Speaker 1: Guess what mango? What's that will? So I fell down
Speaker 1: this rabbit hole. Last week I was looking up buildings
Speaker 1: that were good for the environment, and I stumbled into
Speaker 1: America's LEADS certified prisons. So there are a few across
Speaker 1: the country. There's the one that Bernie Madoff is in
Speaker 1: in Buttoner, North Carolina. There's one in California that's supposed
Speaker 1: to be the greenest. But the one I really dived
Speaker 1: into was this article about Coyote Ridge Corrections Facility. It's
Speaker 1: in Washington State, and it's this medium security prison that
Speaker 1: was built in two thousand and ten. And on paper,
Speaker 1: it's pretty impressive. I mean, they've managed to reduce water
Speaker 1: consumption by five and a half million gallons a year.
Speaker 1: It's about four hundred thousand dollars cheaper and energy costs
Speaker 1: than a comparable prison. They used narrow windows to trap
Speaker 1: the heat in winter, but also to keep the place
Speaker 1: cool in summer, and all of that sounds pretty good. Well,
Speaker 1: you know, it's the first full prison campus that's completely
Speaker 1: LEAD certified, so you think it might be beautiful as well,
Speaker 1: But when you peek inside, it just looks like a
Speaker 1: horrible cement prison out that that's so disheartening, and you know,
Speaker 1: it kind of made me wonder, like, what do some
Speaker 1: of the more interesting prisons around the world look like today,
Speaker 1: and what are some of the changes that are being
Speaker 1: made that seem to be working. So that's what today's
Speaker 1: show is all about. Hey, their podcast listeners, welcome to
Speaker 1: Part Time Genius. I'm Will Pearson and as always I'm
Speaker 1: joined by my good friend man guest and the man
Speaker 1: behind that soundproof glass is aspiring novelist and country music
Speaker 1: legend Christin McNeil. Now, as we mentioned at the top
Speaker 1: of the show, today's episode is looking into how to
Speaker 1: build a better prison, and we're gonna save things like
Speaker 1: how prisons work and great escape stories for future episodes,
Speaker 1: but you know, today's show is really about how to
Speaker 1: build a system that works better for us all. I mean,
Speaker 1: however you feel about the humane aspects of locking people up,
Speaker 1: the economic aspects of prison affect everybody. So we'll take
Speaker 1: a look at how some prisons from around the globe
Speaker 1: have reformed their approaches. Sure, so that's why you see
Speaker 1: those YouTube videos of Filipino prisoners doing thriller together, or
Speaker 1: even why Brazil allows prisoners to do book reports to
Speaker 1: get time off their sentence for every book they read.
Speaker 1: And and you know, that's clearly an attempt to deal
Speaker 1: with overcrowding. And it actually kind of reminded me of
Speaker 1: that whole pizza Hut bookt programs you participate in that
Speaker 1: as a kid. You know, you get a pizza for
Speaker 1: every I think it was five books that you proved
Speaker 1: that you read. I don't know how you proved it exactly,
Speaker 1: but you know, except in this case, you get four
Speaker 1: days off for every book you write a report for.
Speaker 1: And also it has to be grammatically perfect or it
Speaker 1: doesn't count. But if you read twelve books, you can
Speaker 1: get a maximum of forty eight days off your sentence.
Speaker 1: And of course not every prisoner is eligible. But you know,
Speaker 1: just like that one, we're going to shine a light
Speaker 1: on a few of the innovative programs that are getting
Speaker 1: positive results both here and abroad. Right, And obviously we
Speaker 1: aren't going to come up with clear cut solutions for
Speaker 1: such complex issues, at least not in forty minutes of chatter.
Speaker 1: But what we can do is get a better sense
Speaker 1: of the problem and some ways people are looking to
Speaker 1: address them. All Right, so let's start with what people
Speaker 1: probably already know about the US prison system, and that's
Speaker 1: namely that it's massive. And by massive, I mean that
Speaker 1: our country has the largest prison population in the world.
Speaker 1: So that's actually not all. We also have the world's
Speaker 1: highest prison rate. Out of every one hundred thousand Americans,
Speaker 1: roughly seven hundred and twenty four are behind bars, and
Speaker 1: for anyone keeping track, that's about a hundred and fifty
Speaker 1: people more than Russia's second place. Right. Yeah, So I've
Speaker 1: read this report from a group called the Prison Policy Initiative,
Speaker 1: and it actually concluded that there are more than two
Speaker 1: point three million people currently incarcerated in the US. And
Speaker 1: if that doesn't sound like a lot to you, keep
Speaker 1: in mind that the whole population of New Mexico is
Speaker 1: just over two million. That actually does sound like a
Speaker 1: lot to me. I'm not sure who that wouldn't sound
Speaker 1: like a lot too, But actually, does this mean that
Speaker 1: we have more people in jail or in prison that
Speaker 1: we have living in an entire state? Yeah, or two
Speaker 1: states if you take Delaware, US Rhode Island. I mean,
Speaker 1: two point three million is a lot of people. It's
Speaker 1: it's almost one percent of the national population. Wow. You know,
Speaker 1: and of course when you factor in the family members
Speaker 1: of the prisoners who make up that one percent, that
Speaker 1: number actually affected by incarceration swells even larger. So I
Speaker 1: read this Pew study that found that nearly three million
Speaker 1: children in the US have a parent in prison. Back
Speaker 1: in the nineteen seventies, that was true for about one
Speaker 1: out of a hundred and twenty five kids, but today
Speaker 1: it's one in twenty eight. And according to that same
Speaker 1: Pew study, two thirds of these kids parents were incarcerated
Speaker 1: for non violent offenses. So that that reminds me. Do
Speaker 1: you remember that a secret museum in New York City?
Speaker 1: I remember we covered it in previous episode, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: we've definitely talked about it. But for those who don't
Speaker 1: know about it, it's this tiny museum that's housed an
Speaker 1: elevator shaft, and every shelf of it's treated like its
Speaker 1: own wing. But but the curators there had all these
Speaker 1: giant backgrounds of things when I visited of places like
Speaker 1: Hawaii or Greece or whatever, and and I asked what
Speaker 1: they were, and the guys told me that their backgrounds
Speaker 1: used to take vacation photos at prisons. Basically, prisoners can
Speaker 1: save up and use their pay or good behavior to
Speaker 1: take photos with their families in these backgrounds, so that
Speaker 1: the families have photos with their kids that look like
Speaker 1: they've been able to go on vacations together. And I mean,
Speaker 1: when I saw this, I just found it so heartbreaking.
Speaker 1: But what's worse is the recidivism rates of prisons. So
Speaker 1: according to the Bureau of Justice, about three quarters or
Speaker 1: seventy six point six percent of release prisoners were rearrested
Speaker 1: within five years, which is a terrible track record for
Speaker 1: US rehabilitation. Yeah, and and that's actually one of the
Speaker 1: main problems I came across in my research as well,
Speaker 1: is that our current system, you know, this current prison system,
Speaker 1: it's largely designed to punish and and not to rehabilitate,
Speaker 1: which I'm sure wasn't the initial intention. Like in Delaware history,
Speaker 1: I remember learning about William Penn and how he and
Speaker 1: other Quakers tried to change the prison system from this
Speaker 1: sort of overcrowded and inhumane conditions they saw in London.
Speaker 1: And one of the ways was with penitentiaries, Like the
Speaker 1: idea was that you can go there to be penitent
Speaker 1: and so they were totally quiet spaces and prisoners were
Speaker 1: given their own cells and the food was simple but good,
Speaker 1: and the whole idea was you get to think about
Speaker 1: your crimes and how you want to make amends to
Speaker 1: society once you're out, which sounds good in theory, but
Speaker 1: in practice it was actually a terrible idea. Like this
Speaker 1: humane idea was actually just putting people into solitary confinement,
Speaker 1: which actually drove people crazy. That makes sense. I really
Speaker 1: didn't think of it that way. But you know, the
Speaker 1: history of prisons is filled with stories of good intentions
Speaker 1: gone bad. And one of the things you realize in
Speaker 1: looking at the history is that there was a major
Speaker 1: shift in the nation's approach to prisons and the seventies
Speaker 1: and eighties, and this around the time we became less
Speaker 1: concerned with helping prisoners get their lives back on track
Speaker 1: and much more interested in making sure they suffered for
Speaker 1: their crimes. And that's when the war on drugs really started,
Speaker 1: and also the big push to get tough on crime.
Speaker 1: You know, these mandatory minimum sentences even for non violent crimes, right,
Speaker 1: And during that time, the budgets for programs that focused
Speaker 1: on reintegrating prisoners, like they were totally slashed, and that
Speaker 1: was partially to build new prisons. That we're being immediately filled.
Speaker 1: And now the results of those policy changes speak for themselves, right,
Speaker 1: Like the prison population has more than quadrupled since the eighties,
Speaker 1: which is how we get to that over two million
Speaker 1: number we were talking about, And all of that creates
Speaker 1: a tax burden for citizens instead of working to have
Speaker 1: all these X cons contributing to society. Well, you know,
Speaker 1: I think it's safe to say that the criminal justice
Speaker 1: system doesn't work well when the only goal is to punish.
Speaker 1: Actual reminds me there's this Ricky Gervais joke where he
Speaker 1: talks about how Mandela went to prison for twenty seven
Speaker 1: years and then never committed another crime, and that tells us,
Speaker 1: you know, the system works, And I mean, he's mocking
Speaker 1: the idea that you can just send someone away and
Speaker 1: they emerge rehabilitated. But as more criminals wind up doing
Speaker 1: hard time for low level offenses and there's a lack
Speaker 1: of reform programs, it really just leads to this revolving
Speaker 1: door system where prisoners are rearrested soon after they're released.
Speaker 1: You know. But the real question is what are the alternative?
Speaker 1: So are there any prisons out there that are finding
Speaker 1: better results from a more reform based approach. So I
Speaker 1: actually looked into this and and it turns out some
Speaker 1: of the prisons with the lowest relapse rates also seemed
Speaker 1: to be the most humane, and Norway in particular does
Speaker 1: a great job with this. So one of the most
Speaker 1: famous is this prison on Bastoy Island, where prisoners are
Speaker 1: allowed to ride horses, go fishing, play tennis. They can
Speaker 1: even go skiing. And they don't live in cramped cells
Speaker 1: either like Instead, the roughly hundred fifteen prisoners are so
Speaker 1: on this island, they shared these little quaint cottages and
Speaker 1: and they also have the freedom to wear their own
Speaker 1: clothes instead of prison uniforms. They can visit the prison
Speaker 1: library or church or even the shop whenever they want.
Speaker 1: Are you I mean this kind of sounds like a resort, man,
Speaker 1: I'm not sure this is a prison. So I fact
Speaker 1: checked this and it is a prison. But that's actually
Speaker 1: the main complaint against Bastoy Like critics say the software
Speaker 1: approach makes it feel more like a summer camp than
Speaker 1: a correctional facility. But in its defense, best Toy isn't
Speaker 1: all fun and games, like the inmates actually work every
Speaker 1: single day. They tend to the Islands horses and sheep.
Speaker 1: They help out on the farm. They chopped down trees
Speaker 1: to use as firewood. I don't know. That still sounds
Speaker 1: like camp to me. They also take part in the
Speaker 1: specialized training programs that that teach them new skills to
Speaker 1: use once they're released. Then some of them also helped
Speaker 1: run the island's ferry service ferry service sheep farm. Once
Speaker 1: again I have to ask, are you sure this is
Speaker 1: a prison? So it's actually the world's first ecological prison,
Speaker 1: and and it uses solar panels for energy, grows most
Speaker 1: of its own food, and recycles as much as possible.
Speaker 1: And the whole idea is for inmates to claim a
Speaker 1: lot of personal responsibility for their actions, including how they
Speaker 1: affect others as well as the environment. So one example
Speaker 1: of this is that most of the prison staff actually
Speaker 1: leaves the island at night by that ferry service. And
Speaker 1: so the prisoners are expected to take care of themselves
Speaker 1: and be on their best behavior even when they aren't
Speaker 1: being supervised. So let me just find this quote for you.
Speaker 1: Gerhard Plogue, who's the senior advice as are in the
Speaker 1: Norwegian Ministry of Justice, he explained the prisons approach this way. Quote,
Speaker 1: life inside prison needs to resemble life outside as much
Speaker 1: as security considerations and resources allow. The more gradual the
Speaker 1: transformation from imprisonment to freedom, the better the chances to
Speaker 1: prevent reoffending. I mean, I have to admit that that
Speaker 1: is pretty neat, but I'm curious, like is it working
Speaker 1: or what kind of results would best would be seeing. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so the prison has this incredibly low number of repeat offenders,
Speaker 1: which is actually the norm for Norway. It's it's national
Speaker 1: recidivism rate harrors between sixt Wow. And I wonder how
Speaker 1: much of that is just people reoffending so they can
Speaker 1: get back to living the good life on the prison
Speaker 1: island resort you described. Yeah, so so Norway it has
Speaker 1: thought about that too, and it's not at all like that.
Speaker 1: Prisoners first have to demonstrate a willingness to change while
Speaker 1: serving time into more traditional jail, and then they can
Speaker 1: apply to like some of these more lenient prison systems
Speaker 1: like Best Toy, But you don't have to worry about
Speaker 1: people abusing the system. If you reoffend or try to ape,
Speaker 1: you don't get to come back. Yeah, you know, I
Speaker 1: wondered about people trying to escape as well. I mean
Speaker 1: that there aren't any gates or walls or anything from
Speaker 1: what you described, and it feels like that would make
Speaker 1: escape pretty tempting. I don't know, I mean, except for
Speaker 1: the fact that life is already so easy there, I
Speaker 1: don't know why you'd bother to try to escape. Well,
Speaker 1: one prisoner did escape Bestoy in two thousand fifteen. He
Speaker 1: was paddling away from the island on a surfboard. I
Speaker 1: love that they had a surfboard there to begin with,
Speaker 1: but they call him pretty quickly. Okay, okay, Well, I
Speaker 1: actually I found a different reab centric prison in Norway
Speaker 1: and it's called Halden. And while this one doesn't offer
Speaker 1: ski trips or ferry boat rides it, it does have
Speaker 1: some features that make it feel more like, I don't know,
Speaker 1: like a modern apartment building. So there are two d
Speaker 1: and fifty two prisoners there, and each one has given
Speaker 1: a private cell with a flat screen TV, a mini fridge,
Speaker 1: and an onsuite bathroom. And you know, not only do
Speaker 1: prisoners have access to shared spaces like kitchens and living
Speaker 1: rooms and even a gym that has this rock climbing wall.
Speaker 1: There's also a recording studio for inmates to explore their
Speaker 1: creative sides. That's pretty awesome. So this sounds way more
Speaker 1: urban than the rustic cottages at Bastoy. And we know
Speaker 1: the interiors are nice, but are the prisoners are allowed
Speaker 1: to leave the facilities? Are they allowed to go outside? Yeah, definitely.
Speaker 1: I mean there's there's a jogging trail outside and lots
Speaker 1: of benches and stone chessboards scattered through the grounds. And
Speaker 1: unlike those Quaker prisons you were talking about, the design
Speaker 1: is is actually meant to encourage interactions between inmates and
Speaker 1: staff members. So guards and prisoners often eat together or
Speaker 1: play sports together outside. And you know, the whole prison
Speaker 1: is surrounded by this twenty ft high security wall, and
Speaker 1: the designers left plenty of trees inside the perimeter to
Speaker 1: help to obscure it, and it kind of reduces that
Speaker 1: institutional feel of the space. And in the words of
Speaker 1: one of the architects, the landscaping quote lets the inmates
Speaker 1: see all the seasons. So, I mean, I know everyone
Speaker 1: appreciates these changing colors and seeing flowers bloom, but I
Speaker 1: can also appreciate the point of view that these kinds
Speaker 1: of induligences might be going overboard. I mean, these prisoners
Speaker 1: did break the law, so how much will we be
Speaker 1: going out of our way to make them comfortable? I mean,
Speaker 1: you described a summer camp earlier, and this is the
Speaker 1: one you're taking issue with that that, you know, it
Speaker 1: sort of goes back to that question of what's the
Speaker 1: main goal of imprisonment, you know, because I might argue
Speaker 1: that it's the court's job to punish a criminal by
Speaker 1: sending them to prison, and so being separated from family
Speaker 1: and friends and having your liberty curtailed, that is the punishment.
Speaker 1: And so from that angle, the punishment has already been
Speaker 1: carried out. But from that point on, the prisoners should
Speaker 1: be focused on remorse and rehab. Yeah, I mean that's
Speaker 1: a strong argument, and and really I think the only
Speaker 1: reason this more lenient approach gives some of us pause
Speaker 1: is that it's such a foreign concept to us. Like
Speaker 1: we're so used to thinking of prisoners as these faceless
Speaker 1: wrongdoers and in need of punishment that that we almost
Speaker 1: want the time they serve to be miserable. It's what
Speaker 1: we think they deserve as criminals, right, and that's also
Speaker 1: human nature, but it is what I find refreshing about
Speaker 1: these prisons in Norway. And as strange as that might sound,
Speaker 1: is that they're way more hopeful about prison and reform
Speaker 1: than we are here in the States. And I think
Speaker 1: that's because they haven't forgotten that these are human beings
Speaker 1: we're talking about. I mean, these are citizens who can
Speaker 1: still contribute to society if if given a real chance
Speaker 1: to do so. So I read this article about hold
Speaker 1: in prison written by a research professor in criminology name
Speaker 1: is Her name is Ivan Jukes, and she really nails
Speaker 1: the importance of the rehab based approach to prison. So
Speaker 1: she writes, this is not about making prisons softer or
Speaker 1: less of a deterrent to criminals. Normalizing prisons is essential
Speaker 1: if they are to be more than human warehouses that
Speaker 1: return offenders to society with their lives even more fractured
Speaker 1: and their life chances even more reduced than when they
Speaker 1: were admitted. The short term and long term cost of imprisonment,
Speaker 1: human and economic are staggering and unsustainable. Well, I can
Speaker 1: definitely get behind that. In fact, why don't we dig
Speaker 1: into some of the specifics of those costs, Like, I know,
Speaker 1: we spend a crazy amount of money each year on
Speaker 1: prison construction and upkeep, not to mention what it takes
Speaker 1: to actually house and feed millions of in it's I'm
Speaker 1: just gonna go ahead and rip off the band aid here.
Speaker 1: Incarceration costs US taxpayers over seventy billion dollars each year,
Speaker 1: and that breaks down to more than thirty thousand dollars
Speaker 1: spent per prisoner. That is huge. Yeah, that's that's rough. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And of course that's just the monetary cost of prison.
Speaker 1: I mean, we already touched on the emotional pain that
Speaker 1: jail time can cause, and I don't want to dwell
Speaker 1: too much on those issues, important as they are, but
Speaker 1: in this discussion of costs, I do think we should
Speaker 1: talk a little bit about the jails and prisons themselves, definitely.
Speaker 1: So I was looking at some of these figures as well,
Speaker 1: and there are over a hundred federal prisons and close
Speaker 1: to I think two thousand state ones in the US,
Speaker 1: and many of these are massive, I mean, these sprawling
Speaker 1: complexes that must cost a ton to build and then
Speaker 1: to maintain of course. Yeah, And and depending on the
Speaker 1: number of people it's meant to house, a single prison
Speaker 1: can easily cost well over a hundred million dollars. And
Speaker 1: like you said, we have so many correctional facilities, like
Speaker 1: in fact, there are more than five thousand jails and
Speaker 1: um county facilities like in the country right now, and
Speaker 1: if you add those up, that's more than the total
Speaker 1: number of colleges in the whole US well. And not
Speaker 1: only that, but they're overcrowded. I mean, I remember this
Speaker 1: story from just a couple of years ago about a
Speaker 1: prison in California that gave early releases to ten thousand inmates,
Speaker 1: and this was just ease. Overcrowding, Yeah, I mean, overcrowding
Speaker 1: is obviously the serious problem, and it's it's not just
Speaker 1: the logistical nightmare of trying to house people in a
Speaker 1: place where there's no room for them. I mean there's
Speaker 1: also the emotional and psychological toll of living in those conditions.
Speaker 1: It's no secret that our environment can have this direct
Speaker 1: impact on our behavior. I remember reading the study from
Speaker 1: forever ago about like the proportion of fist fights that
Speaker 1: break out when people bump into each other, and that
Speaker 1: people from crowded cities were more accustomed to getting bumped
Speaker 1: into But still, like, what kind of behavior can you
Speaker 1: expect from people crammed into like a bleak, depressing building
Speaker 1: and made to live together under surveillance. I mean, think
Speaker 1: about that story you told at the top, Like, narrow
Speaker 1: windows are great for not letting heat escape in the winter,
Speaker 1: but what does a sliver of a view do for
Speaker 1: your mental Yeah, that's true, and you know, it's easy
Speaker 1: to imagine how the added tention of living on top
Speaker 1: of one another, plus the disgusting food. I mean that
Speaker 1: all might lead to outburst. And you know, of course,
Speaker 1: bad behavior leads to more time being added to prison sentences,
Speaker 1: which keeps people locked up for longer and makes things
Speaker 1: harder for their families, and obviously it costs taxpayers more money.
Speaker 1: It's this layered, complicated problem and it's so wide reaching. Yeah, so,
Speaker 1: not only do we need to build a better prison
Speaker 1: in terms of policy, we also need to physically construct
Speaker 1: better prisons. Right. Well, we definitely shouldn't add to the
Speaker 1: total number of prisons, since that's already way too high
Speaker 1: as it is, but one option would be to replace
Speaker 1: the current ones with newer models that break from the
Speaker 1: traditional concrete box with washtower approaches. I mean, I don't
Speaker 1: know who decided prison buildings need to reflect the duriness
Speaker 1: of actually being in prison, but I'm not sure, it's
Speaker 1: doing anyone any favors. Well, there's a couple of places
Speaker 1: out there, like these high schools and college campuses that
Speaker 1: I've noticed over the years that look a lot like prisons.
Speaker 1: And I don't know if you've ever noticed this before,
Speaker 1: but there's this uncanny resemblance between them. Sometimes. Have you
Speaker 1: noticed this? Yeah, I mean you think about the older
Speaker 1: schools that had those like boxy, boring designs and like
Speaker 1: concrete and like drewery long hallways. I can see that, right.
Speaker 1: So I actually decided to look into this, and it
Speaker 1: seems that there's actually a connection between the two. Really. Yes,
Speaker 1: So the architect responsible for the San Quentin State Prison
Speaker 1: also designed a couple of California high schools, and that
Speaker 1: kind of overlap isn't uncommon, I mean, especially for high
Speaker 1: schools and colleges that were built in the sixties and seventies.
Speaker 1: So I want to dig into this a little deeper.
Speaker 1: So tell me why that is. Well, there was this
Speaker 1: architectural style called brutalism, and this was really popular at
Speaker 1: the time, and all kinds of public buildings and institutional
Speaker 1: structures were built using brutalist designs. They were full of
Speaker 1: these sharp angles and heavy solid shapes that were cast
Speaker 1: in this reinforced concrete, and universities were looking to show
Speaker 1: how modern they were, so they started using these blocky,
Speaker 1: bunker like buildings as auditoriums or libraries or even dorms.
Speaker 1: So then what happened Like everyone suddenly decided that these
Speaker 1: places look like prisons. Yeah, so pretty much. I mean,
Speaker 1: public opinion turned on them pretty quickly, and so tons
Speaker 1: of students and faculty and other members of school communities
Speaker 1: began to speak out about how ugly these new buildings were.
Speaker 1: And it even sparked a bunch of urban legends about
Speaker 1: colleges being built purposely to disorient and intimidate students, you know,
Speaker 1: in order to prevent riots and political demonstrations. But you know,
Speaker 1: at any rate, the brutal is fad died down pretty quickly,
Speaker 1: at least for the school designs. But prison buildings, well,
Speaker 1: we kept building these in the same style for decades after.
Speaker 1: There's something about how impersonal but also functional it look
Speaker 1: that made it perfect for jail houses. Well, brutalism is
Speaker 1: definitely the right name for it. But you know, it's
Speaker 1: funny you mentioned prison design influencing college architecture, because I
Speaker 1: actually found a case of the exact opposite. There's this
Speaker 1: new women's prison in San Diego that's been taking design
Speaker 1: cues from modern college campuses. It's called the Lost Colina's
Speaker 1: Detention and in re Entry Facility, and it's a partnership
Speaker 1: between two architecture firms, cam D and h m C.
Speaker 1: They work together to design this new kind of prison
Speaker 1: that that aims to put a dent in some of
Speaker 1: the biggest problems found in correctional facilities. And you think
Speaker 1: about like assault, vandalism, and also recidivism. I mean that
Speaker 1: sounds awesome, but but how would the architecture actually help
Speaker 1: with this. Well, the designers also took inspiration from health
Speaker 1: care facilities so they could make choices that would benefit
Speaker 1: the physical and the mental well being of the inmates.
Speaker 1: So every decision from like the color, the materials, the
Speaker 1: texture of the buildings and their furnishings, to even the
Speaker 1: more intangible elements like uh light, air quality, acoustics, all
Speaker 1: of that was under careful consideration and based on research studies,
Speaker 1: and everything's made to help the inmates mood and sense
Speaker 1: of community. There's stuff like Florida ceiling windows, shorter campus
Speaker 1: styled buildings and wide open spaces that allow for easy
Speaker 1: access to nature. I mean that definitely sounds like an upgrade.
Speaker 1: And you know, the that we're talking so positively about
Speaker 1: a correctional facility within the United States, that's definitely a
Speaker 1: nice change of pace. So, well, what do you say
Speaker 1: we see what other signs of progress we can find
Speaker 1: in the US prisons? And for that, but why don't
Speaker 1: we break for a quiz? First? Our guest today as
Speaker 1: a professor of literature and creative writing at Hamilton's College,
Speaker 1: he's also led the Attica Writer's Workshop inside Attica Correctional Facility,
Speaker 1: and it's the director of the n e H funded
Speaker 1: American Prison Writing Archive. Welcome to part time genius Dourin Larson, Oh,
Speaker 1: Thanks to you. Thanks for having on so during UH
Speaker 1: In the Atlantic piece, I read that you'd visited UH
Speaker 1: for high security prisons in Denmark and Norway and Sweden
Speaker 1: and Finland, and and one of the things I was
Speaker 1: struck by was how you wrote about the profound difference
Speaker 1: between how prisoners interact with the officers. Could you tell
Speaker 1: us a little bit about that. The basis for that
Speaker 1: is that the Scandinavian for and we really can think
Speaker 1: of Scandinavian prisons really is one whole, because they look
Speaker 1: to each other and see themselves. Really is sort of
Speaker 1: one philosophy of of incarceration. The base philosophy that they
Speaker 1: all work from is called normalization, and that is the
Speaker 1: experience inside prisons should be as much like life outside
Speaker 1: as it possibly can be, since the intent is to
Speaker 1: prepare people to go back out and become productive, taxpaying
Speaker 1: citizens once they leave. So it's an entirely forward looking
Speaker 1: system rather than hours which is very much backward looking.
Speaker 1: You know, we're going to keep punishing you and holding
Speaker 1: you here until you know, there's some sort of arbitrary
Speaker 1: decision about whether or not you suffered death. Uh. There,
Speaker 1: it's all about preparation for leaving, and the officers are
Speaker 1: very much participants in that effort. So they are there
Speaker 1: to work with incarcerated people to prepare them to go
Speaker 1: back out in the world old where you know, they're
Speaker 1: returning themselves every day. Um. And that changes quite drastically
Speaker 1: everything uh, surrounding the way they actually relate to each other.
Speaker 1: And another part of that is that the ratio of
Speaker 1: officers and staff to incarcerated people is much much higher
Speaker 1: than it is in the US. We have about a
Speaker 1: one to ten sometimes on certain shifts, one to twenty ratio.
Speaker 1: So American officers are constantly under a sort of state
Speaker 1: of siege because they're so badly outnumbered. Uh. There, it's
Speaker 1: not uncommon for a prison to have a prisoner to
Speaker 1: staff ratio of one to one. So there's not that
Speaker 1: sense of, you know, uh, sort of being like an
Speaker 1: occupying army, which is in some sense the way officers
Speaker 1: um operate in the US, and some sense the way
Speaker 1: they have to operate since we want both a mass
Speaker 1: scale system and they have it on a cheap Yeah.
Speaker 1: That that's incredible. That ratio is incredible. But I think
Speaker 1: you said it wasn't just for the prisoners unfit, right,
Speaker 1: It's also partially for the life of the prison guards. Yeah,
Speaker 1: one of the motivations for making these kinds of changes,
Speaker 1: but not simply have better results on the back end
Speaker 1: of a prison term. Um. But the in those countries
Speaker 1: they had a problem that we still have, which is
Speaker 1: the prison officers here have a life expectancy about sixteen
Speaker 1: years shorter than the general population. Uh. And the reason
Speaker 1: is not from being stabbed or killed by people inside. UM,
Speaker 1: it's hypertension, epidemic, levels of suicide, alcoholism, UM everything you
Speaker 1: generally associate with a scene of continued trauma because they're
Speaker 1: very stressful jobs. And you know, what we've learned from
Speaker 1: other scenes of a sort of organized oppression is the
Speaker 1: oppressors are as damaged or often as it damaged as
Speaker 1: the people who are oppressed, because officers here really do
Speaker 1: nothing but negative things all day. They help people what
Speaker 1: not to do, they punish, they regulate, and there's nothing
Speaker 1: that they can go home with at the end of
Speaker 1: the day and saying I did something really positive, right,
Speaker 1: I helped somebody out, and that has real psychological effects.
Speaker 1: I can't I can't imagine now. You you also write
Speaker 1: about how adjustments are made in the Scandinavian prison system
Speaker 1: and it, you know, it sounds like the criminal justice
Speaker 1: process really isn't part of the political process so much
Speaker 1: as it is, you know, being being left to professionals.
Speaker 1: Is that accurate? Yeah, in all those countries they've had
Speaker 1: a long history of one. They've seen with the experience
Speaker 1: of the world Second World War, what happens when popular
Speaker 1: sentiment is what drives public policy right. Uh, that you
Speaker 1: can you can basically whip people up into believing in
Speaker 1: UM taking actions that are destructive for everyone. And so
Speaker 1: with that lesson as close by as it was UM
Speaker 1: after the war, Uh, they put an enormous amount of
Speaker 1: faith in experts, people who are trained, uh to basically
Speaker 1: do their jobs well on the basis of evidence and
Speaker 1: the most recent science, and to put those actions in place.
Speaker 1: And that depoliticization is obviously being challenged now because there
Speaker 1: are you know, right wing nationalist parties coming in prominence
Speaker 1: even in those countries. UM, But the basics, you know,
Speaker 1: function inside prisons is really not changed. I was there
Speaker 1: just this last summer touring Sweden with students. The recent
Speaker 1: changes really just haven't penetrated there. Another thing from your
Speaker 1: piece that I thought was fascinating was you talked a
Speaker 1: little bit about Nile's Christie and his conclusion that these
Speaker 1: homogeneous nations tend to institutionalize mercy. Can you speak about
Speaker 1: that with the U S and the diverse population we
Speaker 1: have in in our present system. Yeah, you know, the
Speaker 1: distance between the people who are voting for any particular
Speaker 1: policy or also sort of philosophy or operate from the
Speaker 1: philosophy behind that that voting and the people that that
Speaker 1: those decisions are gonna actually land upon the greater that
Speaker 1: distance is the harsher the punishments tend to be. And
Speaker 1: what Christie did is this actually came out of his
Speaker 1: work in the Second World War and looking at who
Speaker 1: survived in camps, in the death camps, and found that
Speaker 1: it was particularly people who at some point or another
Speaker 1: and made a human connection with the guards literally just
Speaker 1: sort of lit a cigarette, you know, or they found
Speaker 1: out they had a common musical interest anything that would
Speaker 1: humanize the held from the people for the from the
Speaker 1: human for the holders. Um. And then from that work
Speaker 1: is very very early work, he looked globally and what
Speaker 1: these patterns are like, and the pattern helped that the
Speaker 1: extent to which the person making a decision could find
Speaker 1: humanity and a sense of common humanity and the person
Speaker 1: the decision was going to be made about resulted in
Speaker 1: milder remedies for any particular problem. Right, the they want
Speaker 1: to legislate just like in the family, you know, you
Speaker 1: have different consequences for your child stealing something than you
Speaker 1: have for your thinking about home bringings. Right, Um, you know,
Speaker 1: one's obviously more serious, but it's not principle different. It's
Speaker 1: a matter of you know that person, you know all
Speaker 1: the circumstances under which they did that because they're jealous
Speaker 1: of their sister or whatever the situation might have been, right, right, uh.
Speaker 1: And Christie died just a year or two ago. But
Speaker 1: his work he was actually called in very specifically by
Speaker 1: Finland when they realize that their incarceration rates in the fifties,
Speaker 1: we're out of line with other Scandinavian countries, and he
Speaker 1: and others were called in. Academics were called in. They say,
Speaker 1: what can we do to change this? That's incredible? Wow,
Speaker 1: that's that's really interesting. Well, is is there anything the
Speaker 1: world can learn from the US prison system? Is you know,
Speaker 1: anything that we're we're not seeing about it. It's very
Speaker 1: difficult to make to sort of strike any kind of
Speaker 1: continuum really, and I'm working on an essay now about
Speaker 1: precisely this is that we can look at the practices
Speaker 1: in Scandinavia and we can ask ourselves, well, why can't
Speaker 1: we do that what they're doing there. But there are
Speaker 1: very very concrete reasons why translation is extremely difficult. One
Speaker 1: is simple scale um that the entire prison calpulation of
Speaker 1: Sweden would fit inside San Quentin. You know, on any
Speaker 1: particular day, there are more men than women walking the
Speaker 1: yards of any single prison or jail in America. That
Speaker 1: number is great as in the entire prison population of Iceland,
Speaker 1: which people. So these countries, in Scandinavian countries are are
Speaker 1: quite wealthy, particularly per capita, because we have much more
Speaker 1: even distribution of wealth and an extremely low incarceration rates,
Speaker 1: So they can spend three times per incarcerated person over
Speaker 1: what we spent, so ours an expense assist them. It's
Speaker 1: expensive because of a size, not because of how much
Speaker 1: we spend on individuals. So when you have those scale differences,
Speaker 1: it's really hard to make those comparisons. It would be
Speaker 1: fairer to say, um, you know what Sweden doing, and
Speaker 1: what's Oregon doing, or what Sweden doing, and you know
Speaker 1: what's Michigan doing. And there are progressive measures that will
Speaker 1: be taken in individual states, but overall, of course we're
Speaker 1: sort of just grossly over incarcerated here. I think really
Speaker 1: what uh Europeans take from us is simply the negative lesson, right,
Speaker 1: we don't want to do this because we know where
Speaker 1: that goes. They've already done it in the US, right,
Speaker 1: So I know you've been teaching and working with prisoners
Speaker 1: since I think around two thousand six, Um, But what
Speaker 1: give people hope in these high security settings and and
Speaker 1: what do they get out of the writing? Out of
Speaker 1: the writing? It's not simply the writing and isolated, you know,
Speaker 1: sitting downs and going you know, it does all the
Speaker 1: good that writing does for anyone, you know, a place
Speaker 1: to reflects, as to essentially sort of sort out one's thoughts. Um.
Speaker 1: But what I found in the setting at Attica, which
Speaker 1: is quite a brutal prison, is that equally important was
Speaker 1: that two or three hours in a room with other
Speaker 1: men whose only priority was working on their writing and
Speaker 1: discussing literature, not debts, not vendetta. Is not all the
Speaker 1: other stuff politics that's going on inside the prison as
Speaker 1: well as watching out, you know for a famously brutal staff,
Speaker 1: but a moment in which they are there because of
Speaker 1: the minds they bring in, not because of the bodies
Speaker 1: and the objects they bring in, and that just having
Speaker 1: that community of trust is enormously important. And then you know,
Speaker 1: I had to sort of teach them to critique each
Speaker 1: other because they were, so, you know, sort of universally
Speaker 1: supportive of each other's work simply for having produced it,
Speaker 1: which is extra ordinary in a place like that. Right,
Speaker 1: But over time, you know, they learned that, you know,
Speaker 1: as great as it is as someone's produced a piece
Speaker 1: of work, you can also help them along by pointing
Speaker 1: out what's problematic in it, all right, yea. And those
Speaker 1: that have published, and they published extremely well, uh, The
Speaker 1: New York Times, Atlantic, Um, Harper's Esquire, a lot of
Speaker 1: top literary journals. Um. You know those moments when you
Speaker 1: see your name in print. Really, and I've had men
Speaker 1: tell me this explicitly. I'm no longer just my crime.
Speaker 1: I'm now a writer. That's how people know me. And
Speaker 1: maybe more people will know me as that than the
Speaker 1: people who see me as nothing more as literally sort
Speaker 1: of disappearing behind my crime. So it can be a
Speaker 1: real transformation of self conception and self image, which is very,
Speaker 1: very constructive for them. So for our listeners that are
Speaker 1: interested in reading more and learning more, they should definitely
Speaker 1: check out a book that Dorin edited called Fourth City,
Speaker 1: Essays from the Prison in America. But Dorian, thank you
Speaker 1: so much for joining us today. Of course, of course,
Speaker 1: thank you. Okay, So Mango, you were really lifting my
Speaker 1: spirits talking about the Los Collinas Detention and re Entry Facility,
Speaker 1: And I like it because it seems to adopt the
Speaker 1: same humane approach to incarceration that we saw in those
Speaker 1: Norwegian jails, and it's really just cool to see that
Speaker 1: way of thinking taking root in the American prison system. Yeah, definitely.
Speaker 1: Instead of the typically like stark and alienating environments we
Speaker 1: associate with prisons, these are more like tight knit communities,
Speaker 1: almost like a college campus or a small village, and
Speaker 1: that ends up feeling way healthier than just a people warehouse. Well.
Speaker 1: Building a sense of community and purpose is actually a
Speaker 1: common thread that I noticed in lots of prison programs
Speaker 1: that aim for rehab and reintegration. And one of my
Speaker 1: favorites is a program organized by a nonprofit called Hudson
Speaker 1: Link for Higher Education in Prison. So in this program
Speaker 1: that they allow inmates to enroll in college courses that
Speaker 1: count toward a degree once they've been released. So for
Speaker 1: the last nineteen years, the group has partnered with eight colleges,
Speaker 1: one of them being Columbia University, to offer classes two
Speaker 1: inmates at six different correctional facilities. So the program's aim
Speaker 1: is to increase the chance of employment upon release and
Speaker 1: reduce recidivism, and so far it seems to be working.
Speaker 1: I mean, release prisoners who have taken classes offer through
Speaker 1: Hudson Link have a recidivism rate of less than two percent.
Speaker 1: That's unbelievable. So what kind of stuff are they studying.
Speaker 1: It's a little bit of everything, really. I Mean one
Speaker 1: of the courses from last year was a literature humanities class,
Speaker 1: so they read and discussed ideas from ancient authors like
Speaker 1: Homer and Virgil, which sounds heavy, but uh, how's that
Speaker 1: help in the real world. I mean I feel like
Speaker 1: a college parent talking right now, right exactly. Well, you know,
Speaker 1: just like any liberal art student will tell you. You know,
Speaker 1: studying classics helps develop critical thinking skills, and so you
Speaker 1: don't learn just how to read well or write well
Speaker 1: or speak well. You learn how to think well too,
Speaker 1: and and that can be useful for people who are
Speaker 1: interested in, you know, better life choices. But according to
Speaker 1: the course instructor, professor Laura kol Kowski, there's also another
Speaker 1: benefit to engaging with these books. She says it can
Speaker 1: help students gain more confidence, so they feel more comfortable
Speaker 1: taking part in other debates once they're released. As she
Speaker 1: puts it, there's really a deep value for them to
Speaker 1: feel like, yeah, I can read this stuff and talk
Speaker 1: about it. I'm part of a civil society and can
Speaker 1: be part of a larger conversation. Yeah. I can definitely
Speaker 1: see that, and and I'm definitely for any program that
Speaker 1: helps prisoners find their voice. Again, speaking of it, have
Speaker 1: you been listening to Your Hustle? Oh? I haven't. I'm
Speaker 1: actually so glad you brought it up, because I was
Speaker 1: going to if you didn't. Yeah, So, for any listeners
Speaker 1: who haven't checked it out yet, Your Hustle is this
Speaker 1: bi weekly podcast about life inside San Quentin State Prison.
Speaker 1: And that's interesting enough right there. But the really cool
Speaker 1: thing is that it's created and recorded and also produced
Speaker 1: by two current inmates and this volunteer local artist, all
Speaker 1: in the very limited free time they have every week,
Speaker 1: and one of the inmates or long Woods co hosts,
Speaker 1: and this other guy, Anton Williams, handles all the show's
Speaker 1: sound design. It's all done through a keyboard bar from
Speaker 1: the Prisons Media Lab. It's pretty awesome, and it reminds
Speaker 1: you that these are human beings. We're talking about. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it is amazing, And your hustle is full of interviews
Speaker 1: with different prisoners on all sorts of topics. So they'll
Speaker 1: cover things like justice and regret and love and race
Speaker 1: and isolation, but also more mundane things like you know,
Speaker 1: food and pets and disagreements with cellmates. It's definitely worth
Speaker 1: a lessen. Yeah, but but it's also just like this
Speaker 1: great example of what a program that invests in prisoners
Speaker 1: as people can lead to. Yeah, you know, And because
Speaker 1: we're talking about the importance of giving prisoners a voice,
Speaker 1: I want to share Wood's own take on what he
Speaker 1: considers the aim of the podcast. So he writes, I
Speaker 1: want the listeners to be able to relate to the
Speaker 1: struggles that we go through on a day to day
Speaker 1: basis and not get caught up in the US versus
Speaker 1: them mentality. We're all the same. Some of us just
Speaker 1: took different routes and needed a time out and a
Speaker 1: little rehabilitation to get back to responsible behavior. So I know,
Speaker 1: we started by acknowledging that fixing the entire prison system
Speaker 1: is beyond the scope of our forty five minute podcast.
Speaker 1: But wait, are you about to tell us how to
Speaker 1: fix the entire prison system. Yeah, definitely not. And I
Speaker 1: know I'm at risk of sounding like a p s
Speaker 1: A here, but I would encourage anyone who's heard anything
Speaker 1: on today's show that surprised them to do your own
Speaker 1: research and even let your congressman or women know about
Speaker 1: anything you find you don't like. It might sound silly
Speaker 1: or Pollyanna, but just raising awareness about problems in the
Speaker 1: prison system can really help make those two plus million
Speaker 1: citizens who are part of it feel a little less invisible. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think you're right, Mango. I mean, it's definitely a start,
Speaker 1: but um, you know, I don't want you to think
Speaker 1: that your p s A announcement will win you any
Speaker 1: sympathy in today's fact off, just to be clear about that.
Speaker 1: So I gotta kick this off with one person who
Speaker 1: definitely doesn't seem to have been rehabilitated. Courts reported that
Speaker 1: in prison Bernie made Off, who scammed America out of
Speaker 1: so much money, used as economic savvy to corner the
Speaker 1: hot chocolate market and then sell it into prison yard
Speaker 1: at high margin. Friendly Anyone who wanted some of that
Speaker 1: sweet Swissmas needed to go through Uncle Bernie to get
Speaker 1: a taste. He clearly feels a lot of regret for
Speaker 1: what he's done. That's crazy, all right. Well, here's the
Speaker 1: fact I found surprising about a Spanish prison called r
Speaker 1: O S, which is notable for having cells for families.
Speaker 1: But normally, if an inmate has a baby, the child
Speaker 1: is sent to foster care to live with relatives. But
Speaker 1: here the child is allowed to stay with their parents
Speaker 1: until they're three years old. The children have toys and
Speaker 1: other kids to play with, and the bonding is supposed
Speaker 1: to not only help the child but give the parents
Speaker 1: something to look forward to after their sentences served. So
Speaker 1: this one totally baffled me. But have you heard that
Speaker 1: prison authorities in Abu Dhabi are planning a jail where
Speaker 1: inmates could serve their sentences without ever meeting a prison guard.
Speaker 1: So how does that work? So instead of interacting with guards,
Speaker 1: this humane prison has people communicating with quote social workers, trainers, psychologists, counselors,
Speaker 1: and medical staff and they continue uh quote. Security guards
Speaker 1: will be available behind the scenes, but asked to intervene
Speaker 1: only when necessary. Definitely curious to see how that works.
Speaker 1: All right. Here here's what I found curious about the
Speaker 1: Civil War prison camp in Elmira, New York. Apparently the
Speaker 1: prison camp had two observation towers for visitors where they
Speaker 1: had concession stands selling peanuts, lemonade, and cakes, all while
Speaker 1: you watched people suffering below. That's so gross. Also, it's
Speaker 1: a little different than the Philippines prisons where they charge
Speaker 1: visitors to watch them dance to thriller in Greece, I
Speaker 1: mean that's to make money for the facilities. But speaking
Speaker 1: of entertainment, did you know that the opening song of
Speaker 1: the Coen Brothers movie, Oh Brother, Where Art Thou? Was
Speaker 1: actually an old track from nine recorded by prisoners. The
Speaker 1: most amazing part is that forty years later, the Coen
Speaker 1: Brothers actually tracked down one of the prisoners, this guy
Speaker 1: named James Carter, and paid him royalties. Oh that's perfect.
Speaker 1: I've actually got one about a different James Carter. And
Speaker 1: this is an incredible story I read in the New
Speaker 1: York Times about Jimmy Carter. Apparently, this woman, Mary Prince,
Speaker 1: who had been convicted of murder, was assigned to work
Speaker 1: at the Governor's mansion and a work release program when
Speaker 1: he was there, and after Carter spent time with her,
Speaker 1: he became so convinced that she was innocent, that he
Speaker 1: applied to be her parole officer. Also he could take
Speaker 1: her to the White House to be his daughter's nanny.
Speaker 1: Prince was eventually pardoned, but it's kind of an unbelievable story.
Speaker 1: Oh I like that one. And ending this on a
Speaker 1: hopeful note. So you in today's trophy, and that's it
Speaker 1: for today's Part Time Genius. As always, if you've got
Speaker 1: comments or feedback, please don't hesitate to write us at
Speaker 1: part Time Genius at how stuff Works dot com or
Speaker 1: hit us up on our seven fact hotline four four
Speaker 1: pt Genius. So that's eve it is, thanks again for listening.
Speaker 1: Part Time Genius is a production of How Stuff Works
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