Leading Change: Jerry Clayton on Strategic Inmate Management

Brian Lee: Hello everybody and welcome to the 360 Justice Podcast. I’m your host, Brian Lee. We’re looking forward to speaking with today’s guest, Jerry Clayton. Jerry, welcome to the show today. We really appreciate you being with us. Uh, I’m, really excited about this particular interview because I have a, history and relationship with Jerry, so I’ve been looking forward to this one for a long time.

Jerry Clayton comes to us with 36 years of experience across corrections and police services. Uh, , He serves 16 of those years as the elected sheriff of Washtenaw County, where he served before his retirement, December of 2024. His career includes extensive involvement in the US Department of Justices Police and Corrections accountability agreements providing subject matter expertise.

He also has provided training, organizational assessment, and team and individual executive coaching services to numerous state and local public safety organizations. Jerry’s also actively involved in shaping [00:01:00] criminal justice policy and practice. He’s currently the CEO of the Cardinal Group two LLC, which is a public safety consulting and training group.

He has served in advisory roles for organizations such as the Vera Institute of Justice and the NYU School of Law Policing Project. He is also a founding member of the Council on Criminal Justices and has been appointed to several advisory councils by the governor of Michigan. Jerry, welcome. Thanks for being with us.

Jerry Clayton: Hey, Brian. Uh, thanks for having me. I’m, I’m really excited about our conversation today.

Brian Lee: I’m always excited about my conversations with you. Just as an aside , to the audience today we’re gonna be jumping into, , the subject of Strategic Inmate Management, which is what, , introduced me to you, Jerry

and I have a, an extensive history with Jerry going back, several years as he came out to my agency in Maricopa County as a representative, for the National Institute of Corrections, , to implement Strategic Inmate Management as we were opening, a couple of new [00:02:00] jail facilities out there.

And it was,, a complete game changer for me. It was a much different way of operating a jail system, a different way of thinking about it. And, you were instrumental in changing my mind in, the way that I thought about those operations. So. We’re excited to pick your brain today. Jerry, you’ve had a long and accomplished career in criminal justice leadership. What was it that initially drew you to strategic inmate management? How did you get involved with that?

Jerry Clayton: So I always knew there was a better way.

I mean, from the time I was a CO back in the eighties and we had available officers calls and physical altercations with the incarcerated population, you know, as a daily routine. It was a routine occurrence. And even then I was like, this doesn’t make any sense to me. I, I didn’t know what, what made sense. I didn’t know about corrections or anything but it did make sense to me. , And then my boss at the time who ended up being my mentor and, and actually served as my undersheriff the entire time I was in office, [00:03:00] sent me out to Colorado. He sent me to Aurora, NIC for the, uh, direct supervision training .

And I gotta tell you, Brian in the first day, I said, yep, that’s it. This is the better way, right? Understanding the dynamics of really about human behavior. So we talk a lot about incarcerated people and officers and all this stuff, but really talking about human behavior, meeting basic needs, just some of the basics that we all need to survive.

And as I started thinking about, I’m like, this makes sense. Why wouldn’t we implement something like this in a correctional setting? So that framework laid it out, right? From this traditional safety and security is achieved through , the physical architecture and all these things the restraints and all that versus, you know what?

We can manage people’s behavior relatively easy if we just understand a couple things. Let’s meet their basic needs. Let’s tell ’em what we want ’em to do. And then give them the resources and the space to do it, and then hold them accountable when they don’t, [00:04:00] and actually acknowledge when they do.

It’s the same thing that you teach managers. It’s the same thing that we teach in all these different spaces. So at any rate, as I got exposed to direct supervision and it evolved to a behavior management and, , so we had inmate behavior management. It was classification, direct supervision.

, I was like, why don’t we blend these? It, it makes no sense not to blend these because what we were getting was facilities that said, well, we’re not built for direct supervision, so we can’t do that. And I was like, look, effectively managing the behavior of people that are incarcerated and the physical architecture aren’t mutually exclusive things

you don’t have to have one to do the other. And when Panda came on. Much to her credit, she recognized it right away and we developed SIM and it, it just made sense. And, and let me just add one more piece, brian, I’m glad you guys are doing this because I think SIM is the way to go. And I knew when I met you at Maricopa, I mean, you are thoughtful guy and I, I go to these places all the time.

We’re doing this training and we can tell pretty quickly [00:05:00] the folks that are open and the folks that are closed. And we always say, look, it’s not my job to make you do something. My job is to set the table, lay out for you all the information. Hopefully a smorgasborg of good information that you can use. You decide what you eat.

And it was evident to me early on that you were going to take the big bites outta SIM, which is why you’re doing what you’re doing now. So,, my hope is more leaders in this space recognize the value of this operational philosophy.

Brian Lee: Appreciate that and I’m so glad that our paths crossed because , much like with you, it made so much sense to me.

And like you, just summed up so well. I think throughout our careers in corrections and law enforcement, our thinking also changes as well. We grow up in those systems and I, I even remember having conversations with you, in those early days when I first met you. You know, when we’re younger and we’re working in those facilities, sometimes it’s kind of exciting, we’re running from one emergency to the other and we’re getting in fights and over [00:06:00] time that kind of beats you up a little bit.

You get a little bit worn out and that’s when we start thinking there’s, is there a different way to do this? It seems like there should be. And I think that’s something that is hard for people to see because oftentimes in, in this career path or this industry. We so often remember the worst case scenarios, the worst things that can happen.

And we plan for that all the time. That’s right. That’s right. And what you taught me and what SIM has taught me is actually, those incidents are fairly rare and we can dissect those incidents and figure out why they happened and account for that and manage that.

So that was something that was eye-opening to me. And, once you break these things down into their most SIMple forms, it becomes manageable at that point. It’s something you start to, feel more comfortable with more you know about it.

Jerry Clayton: That’s right.

I’ll say this right? I, I’ll tell you, if, if I had not have been introduced to direct supervision and ultimately SIM, I would not have stayed in the profession. So the other thing that I think about here [00:07:00] is it’s for everybody. It’s Now that folks that are recognizing the value of wellness and taking care of staff, if I’m running a correctional facility, the, the wellbeing of the staff and having an operational philosophy like SIM go hand in hand.

Think about what I said, when I started we were fighting every day. It was high stress. Yeah. There was some adrenaline there, we were young and all that kind of stuff, but it still didn’t make any sense. Imagine trying to sustain that. And we had colleagues, you know, I had older colleagues that did that, sustain that for 20 or 30 years.

And then what’s the quality as they leave with all that stress and those microtraumas. So all that stuff I think matters and we’re changing the landscape and I think, we enhance careers for COs by moving in the direction of SIM.

Brian Lee: One of the things that I, I wanted to talk about this podcast is actually part of a series that we’re working on because SIM is so huge, so, what we’re focusing on in today’s podcast that I wanted to talk to you about is the backend of SIM.

, Once agencies have made the decision to adopt SIM and, they’re [00:08:00] wondering how to commit to SIM and how to implement SIM. There’s a lot of challenges there, that’s a, a challenge for everybody, the sustainability.

So what are some of the areas, in your opinion, of jail operations that agencies might sometimes overlook when they’re trying to implement and sustain SIM, what are they not thinking about in the early stages when we talk about actually sustaining it.

Jerry Clayton: So there’s a lot there that I want to unpack a little bit and start a little bit before we get to answering the essence of this.

So , I’m gonna talk about to start implementation. There are very few correctional organizations that I’ve, witnessed or worked with that have actually. Quote, unquote, fully implemented SIM they implement parts of it, right?

And unfortunately they treat it like a program, like it’s this thing that we’re gonna do as opposed to saying, this is who we are, that there are some principles here. So let me start whether I’m talking about SIM or, or any other quote unquote change that a leader or a leadership team is [00:09:00] introducing to the organization.

It starts with the organization’s culture. So we ignore that too much. So folks think if I change the policy, if I send staff , to new training, , and if I buy some new equipment, then they’re going to buy into whatever I’m laying out. And I’m saying, no, you must prepare the organization before you actually implement something like SIM.

Organizational culture is about what we believe, what our basic assumptions are, what our values are, and it’s that guides behavior and what, and actually SIMplifies a framework for the behavior. But it doesn’t start with that framework. It starts with the leaders talking about what are our values?

What do we believe? So for example if most of the organization believes that our job in corrections is just to hold people in place and that the majority of the folks there are bad people and all the things that go along with that, and they’re gonna hurt you. And, and you know, you just said, those critical incidents, we plan for it all the time.

Although it happens rarely. And I’m not saying we don’t plan for it, but [00:10:00] that can’t drive the basic assumptions that ultimately leads to your operational philosophy. So it’s the leader. The leadership team that has to be really thoughtful and first have a comprehensive communication strategy in the organization.

Before I even introduce SIM, I want us to revisit why do we exist? What’s our purpose? What’s the role of staff? When I started, we were jailers, right? And when somebody asked me, Jerry, what do you do for a living? I said, well, I tell grown men when to go to bed and when to get up.

No, you manage people. You lead people. So imagine having that conversation. Imagine really dissecting with the staff. The impact that we can have in community, criminal justice system, all of that. So as we start to change organizational culture, now you start to, what I call, you start to till the soil. So it’s fertile for something like SIM to be introduced.

You’re still gonna get some resistance because it’s introducing change and all that goes along with that. But now when we introduce SIM, if we’ve already talked about values, we’ve already talked [00:11:00] about beliefs. We have something to anchor, to send principles to the organization can anchor to send principles to this new organizational, this evolving organizational culture, right?

And, and all of that starts to happen. So you start to get that, and then we start to identify, wow, SIM is not just for the officers and the command officers, it’s for everybody that has any kind of impact in that correctional facility or even outside of it, right? So what I see oftentimes overlooked. Your medical provider, your mental health provider, food service provider, your maintenance folks, they get told that we’re gonna do something, but the failure is to lay out for him.

You have a different role now. Here’s your role. Here’s how you support SIM. This is what you’re supposed to do. And quite frankly, when those areas don’t behave in a way that supports what you’re trying to do in SIM, somebody has to bring that up and hold them accountable to it. [00:12:00] And I’ll give you an example.

, In, in our facility. When we changed our contracts, our food service contract, our medical contract had SIM principles written into it, and we laid out for those contractors, here’s what we expect from you, and we put in there, you have to send your folks, everybody you hire we all created a, a small version of SIM for those contracting people.

Because I can’t blame you for not supporting SIM if you don’t know what that means and don’t know what that role is. So I see that ignored often. And you know this, Brian, those are all connected to meeting the basic needs. Those are also connected. When we have problem behavior from an incarcerated population, oftentimes it’s connected to food.

Medical, those type of things, right? So that might be the first place I would go to start to get everything aligned, not the last place I would go. You know, those are the areas I see. The other area I see oftentimes not ignored, but compromised is [00:13:00] classification. And, you have to have a certain percentage of, open beds to be able to classify appropriately to put people where they need to be.

And it’s hard for me to effectively manage a population, that’s mixed so much that I need different strategies to manage the different subsets. It just makes it more difficult on the staff. And, and I’ll stop right there.

Brian Lee: All great points. And just to dovetail on what you said, you know, tilling the soil and laying the land for that in.

My secondary career here, when we’re going to different agencies and jurisdictions that have a little bit of an interest in this. I’ll take it a step further. Even sometimes with the most senior levels of leadership, we’ll get the communication, like, yeah, we’ll set it up, come in and train our lower level folks and everything.

And I say time out, we have to start with you, right? We have to start with the top of the organization. And that conversation can be difficult because with those senior [00:14:00] leaders, they’re going, yeah, I get it. I understand, I understand that you understand, but there’s more to it.

So that’s an interesting aspect. The other thing I wanted to ask you, and, in your experience back in Washtenaw County, and I have visited Washtenaw County before, I had the pleasure of visiting and tour your jail and talking to a lot of your folks there.

And I could tell it’s immediately apparent that SIM is a part of the DNA of that organization now, so the question is, what were some of the first signs in Washtenaw County in that shift towards SIMs that you started to notice that it was becoming a part of the DNA?

When was that apparent?

Jerry Clayton: When the language changed, it was so funny, so we look for these signs, right? So, you know, I’m a big, outcome drives, strategy, drives structure, all of that. And, , and ultimately behavior of your staff.

It should be connected to the ultimate outcome that you’re trying to achieve. So I would hear staff make certain comments, use certain language. [00:15:00] I would be in command meetings where the command officers would make decisions that are consistent with the principles of, at that time it was direct supervis and ultimately in SIM.

And then where I was really, I knew we were there. For the time being. ’cause I wanna make another point. I knew we were there. ’cause I used to always say, when somebody would bring a new project or a new change initiative or, or whatever it was, some, some decision point. I would start off by asking how does that support SIM?

Or how does that align with SIM? How does that support our mission? And we got to the point where I didn’t have to ask the question anymore. Quite frankly, that’s what they led with sheriff, this is how this aligns with SIM. This is how this supports our mission. And then when you have your staff and then they’re having those conversations with housing unit officers, housing unit officers are making proposals and they’re actually saying, this is how it’s aligned with SIM and how it supports the mission.

You know, you’re there, you know, it’s not gonna be perfect. You know, you’re still gonna have things, you know, we run correctional facilities, things are gonna [00:16:00] happen, but you know, you are moving in the right direction. The point I really want to stress, especially to the leaders, folks that are listening you are never done evolving the culture of your organization, right?

And quite frankly, there’s backsliding. We, backslid, COVID took us not all the way back, but it took us back. But I’ll tell you what, Brian, when we were going through COVID, when we were going through some of our toughest times, when we were having staffing challenges, the one thing that was always in the front of, not just my mind, but the staff’s minders, we have to be really thoughtful about our decisions because we can’t abandon SIM.

So we wanna talk about sustainability. You know this, Brian you’re gonna have budget challenges, you’re gonna have staffing challenges, you’re gonna have all these things. Every time that happens, you gotta ask the question. Yep, I know I gotta make this decision. But if I make the decision in the moment without thinking about the long-term impact, I’ll make a decision that I think works.

And in three years from now, something will happen. Staff [00:17:00] will, make a decision. ’cause you made a decision that abandoned SIM. So how can I hold you later to a decision that abandoned SIM when the time was hard, I abandoned it. And to me, that’s the difference between commitment and buy-in.

Buy-in means, it resonates here. And I’m pointing to my head in the, in my brain, I get it. Commitment means I get it in my brain, but I also get it in my heart ’cause it’s part of my values. And, we never compromise our values. So that’s the long-winded way. I said, that’s when I saw it.

And it’s been the entire time I I was in office was always a challenge to make sure that we maintain that commitment, that we evolve, the landscape, evolved externally, internally. How do we evolve without abandoning our commitment to the operational philosophy?

Brian Lee: That is such a huge statement that you made there, and I like the way you put that the buy-in from what I’m hearing you say is really, I get it.

I understand, I see its value. The commitment is, I don’t even really have to think about it anymore. It’s just programmed [00:18:00] into me. It it, it’s who we are, like you said in the very beginning.

Yes. So I have to ask the follow up question of knowing that it was in the DNA and when you witnessed your staff. You know, they led with that and it started to grow beyond you.

How did that make you feel? Were you a proud father at that point? I was.

Jerry Clayton: I was. I was really proud on so many different levels because they took it and ran with it and, it wasn’t something that the sheriff said, we’re gonna do this, or it’s the sheriff’s thing. It became this is our thing.

And, and there was pride. I mean, I could feel the pride because we were known for, again, there was no perfect organization and you could walked into our organization and seeing other things that we were missing, right? We’re always working on trying to get better, but we had a reputation of being a well-run facility, a well-run jail that treated people right.

And that really, committed to the tenants of SIM and they were really [00:19:00] proud of that. The pride that they had made me proud.

Brian Lee: . I agree with you a hundred percent. It’s, a remarkable sense of accomplishment when you start to hear other people use language and it feels like it’s growing beyond you.

The other side of that though, is something that I got advice from you and your team on , at the time that we were going through this process was sometimes I got frustrated when I saw those backslides or I saw people that weren’t committed

and, , I remember you and your team saying, it, it’s something you have to watch, but you also don’t wanna focus all of your energy there, right? You wanna celebrate the wins and you wanna help carry those things forward. And I think that’s. Something you really have to be careful of. It’s a pitfall that anybody could fall into because you have this thing you believe in.

It’s a part of you. You’re, you want everybody to see it the way you see it. And, and quite frankly, they may not have all of the information, all of the experience, and all of those things that you do. So it, it takes time. And what we’re telling organizations don’t think this is gonna happen next week.

This isn’t [00:20:00] something that is gonna start on Monday. And it’s good to go. It’s not a program like you’re saying. I mean, this is many years in the making and like you said, you’re never done. Right. It’s like painting the Golden Gate Bridge. Once you get to one end, you turn around and go back and start painting the other way.

Jerry Clayton: That’s right. That’s right. And, to that point, Brian, I think that’s the challenge of, whether it’s SIM or any operational philosophy you’re trying to put in place culture change, you know, to really change the organizational culture. We’re not talking weeks and months, we’re talking years, right?

To really implement and sustain and evolve and grow with something like SIM you’re talking , months, years. And then that brings into question continuity of leadership, right? Sheriffs come and go, directors of corrections come and go. Wardens come and go. Jail administrators come and go.

How do you, hopefully, I’m not jumping too much. I know you had a question around sustaining [00:21:00] this thing when you leave. And my belief on that is when I walked away after 16 years, I can’t control what happens when I’m.

But I can influence the sustainability of some of these things while I’m here. By, again, preparing the organizational culture for it, the adoption of an operational philosophy like SIM, making sure it’s not a program, and then integrating the principles of SIM into our organizational culture from a values and mission perspective.

And then implementing SIM into all the other operations, right? You know, how you sustain it by who you recruit and hire, training and educating, professional development, all of those things. I remember when I knew I was gonna leave,. I said, look, we’re gonna try to put these things in place and make it so foundational that somebody’s gonna have to , try really, really hard intentionally to unravel it.

And that’s all you can do. That’s all you can do.

Brian Lee: That’s what I really love about the SIM [00:22:00] program. It’s so thoughtful in that nature, like the things that you talked about before. It’s, it’s not just sitting down a, a room of corrections officers and talking about these operational philosophies. It, is present in your policies and procedures.

It’s present in your hiring and HR recruitment. The communications that you’re putting out to the public when you’re seeking, the type of person that you’re actually trying to hire. That environment, the picture that you’re painting from of how we do business here. And once that stuff starts to take hold, I think it really, like you said, it becomes pretty difficult to reverse a lot of that stuff.

I mean, it takes some major work and that’s exciting when you start getting to that point. So one of the questions that I wanted to talk to you about, it’s about the coaching phase of SIM and in this process can you talk about the role of coaching both individually and team-based and how that supports the long-term implementation of SIM?

Jerry Clayton: Yeah. I think you , successfully implement and sustain something like SIM [00:23:00] because you have effective leaders, right? And, effective leaders must be cultivated, right? They must be taught, and we think ’cause someone achieved a certain position that that automatically makes ’em a leader.

And we know that’s not the case. So a lot of what we do is, we’re not just coaching folks about SIM, we’re coaching folks about being an effective leader. So what we say is. We are gonna work with you. And whether it’s quote unquote, SIM related or not, we want to help sharpen your leadership skills.

We want to help you become the most effective leader, the most effective communicator. Someone that leads with empathy and understanding someone that can hold folks accountable, but also coach them up to inspire them to continue to, move forward. Someone that creates the kind of space where there’s creativity in the organization that, you know what, making a mistake here and there.

I don’t ever wanna make a mistake, but we’re gonna make ’em. How do we learn from that? Those are the things that we’re working with. And [00:24:00] I’ll tell you, Brian, the biggest thing that’s changed and it’s really changing now as we are evolving in this work, but in other work, we did the training with you guys and then you, guys went out and had Stacy come and continue to work with you.

See, that’s the way to do it, right? The other way to do it is. I’ll give you an example. We’re working with an organization now. They’re doing good work. They’re good folks. But I said, do you have a communication strategy? And they gave us a little bit, but it wasn’t a comprehensive communication strategy.

So now we work with organizations to lay out a comprehensive communication strategy where we talk about what channels are you gonna use to communicate internally and externally. Let’s think about the messaging based on the outcomes that you want to achieve. And understanding that communication is not one way, but it’s two way.

And , How are you creating opportunities for staff to communicate to you where they are in this issue? And then for us to [00:25:00] respond appropriately, to educate them in a way that, , that fear that they had, the resistance that they had starts to dissipate a little bit. And they can commit more.

So all of that coaching. The other thing that we now work with people on is I work with someone to put together a project charter for implementation that lays everything out. So now you don’t miss medical and food services and all of that. Now there’s a process for looking at every policy through a SIMs lens and then making that adjustment.

So building all those mechanisms in that, quite frankly whether it’s SIM or not makes you just a better organization. It makes you a more efficient organization, a more thoughtful, impactful organization. And the other thing that we really try to get the organization to understand is, where are you stopping with the engagement of your leadership?

So you’re right, gotta get the executive level folks and then that mid-level, which is the most important, they get the SIM training. But the other part of [00:26:00] it is we wanna work with them to create what we call ambidextrous leaders. So leaders that, that, especially at that mid-level, right?

So they’re good at the functional stuff, the day-to-day shift stuff, but they’re also good leaders. And what I see is we send mid-level folks, sergeants, lieutenants, to a supervisor course, and it’s really focused on operations, how to work through the operational piece. And very little is spent on leadership.

So we’re developing programs, we work with stuff Now, I’ll give you 80% leadership, 20% operations, because I want you to apply the leadership principles to the operational aspects of what you have to do. And if all I focus on is the operational piece and miss the Leadership, then I can’t inspire folks to follow and to do the work, especially with something like SIM that’s so new.

Imagine if your leaders aren’t effective up and down the line, how can I actually implement something that’s so different from what we’ve known for the last however many [00:27:00] years that we’ve been operating our facilities?

Brian Lee: Yeah, no, that’s a good point. And I think I like that ambidextrous leadership.

I also like what you said about the I think you called it an implementation matrix or, something to that effect in this profession. I, I think that’s something that’s helpful for people, especially in corrections. We like checklists, right? We like emergency procedures. What do I do now?

What do I do next? And that’s one of the things that I’m, starting to learn is. It’s that initial, SIM training that you do let’s call it the administrators training or whatever it is where you’re, focusing on those upper levels within the organization.

You really feel the tide turn over that several days of discussion and you can see people starting to see things differently. What I’m noticing now is those people get excited they’re excited about what this can be, and then they go walk into their office on Monday and they look around and they go, oh my gosh, like, where do I start here?

It’s [00:28:00] huge because you’re looking at stuff through a different lens now, and you’re noticing things you never noticed before.

But sometimes all of the things that are happening right in front of you, you don’t notice as you see them every day. I know in this secondary career of mine, it’s so much easier for me to parachute in and see things. They’re so obvious to me, and they’re not obvious to the people working there because they see it every day.

And it gradually happened over the years, right? It’s like when you look, when did my kid grow up or when did they get older?

And I, I think people have to understand that it is not a personal attack on an agency. It’s not any of those things. That’s the benefit of what we do. The outsiders coming in and taking a look.

Jerry Clayton: That’s right. And we wouldn’t be doing our job if we didn’t, you know, there’s a way to do it, right.

You can go in there and be a jerk and talk about it. But there’s a way, , I’ve always felt, look, if you’ve asked me to come down, not because I know everything about everything I know probably just enough to be dangerous, but to your [00:29:00] point it’s an outside set of eyes. I, somebody said this to me a long time ago, so I say to people every now and then, I said, what’s the last thing a fish would recognize?

It’s the water. Right? Because they’re in it all the time. It’s the same thing in your organization. You’re in there all the time. And part of the challenge is how do I and my organization go in and inspect and assess with a level of criticalness that isn’t offensive to staff.

But we’re identifying those things that can help us evolve. And I always go back to the mission part. What outcomes are we driving for? So everything that we do should be connected to some outcomes. So if we’re looking at certain things and it’s off, it’s off. Because now we can’t get to the outcome that we said we wanted to ’cause we’re not doing this right.

Right. Our overrides , and classification not what they need to be. Or the time that it takes someone that sends in a medical request to the time they actually see a medical professional is longer than what we see. So all of [00:30:00] those things sit out. The cleanliness thing is always interesting to me.

And , I’ll tell you, it’s a gauge for me. ‘Cause I’m like. When I first started, our jail was dark. It was dank. It stank, you could smoke all that kind of stuff. And I remember saying at some point, I think I was the jail commander. I’m like, so what should be the cleanest facility in our county?

It should be the jail. I have people to do the work. We have resources, so what’s the problem? You know, those type of things. And I think, focusing on those small things reinforce some of the larger principles that you want to move forward on. I just wanted to mention one more thing about the coaching piece.

I think, you went through the course, you went through the administrators course. I wouldn’t do the administrators course. Now, again, without maybe it’s part two or we take some stuff out. We would spend a lot of time on developing communication strategy.

And we would spend a lot of time, , on an implementation plan and [00:31:00] lay it all out. This is because, so you’re right, you leave outta class, then you go come in on Monday and you’re like, I’m excited. I want to do it. Where do I start? What’s the first thing that I do? Do I need a change team? Do I need this?

Do I need that? All organizations are the same. Some are bigger, some are smaller, some have more resources, some have less. But to do it now, I’d work with that. You work with that administrative team and if nothing else, let’s set the project charter up. Let’s start our implementation plan. At least give you the framework.

You can plug in the task and all the other stuff, but at least give you the framework and give you an idea of, the timeframes that’s gonna take you to do certain things. ’cause you’re right, I think some people think I can come in there and I can do this thing in a month or two. I’m like, nah, you’re gonna be a couple years putting this thing in.

Brian Lee: You’re really just putting ’em on the right track, right? You’re putting ’em on the course. Like you said, you’re giving ’em the tools, all of those things. There’s so many points that you just made that take me back to those times when I was going through this and when I [00:32:00] first had met you.

You made a comment during one of the trainings, one of the visits, one of the conversations that we had. You said something about closing your eyes and visualizing what you want that facility to look like, smell like, sound like all of those senses, right?

. And once you can visualize what that is. You break down each one of those things. It’s, an exercise in working backwards from there. Right.

I remember the first thing that we attacked as we were going through the coaching phase with my own organization, and that was let’s focus on the windows at the facility. You know, there’s things hanging in the windows. The windows are dirty, all, let’s not focus on anything else.

Let’s have a communication strategy with our staff and explain to them, this is the focus this week. And once we feel like we’re in a good place there, what’s the next thing that we want to take on? There’s these steps, and that’s why it really takes years Right. You’re playing chess, not checkers.

It’s a part of who you are and it’s never over [00:33:00] with. So that’s something that was really, meaningful to me.

Jerry Clayton: I’m glad you brought that up. I learned that from, you know Rick Coleus, right

so Rick was like the jail administrator in a small county in Michigan. And then I brought him down to be, we talked together, , IBM and a bunch of other things. And then I asked him to be jail commander , when I took office and he agreed. And that was one of the things that Rick did. Rick had I think it was like the issue of the month or the issue of the time, and it was writing on walls, and he said, our focus is gonna be, we’re gonna clean the walls.

Totally. And then if anything goes on the wall, I want it down right away. Person held accountable. So, so he spent, I think a month, two months, that’s all he focused on. Guess what? It became just the norm that there was no writing on the wall. But more importantly, and I didn’t get it at the time, I got it later.

What it teaches an organization that’s being introduced to something new, it teaches them about what is possible. [00:34:00] So think about it, we were just talking, you know, visualizing, what would that look like? What would it smell like? What would it sound like? And all of that, I think is the, is a good initial exercise.

Then I wanna follow it up with, let’s pick some low hanging fruit. Let’s focus our energy on it. Let’s hit the mark on that so staff can actually see what’s possible. So imagine that you went from a place that, I mean, it was never really nasty, dirty, blah, blah, blah, but did have writing and stuff on the walls to a place that had no writing on the walls.

No writing and had maintenance condition that if something went up, it was off the next day. So now we’re starting to build these habits. Staff is starting to see success. We’re acknowledging the success. So I learned that from Rick. It’s a SIMple concept, but I think it’s so powerful.

Brian Lee: . And it’s, it really makes sense.

I mean, it’s so obvious after you think about it because I remember back then going, well, how the heck am I supposed to keep these guys from writing on the walls? You know, there’s thousands of them. But really [00:35:00] when you achieve that environment, and that’s the expectation. Like for instance, I envisioned myself, I’m going to jail.

I get put in, say a holding area or something like that, and there’s writing and damage to all walls. Well, that tells me that this is how it’s done here. I would think twice if I walked into a room that had no writing on the walls. It was clean. The windows were clean. , I would stand out if I was standing there doing something to the wall.

So in a sense, we’ve helped to create that environment by letting it slide all that time. So we have to pick those things. We have to chip away at it and recapture that environment to help set those expectations. But once you’re there, it takes on a life of its own. It’s not normal behavior for somebody to come in and do that because they understand that that’s the way that things are done there.

Jerry Clayton: I always thought it was really funny, like how many people actually you write on your walls at your house. I mean, so when you really start to think about, you know, what’s the jail?

We let ’em out. I’m like, no, it’s not. Why? Why are [00:36:00] we making. The not normal. Normal. Why are we normalizing things that don’t normally or should not normally occur in your house or , in other public spaces and all that? We’ve made these allowances. I remember when I was a youngster, they were talking about, well, yeah, it smells like a jail.

My response is, what’s a jail supposed to smell Like I said, I’ll tell you what, you know what I think a jail supposed to, I think it’s supposed to smell clean. I think it’s supposed to smell clean. I think it’s supposed to look clean. And we can accomplish that.

Brian Lee: Well, and that’s an interesting point that you had there too.

I mean, Again a mindset thing that you set up for yourself, you just said it. Why wouldn’t it be the cleanest when you have all of those resources available? Um, the other thing and I think this is part of your comments on leadership, right? I think an effective leader is there to serve others and to give them the tools to do the job that they need to do the job.

It’s like that servant leadership, same thing goes in that relationship with our correction staff and the people whose lives they manage. And I think I can relate that to cleanliness like you’re [00:37:00] saying. We can’t hold these standards that are unachievable if we have a housing unit with 50, 60 people in it and we’re rolling around one mop bucket, you know, with dirty water, we need to give them the tools to do that job.

Right?

Jerry Clayton: That’s it. That’s it. And you know, it’s so funny, , I tell that story all the time. I had that epiphany. I think I was teaching SIM. I make that same statement and then it hit me. I’m like, wait a minute. So I called out on a break. I called our jail administrator. I’m like, how many setups do we have for each of the housing units?

He said, I don’t know, sheriff. I’ll let you know. So he tells me, and of course it was not enough. And then I just went back and I said, you have my permission. I didn’t tell him to go do it. I said, you have my permission to buy as many sets as you can. Right to accomplish what we want to get accomplished in the time that we set with the number of people that we have.

I said, I don’t know what that is. You know better than I, but you have my permission to do what you need to do to get there.

Brian Lee: Yeah, great point. And I think [00:38:00] that gets into another conversation. I don’t know how much you deal with it. I do, certainly in , this career that I’m finding myself in now, you know, at CGL we’re involved in the very early stages of planning, programming, and designing facilities.

And you know, agencies ask, when is a good time to start talking and thinking about SIM? ’cause we’re starting to plan a facility now, but it’s gonna be three, four years before that facility opens. We should probably wait till later. When it comes to things like that, we’re talking about, , giving tools to do the job and the number of people in a unit, and if you’re, , providing all of these supplies and stuff.

How does that affect the physical plan when you’re planning and building a facility? I need a, a location, large enough to store all that stuff to make it easy for them. I need, maybe if I have a two-tiered unit, maybe I need a mop closet upstairs. So a guy’s not hauling a heavy mop bucket up the stairs and potentially hurting himself or other people.

When is the right time to start talking about SIM in the process? ’cause people are [00:39:00] typically wanting to plan and design and build a new facility because they want to change things. And what we try to tell ’em too is the building itself isn’t gonna change that for you, right?

That’s another part of it. It can certainly help and assist and give you those tools, but I, I think there’s never a better time than the present to start thinking about SIM and become familiar with it.

Jerry Clayton: I agree. You know, as I said before, even if and it’s done subtly, , not in a, , sneaky way, but remember I said, my belief is you have to prepare the organization for whatever you’re gonna implement, right?

So we can have conversations early on , while you’re doing the planning and all this let’s talk about what are your basic assumptions around your jail? Why do you exist? What’s your purpose? What role do you play in the larger criminal justice system and community? What role do your staff play?

You know, we haven’t talked a lot about, but the staff is so important. So let’s have conversations with them and who are they and what do they do, and what do you expect from them? So all [00:40:00] of that, right? So getting all of that highlighted and detailed and, and lay out for and says, look, you’re building this new jail.

What’s your operational philosophy gonna be? And I remember introducing this whole talking about operational philosophy, like what are you talking about? Well, this is what operational philosophy is. And laying it out and, actually as an aside, we’re developing a new course now where part of what we’re doing is we’re having people do this assessment, then they’re coming in, we’re laying out the traditional operational philosophy, direct supervision, and SIM and all the different aspects of it.

So do assessment of what you have, using the same kind of criteria, and then compare it to these three operational philosophies, which one best fits you? More importantly, if I’m building something new, which one do you want? Which one do you aspire to? Some would say SIM. Yeah, we want SIM. Well, okay, now that you know that’s what you want, now let’s talk about

all the things you have to do to get there, the things that you have to do before that [00:41:00] building is even constructed. Because I think you are right. I mean, there’s this sweet spot. You know, some people say, well, if I do the training too early, they’re gonna forget about it by the time they get blah, blah, blah.

So my argument to that is, are they working in a facility now? Well, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But we’re not built to do blah blah. Like, well, wait a minute. So if I teach it now and I encourage them to start practicing some of it in their current environment that’s not constructed or built to blah, blah all that kind of stuff, they’re gonna learn from some of the things that might not work out the way we want.

They’re gonna learn from some of their successes. And , I’m probably gonna do another refresher or some stuff before you get there, but why would I wait till we get right up to this point to now introduce you to the concept that we have actually built our facility on.

We built a facility on it. I want you to know about it early on so you can be a contributing member , to what we end up experiencing.

Brian Lee: Yeah, and that’s such a great point. ’cause like you said, , it’s a DNA, it’s who you [00:42:00] are. It’s what you are. That’s always been the value of SIM to me.

I know we’re getting close to time, but another point that I wanted to talk to you about, because I know you’ve been so heavily involved in SIM with the NIC and everything over the years. In the past, the only way you could really get SIM, , was at least that I know of is to reach out to NIC request that assistance, and it’s an undertaking, right?

So. Can you give us a little bit of a lay of the land of what’s available out there now or how people would, look for those services, that direction, the guidance,

Jerry Clayton: Here’s the, the dilemma now. Obviously I don’t speak for NIC, but they’re just not in that business anymore. So they’re not doing it anymore, which to me is like. Holy cow. This is the practice, the most promising practice.

Folks that don’t use best practice, this is the way we should go. So you have folks like, Mark Martin, that I think is still doing a little bit. So you have that. We do it now. So [00:43:00] you got the JJSC through what Panda does now they’re not even doing SIM they’re just doing some assessments of places.

So I’ll be honest with you, Brian, I don’t know. It’s not covered nationally. I think you get it in pockets. I know. We looked at it. When we were pretty sure that NIC was, moving away from it to make sure that we offered it, that we said, look, we’ll do the training and the other side for us is we can also do the coaching and stay engaged in all the stuff that, that I think is so important.

Part of what I said now is I won’t just do the training. Because I think it’s a setup I think to go in there and to parachute in and give you the training and then leave, I think sets you up

Brian Lee: You have to be there for the long haul. And, and that’s why I asked it, ,

you mentioned Mark Martin. The poor guy’s been trying to retire. I mean, he is retired, but I’m always calling him out and asking for his help and he just can’t say no. So I feel bad that I’m, that I’m trying to help, but I [00:44:00] just am fearful that knowledge and experience and information dies, , as people move out of the business and it’s not turned over.

So that’s, I’m on my quest here with my current company and reaching out to folks like you, like how can we keep this thing alive and how can we keep moving it forward?

Jerry Clayton: I greatly appreciate , how you’re thinking about that, Brian , and your thoughtfulness around this.

Because if there’s no intentionality if we don’t intentionally. Move in that direction, it will just go by the wayside. And , what’s also I think, really scary to me is then other people may move into the space that quite frankly, aren’t qualified to do it. And then it, it leads to bad outcomes.

And then people start questioning the philosophy. There’s nothing wrong with the operational philosophy. It’s how we implement it and who’s bringing it forward. So

Brian Lee: it’s easy to get into the habit of actually cherry picking that information that I’m just gonna use this piece. I get asked all the time, and [00:45:00] I’m glad you said that because I get asked all the time on some of these projects, can you give us the Reader’s Digest version?

Can you really, you know, cut it down and give us like a two hour? You really can’t. And, and I actually tried that one time. I, I was trying to think of a way, like, how can I just introduce this? And I tried to, and it occurred to me after that . None of this makes any sense to them because it requires the foundation that you have to build and all of that.

So that, that’s the one thing I’m cautious of is don’t get into cherry picking that information or trying to pare it down. So you really have to be committed to it. And I think that’s also why we’re kind of doing this podcast series too, and all this information, just kind of educate people what’s really involved here.

And , some of my bosses at CGL will say, well, are people prepared at the resources of what it costs to do this? Well, now building new jails can get into the billions of dollars. The construction costs have really soared in the last four years since COVID and everything.

I personally look [00:46:00] at the resources that you have to commit to going through this training and, and undertaking this operational philosophy. I think it’s a bargain compared to, Hey, instead of going and buying a new facility, let’s see, see what we can do with what we’ve got.

Jerry Clayton: Right. No, I agree. And the other side,, to that coin is, if you’re spending almost a billion dollars on a new facility without, , the right kinda operational philosophy, you’re throwing really good money.

I mean, you’re really, really compromised. , I’ve been in a couple jails that were relatively new, that looked like they were 20 years old. I walk into the facility and I’m like, holy cow, this county just spent a half a billion dollars and in four years you’ve let it run down to this.

That’s a travesty. The human tragedy that comes when places are run so inefficiently and you have suicides or suicide attempts and death, all that kind of stuff. It’s all unfortunate. And I remind folks all the time, so the majority of our population of pretrial individuals, yeah, we’re not guilty of anything.

So last [00:47:00] I checked in this country, we’re innocent until proven guilty. We should treat people in that manner. But the other side of that too is, even if you are guilty, you still should be treated with a certain way and your human rights should be valued and all those type of things. So

Brian Lee: that’s truly what it is. Oh, the other thing I wanted to mention to , our audience, if if they’ve listened this far, I find true value in your behind the badge series. And I know you’re not there anymore, but it still lives on, I’ve actually pulled those videos that you made up, , in some of the trainings that I’ve done because sometimes just good brief explanations and you have good examples of staff that have not only bought in, but they’ve committed to it and it’s, it’s apparent in those.

So I really like that behind the badge series. On YouTube, and that’s something that you all filmed when you were the sheriff at Washtenaw County. Boy, I would love to get something like that going again. I would love to continue that because in today’s generation and some of the [00:48:00] people, you know, they respond to social media, they respond to YouTube videos, and it’s really valuable to have those tools to show some people. ’cause , that might be just the nugget they’re looking for. So, it’s always a pleasure. I hope we can have you back again sometime. I actually hope we can work together on this sometime.

I hope we find opportunities for partnership and kind of moving this forward. I’m excited to learn more about your company and the work that you’re doing right now . Is there anything you’d like to close out with ?

Jerry Clayton: No, I would just say, listen, , this was great. , I can’t believe the hour went by this fast. I’ve always had a lot of respect for you, when you were in Maricopa. I remember we were talking about you like, look, that was a big get for us, right?

Because you, there’s a huge county and all this stuff, but you know, sometimes you get folks in the big places and in the big dogs and they’re sometimes can be jerks and all this other kind of stuff. And I thought you, you know, I still think that’s you. So down to earth, so thoughtful. Just a, a just a regular person.

What you see is what you get. And the value of that cannot be overstated. So listen, I would love an opportunity [00:49:00] for us to work together in this or some other way. , I tell people I’m semi-retired. We love what we’re doing now. , We do some work with JJSC and some work in some other areas, but if there’s a way to figure out how we continue to move SIM along, uh, I think it would be, it’d be useful.

’cause , if it goes away, I don’t know how as a profession we continue to evolve in the right way.

Brian Lee: Yeah. Let’s make it the DNA of the correction system of the United States, right?

I mean, that’s the ultimate goal. It’d be awesome, , to get to that point someday. Again, I thank you so much. We’ll include some contact information from you, maybe some links to your to your company if people wanna research and check out what it is that you guys do, . So, alright, well that’s it for today’s podcast. Thank you everyone for listening to our podcast today. You can find this and other episodes on the standard podcast platforms, apple Podcasts, Spotify, and Amazon. Or visit us at cgl companies.com/podcast. If you have any [00:50:00] suggestions for topics you want to hear covered in this season, you are interested in being a future guest on the 360 podcast, please email us at podcast@cglcompanies.com.

Thank you everybody for joining us today.