因。
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.
我們不需要困在監獄的舊思維裡。 我們可以定義、創造它。 當我們深思熟慮、帶著同情心去做, 監獄也可以不只是 失敗社會政策的回收桶。 也許最終我們能實至名歸, 成為真正的矯正機關。 謝謝!
Thank you.
(掌聲)
(Applause)