WEBVTT - Episode 849: Education Inside U.S. and International Prisons 0:00:04.760 --> 0:00:07.200 On this episode of the News World, I'm really pleased 0:00:07.200 --> 0:00:10.400 to welcome my guest, Gerard Robinson. He's a professor of 0:00:10.400 --> 0:00:13.480 practice in public policy and law at the Frank Baton 0:00:13.560 --> 0:00:17.480 School of Leadership and Public Policy at the University of Virginia. 0:00:17.600 --> 0:00:21.680 We're discussing his latest peace for the Virginian Pilot, entitled 0:00:22.160 --> 0:00:25.200 How World War II Became a Fork in the Road 0:00:25.520 --> 0:00:28.840 on prison policy. We're going to discuss what he's learned 0:00:29.000 --> 0:00:31.920 from visiting prisons around the world, how World War Two 0:00:32.040 --> 0:00:36.120 shaped prison policy in places like Norway, and what lessons 0:00:36.159 --> 0:00:49.599 we can learn here in the United States. Gerard, welcome 0:00:49.800 --> 0:00:51.760 and thank you for joining me again in the News World. 0:00:51.880 --> 0:00:54.360 Yes, the speaker, always a pleasure to be with you. 0:00:54.360 --> 0:00:56.120 You know, you grew up in Los Angeles and you 0:00:56.160 --> 0:01:00.279 studied philosophy at Howard University, and while there you und 0:01:00.520 --> 0:01:03.960 local youth and the juvenile justice system. How did your 0:01:04.040 --> 0:01:07.280 experience as a mentor in the juvenile justice system in 0:01:07.360 --> 0:01:11.000 DC shape your views on criminal justice reform. 0:01:11.480 --> 0:01:13.400 The young men that I worked with were between the 0:01:13.440 --> 0:01:17.720 ages of sixteen and nineteen, mostly African American and now Salvadorian, 0:01:18.319 --> 0:01:20.560 and they were involved with a lot of trouble with 0:01:20.640 --> 0:01:23.440 the law, and it was a forward thinking just you said, 0:01:23.480 --> 0:01:24.920 tell you what I'm going to do. I'm going to 0:01:24.920 --> 0:01:27.160 put you in a diversion program, and if you go 0:01:27.200 --> 0:01:29.200 through the program, I'll take care of your record. You 0:01:29.240 --> 0:01:32.240 can move forward. The one thing all of those young 0:01:32.280 --> 0:01:35.120 men which they would have had in their lives were 0:01:35.200 --> 0:01:39.360 strong literacy skills. And for me, that was aha to 0:01:39.400 --> 0:01:42.480 say that if I want to help move us close 0:01:42.520 --> 0:01:44.880 what we call now in the school to prison pipeline, 0:01:45.120 --> 0:01:48.600 to open up a school to prosperity pipeline, I've got 0:01:48.640 --> 0:01:52.200 to focus more on literacy. So that decision maybe become 0:01:52.240 --> 0:01:54.560 a fifth grade school teacher instead of going into the 0:01:54.560 --> 0:01:58.840 private sector. But it also shaped really early. If there 0:01:58.880 --> 0:02:03.360 was a link between the likelihood of finding yourself incarcerated 0:02:03.960 --> 0:02:06.240 and the link between education. 0:02:06.360 --> 0:02:09.239 Given your general background and what you were studying at Howard, 0:02:09.480 --> 0:02:11.760 that's a pretty amazing thing. What was it like to 0:02:11.800 --> 0:02:12.680 teach fifth grade? 0:02:13.200 --> 0:02:15.600 It was great for a couple of reasons. Number one, 0:02:15.840 --> 0:02:20.240 the students were old enough to still be interested in learning, 0:02:20.880 --> 0:02:23.920 and yet old enough not to be too cool to care, 0:02:24.680 --> 0:02:28.280 and so they really thought that history was interesting. I 0:02:28.320 --> 0:02:31.160 loved it. In fact, one of the greatest compliments I 0:02:31.200 --> 0:02:34.200 ever received as a fifth grade school teacher. One of 0:02:34.200 --> 0:02:37.280 my fifth grade students invited me, my wife, and two 0:02:37.320 --> 0:02:40.320 of my three daughters to his home for Thanksgiving a 0:02:40.400 --> 0:02:43.600 year ago, and his mom came to my wedding, and 0:02:43.680 --> 0:02:46.080 so it just showed the kind of impact I had 0:02:46.440 --> 0:02:49.400 on his family but also on mind. But I also know, 0:02:49.480 --> 0:02:51.280 and you probably know this as well as the speaker, 0:02:52.080 --> 0:02:55.560 seventy percent of the American students who drop out of 0:02:55.680 --> 0:02:58.519 high school they drop out in the tenth grade. It's 0:02:58.520 --> 0:03:01.679 not because there's something magical about the tenth grade. It's 0:03:01.720 --> 0:03:06.880 because what you didn't master in elementary school, particularly in reading, 0:03:06.919 --> 0:03:09.040 will catch you. So I was glad to start off 0:03:09.280 --> 0:03:10.400 as a fifth grade teacher. 0:03:11.320 --> 0:03:14.720 When you look at the study about Mecklenburg and the 0:03:14.919 --> 0:03:17.880 students that they had studied for the entire period from 0:03:18.280 --> 0:03:22.600 ninety eight to twenty eleven, and they tracked twenty six 0:03:22.639 --> 0:03:26.200 thousand students, and they concluded the young adolescents who attend 0:03:26.280 --> 0:03:29.639 school with high suspension rates are a lot more likely 0:03:29.680 --> 0:03:32.560 to be arrested and jailed as adults. In a sense, 0:03:33.080 --> 0:03:36.200 the school behavior relates pretty directly to what's going to 0:03:36.200 --> 0:03:36.760 happen to him. 0:03:36.840 --> 0:03:40.400 Later on, when I would meet with other teachers in 0:03:40.400 --> 0:03:43.400 Los Angeles, both public and private school, and we had 0:03:43.440 --> 0:03:47.600 conversations about family, about communities, one thing that would always 0:03:47.760 --> 0:03:51.360 come up in the conversation is Girard or Karen or 0:03:51.480 --> 0:03:55.480 Susi or La Kwan missing too many days. And we 0:03:55.520 --> 0:03:58.200 know from research that if you miss more than five days, 0:03:58.560 --> 0:04:02.960 there's a trickle effect on you falling behind, particularly in mathematics. 0:04:03.240 --> 0:04:05.560 But we also know that if you're falling behind in 0:04:05.600 --> 0:04:08.440 middle school, it's tougher to catch up in high school. Now, 0:04:08.600 --> 0:04:10.640 we have plenty of examples of people who've been able 0:04:10.680 --> 0:04:15.680 to overcome, but absenteeism is a major factor that we 0:04:15.840 --> 0:04:19.039 often do not talk about because it's not something that 0:04:19.120 --> 0:04:21.360 we think about. What we hear a fight and that 0:04:21.560 --> 0:04:25.320 leading to out of school suspension, a student not doing 0:04:25.440 --> 0:04:27.880 well and maybe having to go to summer school. Well, 0:04:27.920 --> 0:04:32.040 you know what, sometimes absenteeism are being involved or being 0:04:32.080 --> 0:04:34.960 away from school involved in outside activities can influence it. 0:04:35.040 --> 0:04:38.159 So I'm not too shocked about it, but it's one 0:04:38.240 --> 0:04:40.440 reason why we as a nation, particularly we're going to 0:04:40.440 --> 0:04:43.600 look at NAPE scores, should talk about absenteeism. And it's 0:04:43.680 --> 0:04:45.200 long term impact on families. 0:04:46.240 --> 0:04:49.800 So the whole issue. If they're not in the classroom, 0:04:49.839 --> 0:04:53.080 they're not learning. And yet, if I understand it correctly, 0:04:53.480 --> 0:04:56.400 back in nineteen seventy four, they're about a million, seven 0:04:56.480 --> 0:05:00.280 hundred thousand students who are suspended from school. By the 0:05:00.320 --> 0:05:03.400 early nineties that number had jumped like to three point 0:05:03.440 --> 0:05:05.120 one million. I don't know what the current number is, 0:05:05.480 --> 0:05:10.520 but in a sense, it's counterproductive to be kicking them 0:05:10.520 --> 0:05:12.840 out if the net result is they're more likely to 0:05:12.880 --> 0:05:13.599 end up in prison. 0:05:14.640 --> 0:05:18.240 Absolutely, and that's why some reformers in the eighties and 0:05:18.279 --> 0:05:22.200 the nineties created alternative schools. These were more of a 0:05:22.240 --> 0:05:25.000 halfway spot. We're not going to send you back home. 0:05:25.080 --> 0:05:27.080 We know you're probably not going to do well there. 0:05:27.360 --> 0:05:29.800 We can't keep you in school, and so we'll create 0:05:29.880 --> 0:05:33.560 an alternative school. And that's one way to address some 0:05:33.680 --> 0:05:36.599 of the challenges you mentioned. But there were some students who, 0:05:36.640 --> 0:05:40.000 because of the type of crime or infraction, could not 0:05:40.120 --> 0:05:42.000 go to an alternative school. They had to go to 0:05:42.320 --> 0:05:45.280 a juvenile justice system. And there are some places like 0:05:45.360 --> 0:05:49.120 Texas and Georgia, which in fact your state, which in 0:05:49.160 --> 0:05:53.440 fact has a state wide school district made up of 0:05:53.520 --> 0:05:56.920 juvenile justice age young men and women with the goal 0:05:57.000 --> 0:06:00.000 of trying to give them a GED or high school 0:06:00.160 --> 0:06:03.440 diploma to complete. And so we've got some experience with 0:06:03.640 --> 0:06:05.880 addressing what we can do with those students. But you're right, 0:06:06.400 --> 0:06:09.520 if you're not in and you're out, we're going to 0:06:09.520 --> 0:06:12.360 see you in a caartural system at some point. 0:06:12.960 --> 0:06:15.080 I was surprised when I was looking at this study. 0:06:15.400 --> 0:06:18.719 Fifty two percent of people in prison score below level 0:06:18.760 --> 0:06:22.440 two on a numerousy test, vastly more than the country 0:06:22.480 --> 0:06:25.560 at large. And also twenty five percent of the people 0:06:25.600 --> 0:06:28.800 in prisons came from a household where neither parent had 0:06:28.839 --> 0:06:31.120 gotten a high school diploma. So is there a problem 0:06:31.120 --> 0:06:34.200 here of people growing up in a household where nobody's 0:06:34.240 --> 0:06:38.279 been educated. Compounds the problem over time and creates sort 0:06:38.320 --> 0:06:41.720 of a continuous linkage to you don't learn, so you 0:06:41.800 --> 0:06:43.440 end up as a criminals who end up in jail. 0:06:44.320 --> 0:06:46.719 Absolutely, you know, we know that one of the top 0:06:46.880 --> 0:06:50.599 five determinants on how well is do in school is 0:06:50.640 --> 0:06:54.120 the education of the mother, something that my wife reminds 0:06:54.160 --> 0:06:57.240 me with greatly. So one is if you're from a 0:06:57.279 --> 0:07:00.760 home where neither parent finished high school, the chances of 0:07:00.800 --> 0:07:04.039 you finishing are tough. Again, there are examples of people 0:07:04.040 --> 0:07:07.279 who are now holders of a PhD from a home 0:07:07.400 --> 0:07:10.480 without it, but for too many children, it puts you 0:07:10.600 --> 0:07:14.800 on a school to suspension pipeline or a school to 0:07:14.880 --> 0:07:18.080 drop out pipeline. And so in a place like Virginia 0:07:18.120 --> 0:07:20.840 where I am right now, just a year ago, we 0:07:20.960 --> 0:07:26.680 celebrated awarding more than five hundred GEDs to incarcerated people 0:07:26.720 --> 0:07:29.680 here in the Commonwealth. Well, the reason I celebrate that 0:07:30.240 --> 0:07:32.840 is because it's great to see our Virginia Department of 0:07:32.880 --> 0:07:36.680 Corrections and our leaders Governor Youngkin, Secretary Amy Gudera, and 0:07:36.720 --> 0:07:40.560 others making a big push to close the achievement gap 0:07:40.720 --> 0:07:44.000 by providing an education. Some will say a second chance. 0:07:44.080 --> 0:07:46.640 I will say some of these adults, as high school 0:07:46.640 --> 0:07:49.320 students or middle school students, they ever had a first chance. 0:07:49.680 --> 0:07:52.280 So that's a great thing, but it's also a sad 0:07:52.360 --> 0:07:54.920 reminder that we have to wait for someone to go 0:07:55.040 --> 0:07:58.320 to prison in order to earn a GED or a 0:07:58.360 --> 0:07:59.440 high school diploma. 0:08:00.080 --> 0:08:02.680 So your experience way you've seen so far that the 0:08:02.720 --> 0:08:07.840 act of earning the GED dramatically increases the likelihood the 0:08:07.920 --> 0:08:09.560 one they get out of prison, they'll stay out. 0:08:09.960 --> 0:08:12.720 Yeah, there's a grade two studies one in twenty nineteen, 0:08:12.960 --> 0:08:16.560 one earlier twenty fifteen from the RAND Corporation, and those 0:08:16.600 --> 0:08:21.560 scholars identify that if you participate in a correctional education program, 0:08:21.840 --> 0:08:25.360 that's a dope basic secondary. Well, that's a dope basic education, 0:08:25.560 --> 0:08:29.120 which many Americans are involved in. Now that's also high 0:08:29.160 --> 0:08:33.040 school what they call adult secondary education. There's also post 0:08:33.080 --> 0:08:36.520 secondary education, which is college and career in voke tech. 0:08:36.960 --> 0:08:40.840 If you participate, there's a thirty two percent less likelihood 0:08:40.840 --> 0:08:44.760 that you will actually return to prison. Follow Up studies 0:08:44.800 --> 0:08:48.800 have identified that people who actually earned a certificate for 0:08:48.920 --> 0:08:52.040 a job, the likelihood of them returning to prison as 0:08:52.080 --> 0:08:55.160 well has dropped. There's some challenges along the way, but 0:08:55.280 --> 0:08:59.040 there's definitely at least someone will say was is it 0:08:59.080 --> 0:09:02.040 causal or was a correlation? While I'll let the economists 0:09:02.040 --> 0:09:04.600 and the others debate that, I just know, having talked 0:09:04.640 --> 0:09:08.360 to employers and having talked to college professors and to 0:09:08.400 --> 0:09:13.359 the incarcerated themselves, when they find a great education program, 0:09:13.600 --> 0:09:16.280 some may lead to a degree, some may not. It's 0:09:16.320 --> 0:09:20.400 the whole idea of being enlightened or reawakened and use 0:09:20.440 --> 0:09:22.480 that education and say, you know what, I'm going to 0:09:22.520 --> 0:09:25.600 do something differently, particularly for those who become entrepreneurs. 0:09:26.120 --> 0:09:29.240 Now Texas has taken I think an interestingly different approach 0:09:29.600 --> 0:09:34.240 and what they call their Prison Entrepreneurship Program, where they 0:09:34.320 --> 0:09:38.880 actually trained people into the principles of business so that 0:09:38.960 --> 0:09:41.679 they could become entrepreneurs when they get out, which is 0:09:41.720 --> 0:09:42.920 I think an interesting approach. 0:09:43.400 --> 0:09:45.679 Yeah. I had actually had an opportunity to see the 0:09:45.720 --> 0:09:50.280 prison Entrepreneurship program in person several years ago when I 0:09:50.400 --> 0:09:54.040 was visiting Texas and I happened to arrive at one 0:09:54.080 --> 0:09:56.480 of the days where I sat as a judge and 0:09:56.559 --> 0:09:59.800 had an opportunity to hear the job pitch. Well. I 0:09:59.880 --> 0:10:02.959 was so moved by what I saw that some years 0:10:03.000 --> 0:10:05.480 after that, when I was full time at the American 0:10:05.600 --> 0:10:09.640 Enterprise Institute, we partnered with the University of Baltimore doctor 0:10:09.760 --> 0:10:13.600 Andrea Contoora, and we had a joint conference where we 0:10:13.640 --> 0:10:17.280 brought in people from the Prison Entrepreneurship Program, the entire panel, 0:10:17.679 --> 0:10:21.200 and just imagine when the audience learned that here were 0:10:21.400 --> 0:10:25.240 three men who have been formally incarcerated. One of them 0:10:25.640 --> 0:10:28.280 was out of prison. Now he had a truck driving 0:10:28.320 --> 0:10:31.840 business making more than ten thousand a month, and another 0:10:31.920 --> 0:10:34.440 who had a construction company where he would gross over 0:10:34.480 --> 0:10:37.040 a million a year. And so it showed people in fact, 0:10:37.080 --> 0:10:39.840 who had no criminal record, who were in college or 0:10:39.920 --> 0:10:43.280 law school or a master's program. People were earning more 0:10:43.360 --> 0:10:46.520 than we would coming out. And it was just like, Aha, 0:10:46.760 --> 0:10:50.200 people can make a big change. But that's one great program. 0:10:50.240 --> 0:10:53.360 I also think about programs closer to home. In DC, 0:10:53.960 --> 0:10:57.920 doctor Stanley Andrews was formerly incarcerated. He has a PhD 0:10:58.000 --> 0:11:01.640 in an NBA. He's got a nonprofit call from prison 0:11:01.679 --> 0:11:04.920 sales to PhD where he's taking people to the next 0:11:05.000 --> 0:11:08.680 level and saying, you know you can do this well. 0:11:08.960 --> 0:11:12.720 And even here in Charlottesville, we have Resilience Education, which 0:11:12.760 --> 0:11:15.840 is a nonprofit organization that partners with the Dark School 0:11:15.840 --> 0:11:20.199 of Business at UVA. We've awarded more than a thousand 0:11:20.240 --> 0:11:25.520 certificates in business entrepreneurship and people are coming out creating 0:11:25.640 --> 0:11:28.400 jobs or getting jobs. So those things matter. 0:11:42.280 --> 0:11:44.480 We've been talking about different projects around the country, but 0:11:45.200 --> 0:11:47.280 you now teach a course at the University of Virginia 0:11:47.880 --> 0:11:54.160 entitled Education inside the US and International Prisons. What inspired 0:11:54.200 --> 0:11:56.480 you to start looking internationally in. 0:11:57.080 --> 0:12:02.640 Twenty eighteen and Elizabeth Smith where at AEI working with 0:12:02.720 --> 0:12:04.719 a group of people on the left and the right 0:12:04.800 --> 0:12:08.640 to try to lift the peil Grant band. And during 0:12:08.679 --> 0:12:11.320 that bipartisan work a metal gentleman by the name of 0:12:11.440 --> 0:12:14.280 Author Riser. He at the time was working for a 0:12:14.400 --> 0:12:17.720 right of center think tank. Well author has since then, 0:12:18.200 --> 0:12:20.840 he's enrolled in a PhD program at the University of Oxford. 0:12:21.120 --> 0:12:23.880 He and his wife, who are both Army veterans, they're 0:12:23.920 --> 0:12:27.840 the founders of the Aero Center for Justice and they're 0:12:27.840 --> 0:12:31.200 looking at criminal justice in particular. And a good friend 0:12:31.240 --> 0:12:34.199 of ours named Mark Howard, who's a professor at Georgetown University, 0:12:34.280 --> 0:12:38.120 runs a exoneration project and the Frederick Douglass Project. The 0:12:38.160 --> 0:12:41.240 three of us got together and Authors said, listen, I'm 0:12:41.280 --> 0:12:46.520 taking a group of Americans left right, formerly incarcerated reformers 0:12:46.520 --> 0:12:49.520 and others to visit prisons in other countries, just so 0:12:49.640 --> 0:12:51.960 you can see what they're doing. Well, lo and behold. 0:12:52.080 --> 0:12:55.000 Our group had an opportunity between twenty twenty three to 0:12:55.040 --> 0:12:59.040 twenty four to go visit prisons in Norway, in Germany, 0:12:59.679 --> 0:13:02.880 and Brazil. With another organization, had a chance to go 0:13:02.960 --> 0:13:05.679 to Kenya, but what we learned from There were a 0:13:05.679 --> 0:13:08.040 couple of things. At number one, there are some great 0:13:08.040 --> 0:13:11.960 things that other countries are doing that we can adopt here. 0:13:12.200 --> 0:13:14.760 But number two that there are actually some programs here 0:13:14.760 --> 0:13:18.120 in the United States that other people like Norway, for example, 0:13:18.480 --> 0:13:22.080 Norway's drug Court was adopted from the United States, which 0:13:22.160 --> 0:13:24.760 was created, you know, in the late eighties in Florida. 0:13:25.120 --> 0:13:27.560 And so that was the first AHA. And then I 0:13:27.600 --> 0:13:29.800 went to my forward thinking dean at both the law 0:13:29.840 --> 0:13:33.719 school and Batan School and said, if in fact we 0:13:33.760 --> 0:13:37.720 want to train or prepare our students for leadership domestically 0:13:37.720 --> 0:13:40.319 and internationally, we've got to get them on the other 0:13:40.360 --> 0:13:42.880 side of the Atlantic or the Pacific. And so that 0:13:43.120 --> 0:13:47.760 started a class where I'm bringing international concepts into our conversation. 0:13:48.480 --> 0:13:50.880 You know. I was also surprised. I didn't realize that 0:13:50.880 --> 0:13:55.599 it's been a very long process of Europeans and Americans 0:13:56.240 --> 0:14:00.120 looking at each other's prison practices, apparently going on all 0:14:00.120 --> 0:14:03.560 the way back to alex Detoquil in the eighteen thirties. 0:14:03.920 --> 0:14:05.920 What is it do you think that we're all sort 0:14:05.960 --> 0:14:09.839 of floundering trying to find answers to similar problems. 0:14:09.800 --> 0:14:12.440 We are when you think of Norway. The first things 0:14:12.480 --> 0:14:15.720 that come to mind are, you know, Christine Mountains, the 0:14:15.760 --> 0:14:19.040 Northern Lights, and Great Salmon. When I told friends of 0:14:19.080 --> 0:14:22.560 mine that I was taking eighteen UVA students to visit prisons, 0:14:23.120 --> 0:14:26.160 the response was, wait, what Why would you go to 0:14:26.240 --> 0:14:29.440 such a beautiful country to see such an ugly thing? 0:14:29.640 --> 0:14:33.560 The thing the prison that Nathaniel Hawthorn in the Scarlet 0:14:33.640 --> 0:14:37.720 Letter referred to as the black flower of civilization or 0:14:37.920 --> 0:14:42.720 civilized society. And I said, because Norway is doing something differently, 0:14:43.200 --> 0:14:46.120 and the way in which it educates as correctional officers, 0:14:46.240 --> 0:14:49.320 one example, in the way that it addresses what we 0:14:49.440 --> 0:14:53.040 call rehabilitation. The Norwegian says, ah, you Americans have the 0:14:53.080 --> 0:14:54.800 wrong term. I said, well, what do you mean by that? 0:14:55.240 --> 0:14:58.920 They said, when you use the term rehabilitation, the assumption 0:14:59.160 --> 0:15:01.880 is one that some thing is innately wrong with the person, 0:15:02.280 --> 0:15:06.680 and that number two, that your institutions are carcer institutions 0:15:06.720 --> 0:15:10.040 in and of themselves can change people. In Norway, we 0:15:10.120 --> 0:15:13.160 have something called the principle of normality, and that says 0:15:13.200 --> 0:15:16.960 what's that? They said, We want to make your life 0:15:17.280 --> 0:15:21.080 during incarceration as normal as possible, so that when you 0:15:21.200 --> 0:15:24.400 leave prison or we call re entry. It's not such 0:15:24.440 --> 0:15:28.080 a big shock, and so rather being called number seven 0:15:28.200 --> 0:15:31.760 five six twenty seven eight, they call me Gerard Robinson. 0:15:32.320 --> 0:15:36.520 I wear my daily clothes. I don't wear an orange jumpsuit. 0:15:36.880 --> 0:15:40.640 I have my own cell. I have a working relationship 0:15:40.680 --> 0:15:43.400 with the parole officer as well as the correctional officer. 0:15:43.440 --> 0:15:46.800 So the principal normality is one. And I think another 0:15:46.920 --> 0:15:50.840 point is the Norwegians are very clear that your punishment 0:15:50.960 --> 0:15:53.640 is your loss of liberty. That once you've lost your 0:15:53.680 --> 0:15:56.720 liberty to have interaction with your family on a daily basis, 0:15:56.760 --> 0:15:59.760 you know you've lost your job. There's a shame or 0:16:00.040 --> 0:16:03.560 who wants to aspect that's your punishment once you walk 0:16:03.600 --> 0:16:07.160 into the prison. The goal isn't to punish you more physically, 0:16:07.480 --> 0:16:08.680 emotionally and spiritually. 0:16:09.160 --> 0:16:13.800 From your perspective, given problems like gangs, et cetera. Do 0:16:13.880 --> 0:16:16.960 you think this kind of approach would work in American prisons? 0:16:17.560 --> 0:16:21.800 I think it will because I'm looking at principles, not 0:16:21.920 --> 0:16:25.440 at populations. And here's why I say that. People initially 0:16:25.440 --> 0:16:27.760 will say, well, what you're talking about can't work in 0:16:27.800 --> 0:16:32.000 the United States because we're more racially diverse. We have 0:16:32.080 --> 0:16:35.400 a much larger prison population one point nine million compared 0:16:35.440 --> 0:16:40.200 to three thousand. They have one to one guard to 0:16:40.360 --> 0:16:44.120 correctional officer to prisoner ratio in the United States could 0:16:44.120 --> 0:16:46.840 be one to fourteen, in some places one to thirty, 0:16:46.880 --> 0:16:49.840 which is why several states have in fact employed the 0:16:49.920 --> 0:16:53.040 National Guard to serve in prison because there's a staff 0:16:53.080 --> 0:16:56.840 in shortage. Where those are population dynamics, I'm talking principle. 0:16:57.440 --> 0:17:01.120 I'm saying that the principal normality in fact can work 0:17:01.480 --> 0:17:05.280 in the United States because the whole idea of treating 0:17:05.320 --> 0:17:10.639 people with dignity using this opportunity of incarceration to try 0:17:10.680 --> 0:17:14.320 to support you isn't a new idea. I mean, when 0:17:14.800 --> 0:17:19.080 toeuk Deville and Beaumont traveled to the United States in 0:17:19.119 --> 0:17:23.040 the early eighteen thirties to visit America. When we think 0:17:23.080 --> 0:17:27.000 about Tolkeville, we naturally go to Democracy in America, which 0:17:27.080 --> 0:17:30.000 was published in eighteen thirty five, but we often forget 0:17:30.040 --> 0:17:33.680 that Beaumont and Tolqueville, in fact, they published a book 0:17:33.720 --> 0:17:38.320 on the American penitentiary and its application to France, and 0:17:38.359 --> 0:17:41.679 so democracy in many ways had to go through the 0:17:41.720 --> 0:17:44.880 prison system. They were looking at American prisons because while 0:17:44.880 --> 0:17:47.640 we didn't call it a principle of normality, we were 0:17:47.760 --> 0:17:53.080 trying to normalize through education, through religious instruction, through self betterment, 0:17:53.280 --> 0:17:55.800 and through work how to make this happen. So at 0:17:55.880 --> 0:17:58.960 one level, this is partly what we're built on. That's 0:17:59.040 --> 0:18:02.320 number one. Number two, there are places who are actually 0:18:02.400 --> 0:18:05.879 experimenting with this. Now. When I was at the University 0:18:06.000 --> 0:18:09.000 of Oslo, I had an opportunity to meet a professor 0:18:09.359 --> 0:18:12.800 who was part of a coalition supporting a program called 0:18:13.000 --> 0:18:18.400 Little Scandinavia. And it's the Scandinavian Prison Program Norway, of course, 0:18:18.480 --> 0:18:22.840 including Sweden, Iceland, others, and they've implemented it in a 0:18:22.920 --> 0:18:27.440 prison outside of Philadelphia. They had the correctional officers from 0:18:27.560 --> 0:18:32.560 Pennsylvania traveled to Norway, spend time with their correctional officers, 0:18:32.920 --> 0:18:35.840 return to the United States and slowly but surely began 0:18:36.000 --> 0:18:40.080 to implement what they've seen in Norway. Now there's actually 0:18:40.080 --> 0:18:43.359 a documentary with one of the guards from Pennsylvania said, listen, 0:18:43.600 --> 0:18:45.960 I just don't believe this. I'm not sure it's going 0:18:46.040 --> 0:18:47.280 to work, but hey, I'm going to get a great 0:18:47.280 --> 0:18:50.040 trip to Norway. Well, today, he's one of the biggest 0:18:50.040 --> 0:18:53.360 proponents of the trip because he said what he realized 0:18:53.400 --> 0:18:55.760 we had to change in the US wasn't simply the 0:18:55.760 --> 0:18:59.680 color of a prison or paint on the wall or uniforms. 0:18:59.880 --> 0:19:03.159 It was a cultural shift. And we know from social 0:19:03.160 --> 0:19:08.040 anthropology that cultures define as a transmission of hope, ideas, 0:19:08.160 --> 0:19:12.200 beliefs from one generation to the next. Well, we can 0:19:12.200 --> 0:19:17.560 inculcate ideas of human dignity, of reform, of betterment through 0:19:17.560 --> 0:19:19.720 a cultural change. It's not going to be easy, it's 0:19:19.720 --> 0:19:22.680 not going to be overnight, but you have organizations who 0:19:22.680 --> 0:19:25.679 are doing that, so it's starting to work. It's already 0:19:25.720 --> 0:19:27.960 here in the US. But you also have organizations like 0:19:28.000 --> 0:19:31.800 Prison Fellowship started by Chuck Colson, who've been involved in 0:19:31.880 --> 0:19:35.080 prison work for over thirty years, who are doing great work. 0:19:35.160 --> 0:19:38.520 So we have examples. But yes, it could work here. 0:19:38.720 --> 0:19:41.920 It'll just take a cultural shift. A phrase of often 0:19:41.960 --> 0:19:44.600 heard you use, we have to get rid of the 0:19:44.640 --> 0:19:46.240 prison guards of the past. 0:19:46.280 --> 0:19:49.840 Mentally, that phrase may apply more to this podcast than 0:19:49.880 --> 0:19:51.880 to most of them. One of the things that you've 0:19:51.920 --> 0:19:56.200 really mentioned is that we actually ran much much bigger 0:19:56.680 --> 0:19:59.480 prisoner of war camps in the United States. We had 0:19:59.680 --> 0:20:02.960 about four hundred thousand prisoners of war, some three hundred 0:20:02.960 --> 0:20:06.000 and fifty thousand Nazis. But we dealt with them in 0:20:06.040 --> 0:20:09.960 a context of the Geneva Convention of twenty nine. What 0:20:10.160 --> 0:20:12.440 was the effect of that? Mean, to what extent were 0:20:12.440 --> 0:20:16.720 the prisoners dealt with and a humane system that enabled 0:20:16.720 --> 0:20:18.800 them to return to civilian life afterwards. 0:20:19.040 --> 0:20:22.639 One of the benefits of my trip to Germany with 0:20:22.760 --> 0:20:26.439 the cohort from the Aer Center was to actually visit 0:20:26.520 --> 0:20:30.400 different camps. So we went to Hamburg, which the second 0:20:30.520 --> 0:20:33.720 largest city in Germany, in May of twenty twenty three. 0:20:33.760 --> 0:20:36.080 We had a chance to go to the New and 0:20:36.200 --> 0:20:41.080 Gummen concentration camp, and it was created by the Nazis 0:20:41.080 --> 0:20:43.800 in nineteen thirty eight. By the time we get to 0:20:43.880 --> 0:20:47.800 nineteen forty five, forty thousand prisoners had died in the camp. 0:20:48.280 --> 0:20:50.439 And so we're taking a tour of the camp with 0:20:50.480 --> 0:20:53.119 a great God who has given us the history. He 0:20:53.280 --> 0:20:56.080 happened to mention in me to be in passing. He says, well, 0:20:56.119 --> 0:20:59.400 you know, you Americans had some of our guys or 0:20:59.440 --> 0:21:02.520 in your and I knew we had some, But to 0:21:02.520 --> 0:21:05.160 be honest with the speaker, when I returned home from 0:21:05.160 --> 0:21:08.919 that trip and began to do research. I was shocked 0:21:08.920 --> 0:21:11.879 to know that at my gut level, I figured we 0:21:11.960 --> 0:21:15.639 had twenty thousand prisoners of war in the United States. 0:21:15.640 --> 0:21:17.960 In fact, when I asked friends of mine, both who 0:21:17.960 --> 0:21:22.000 are university professors and otherwise, no one's gotten over fifty thousand. 0:21:22.280 --> 0:21:25.120 When I mentioned we had more than four hundred thousand 0:21:25.119 --> 0:21:29.600 prisoners of war in forty two states between nineteen forty 0:21:29.640 --> 0:21:32.120 two and forty five, They're like, wait, now, that can't 0:21:32.119 --> 0:21:34.960 be true. And then I began to send them information 0:21:35.280 --> 0:21:38.320 and even in Virginia we had seventeen thousand. Now here's 0:21:38.359 --> 0:21:42.960 what's different. To get to your question, the Geneva Convention 0:21:43.080 --> 0:21:47.480 of nineteen twenty nine established a playbook for how to 0:21:47.560 --> 0:21:51.639 treat prisoners of war who were captured. And so, if 0:21:51.680 --> 0:21:53.280 you were a prisoner of war in the United States, 0:21:53.400 --> 0:21:56.040 there were a few things you received. Number one, you 0:21:56.160 --> 0:21:59.880 received nutritious meals per day, not just any meal. There 0:21:59.920 --> 0:22:05.520 was actually a coleric minimum per day that POW's had received. 0:22:05.960 --> 0:22:08.960 They had an opportunity to work. Some of them worked 0:22:09.040 --> 0:22:11.960 on the grounds of the prison camp. Some were actually 0:22:12.400 --> 0:22:15.920 working outside the prison camp in local businesses in park. 0:22:16.000 --> 0:22:19.480 Because many men had gone off to war, and some 0:22:19.560 --> 0:22:23.560 other dynamics. Many of them had an opportunity to enroll 0:22:23.800 --> 0:22:28.359 into free education classes. Not simply high school, but there 0:22:28.359 --> 0:22:32.520 were also college classes that they can roll in for free. 0:22:32.880 --> 0:22:36.000 And they were also able to drink beer. Now, this 0:22:36.119 --> 0:22:38.840 was primarily the treatment for prisoners of war. If you 0:22:38.880 --> 0:22:42.440 were a general or higher ranking, you even received better treatment. 0:22:43.040 --> 0:22:45.000 And so I sat here for a moment and said, 0:22:45.000 --> 0:22:49.200 wait a minute, you mean at the same time that 0:22:49.440 --> 0:22:54.240 we were fighting overseas, that when we brought three hundred 0:22:54.280 --> 0:22:56.919 and fifty Nazis and some Italians and others over to 0:22:56.960 --> 0:22:59.960 the United States, that they were being treated more humane, 0:23:00.640 --> 0:23:04.639 with more dignity, receiving an education at a time in 0:23:04.640 --> 0:23:09.440 American history when many whites in the United States, particularly 0:23:09.480 --> 0:23:12.439 in the South, could not afford to go to a 0:23:12.480 --> 0:23:15.640