TED Talk: ”How prisons can help inmates live meaningful lives”
The speaker of this TED talk, Dan Pacholke is Deputy Secretary for the Washington State Department of Corrections, and even more importantly: a leader. He had spent his entire career working in different roles for the Department of Corrections. He identifies his vision: changing the prison system so that it actually lives up to its name “Corrections.” Throughout his talk, he was able to answer those key questions we read about in the Harvey reading (Who are we? Where are we? How are we doing? etc). In that same reading, Harvey spoke about how leaders are forward-thinking, and have to get the followers, who are often more focused on the present day, to see the vision, and care about it. I think Dan does that very well in this TED talk.
He begins with his want: he wants to change the way we think about our prison system, because that will allow us to envision new possibilities. He explains that our “Corrections System” is focused on “detaining and controlling,” rather than correcting and improving, “we (prison guards), meet violence with force, and chaos with chaos.” And that is why our current prison system does not work, and does not earn the name: “corrections.”
He spoke about an experiment that he developed with human behavior researchers. They trained staff in teams, focused on deeper training including verbal de-escalation training to decrease the use of force. And then they trained the inmates on the same skills, empowering them. He explains the changed environment and how that resulted in changed behavior. Changed training, along with a more humane living environment (bathrooms separate from cells), resulted in a safer space for both inmates and workers. After this change, he began a project in one of the prisons he was superintendent of. He teamed up with local scientists who needed help with their work and research. Inmates assisted scientists in re-populating endangered species, working on environmental restoration, and training service dogs. He was able to answer the question: “Could inmates live meaningful lives, and if so, what difference would that make?” The work the inmates are doing currently in his projects has a positive impact on society, and also gives purpose to their time spent in corrections.
The most interesting idea I got from this talk was this: we, as a society, have to rely on a lot of different institutions to reduce the crime rate. If we just rely on prisons, we won’t get anywhere, and I think that is where we are currently at. Rather, prisons can be the source of innovation and improvement, MEANINGFUL work. And crime rate reduction needs to start in schools, with teachers, with job opportunities, etc. Overall, I would recommend this talk to others, this talk gave me a new perspective on the corrections system and what it could be.