Analyzing the Future of Rehabilitation with Former ACA President Gary Mohr

Eli Gage:

So, hello everybody. And welcome to the 360 justice podcast. I’m your host Eli Gage. And I’m joined today with my co-host and friend Ken McGinnis. Ken was the former director in both Illinois and Michigan, and is now a senior vice president with CGL. So Ken, thanks for joining us.

Ken McGinnis:

Thank you

Eli Gage:

And We’re really pleased today to have Gary Mohr with us. Uh, Gary is the past president of the American correctional association and the former director of the Ohio department of rehabilitation and corrections. So Gary, thank you for making time for us.

Gary Mohr:

That’s great. And thanks for emphasizing the rehabilitation. I liked that a lot in the tie.

Eli Gage:

Well, It’s funny you would say that because I wanted to ask both of you about that. Some States incorporate that into the title, some other States don’t, what is your all’s, um, stance or feeling about that?

Gary Mohr:

I think very few States do. And I can, at one point, I thought it was like four, four or five. I may be wrong, probably wrong on that, but I think it goes back to my first year, I think is director with John Casey in 2011. I think that was the first time every single director in the United States of America, ot, not a stand in, but every actual director met in DC, and discussed our role and the outcome of those two or three days in DC was that our focus is actually to reduce recidivism. And I think prior to that, the directors, you know, if you looked at mission statements, it was typical, good security, safe, you know, secure public safety, which is all good, but it didn’t go, I think, far enough for the public expenditure money. Right. So I think, I really think that starting in January of 11, uh, with that meeting, there was a shift in philosophical, uh, the, the philosophy of our directors in the country to say, we’ve got a real stake in ensuring that we reduce the future crime victims in this country, uh, by the people that were, we are supervising.

Gary Mohr:

So I think it was that, but, but the name changes didn’t follow that Eli or Ken.

Ken McGinnis:

Yeah, I think, I think that the issue in most States, not that they don’t agree with the concept of including rehabilitation in the title was once you open up the statutes for change, most of those titles are set by statute and it just opens up the door for a lot of things you just don’t want to get into. So most people have just held Pat.

Eli Gage:

Hmm. Interesting. Makes sense. Yeah, I think it’s, I mean, obviously Gary, I know it’s, um, it’s near and dear to your heart, but it says a lot in the, in the statement.

Gary Mohr:

Well, I, you know, Eli, one of the neat things I had the opportunity to do as a director, uh, was I met every single new employee and we had about 12,500 employees, their first hour of employment with our system. I traveled to our training director, our training Academy, and I spoke with them and now they had to endure me for an hour. I talked about our vision and mission and our, our, our mission statement was simply to reduce recidivism among those. We touch with our prisons and on parole and community. And I talked about why and, pretty passionately. And I went back to my, my origin in 1974, starting as a teacher, actually teacher’s aid at the marrying correctional institution and talked about how impactful we could be. And we can be the public safety based on what we do with those under our supervision and how we communicate and work with them. And that we play a huge role. And so I spent an hour with them and while some didn’t agree and hopefully we weeded them out during the training period. But every single person, all 12,500 employees knew our entire mission statement, which was that one phrase.

Eli Gage:

Hmm. Interesting. Um, let me switch gears a little bit, Gary. Um, and I know you and I talked recently and you can tell us what you can tell us about ACA, but I do want to touch on that because the American correctional association is such a big part of our industry. And over the last year, uh, during which you were the president of ACA was, uh, a wartime president, I suppose, of the ACA can you give us kind of a state of the state of where things are?

Gary Mohr:

Well, I’ll tell you, it was in, I serve two years. And as I started my first year, I had all kinds of vision of, of traveling the country and traveling all over the local state agencies and doing all of these kinds of things, that ended, after my first year, uh, you know, actually the, you know, the American correctional association was established in 1870 and 2020 was our hundred and 150th anniversary. Uh, and what’s kind of personally, I’m personally attached to the fact that our very first president of ACA was the governor of Ohio, Rutherford B. Hayes, who accepted that, uh, based on the urging of his wife, who ironically grew up in my town, where I lived (inaudible) Ohio, Lucy Web Hayes, unbelievable connection here. Um, so I was so excited and our summer Congress was going to be in Cincinnati where we were established, uh, it was going to be the largest Congress we ever had, and it was going to have a total focus on our members, total focus, going to be a totally different event.

Gary Mohr:

Well, I got canceled, right. That canceled it about killed me. Um, and then our winter conference was all virtual and I was at, I was absolutely the only person that traveled to Alexandria, Virginia to be part of this virtual Congress. So while my visibility kind of dissipated from the public view of ACA every day, I was on the phone with the staff at ACA because of the financial, yeah. Think about this we’re able to receive a significant income from our summer Congress and from other, you know, accreditation trips and those kinds of things and not having that our revenue stream was, was challenged. Um, we had to deal with some staffing issues, although we did get the PPE, um, there were just a number of things. So every day I was on the phone with Jim gambles and the staff sometimes four and five times a day during the entire year, but that was kind of invisible.

Gary Mohr:

And it certainly wasn’t anticipated by me. Uh, but the state, I want to just say the state of ACA is strong and I commend the ACA staff. We were one of the only, uh, organizations in the United States that actually had pandemic insurance to cover our summer Congress, which was significant and huge. Uh, and, and I give credit to the staff for thinking that you can’t get it now. You can’t get pandemic insurance now for these things, but, uh, but they did. And it was huge. And, uh, let me just also say during this time of strife, we pushed accreditation, even though we couldn’t in most States go into the systems, but we talked about the value of accreditation. And during the two years of my presidency, five States or 10% of the States in the country got back into accreditation that were not in before.

Gary Mohr:

So the future, uh, I think is bright. Um, and, and I think ACA, the staff did a tremendous job of developing materials, tangible materials for the COVID issue, uh, brochures, pamphlets, they did webinars for actually thousands of people run these webinars, uh, dealing with, uh, best practices dealing with COVID environments of prisons for both staff and inmates. So, um, you know, uh, presidents don’t do a whole lot with ACA to be honest. I mean, it’s the staff. I mean, you’re, you’re there, you’re on the sideline cheering them on, right. They’re pushing and then face, they did a wonderful job during this. And an ACA is going to come out, I think very strong. And by golly, we’re going to meet in Nashville in August and we are going to physically meet. And, um, and I think people will look forward to that. And we’ll probably also, uh, Eli and Ken incorporate some of the virtual aspects that we weren’t so much about in our winter conference. So that will be kind of, uh, enhanced as well, but by golly, we’re going to get together.

Eli Gage:

Hmm. That’s great. I was, I was curious, I think I did hear that Nashville would be, uh, a live event again. So that’s, that’s encouraging. I know that the, certainly the vendor community relied on it very heavily and I think we all did, um, CLA always meets there and, uh, it was, it was a, I think it was a big void for us. I know. And I think that this would have been my 60th ACA show for the last 30 years going to ACA. I mean, I’ve gone twice a year, every year. And, uh, I know it kind of freed up my summer and certainly freed up the winter a little bit, but I’m looking forward to going back.

Gary Mohr:

Well, Eli, you guys have been very prominent at ACA, not just in the vendor hall, but in presentations and in, uh, you know, the, the standards committees and you, you just have been very, very, uh hands-on with ACA and we, I know ACA appreciates that.

Eli Gage:

Thanks, Gary. Um, let’s you want to talk about the recruitment and retention, because I know that was a big emphasis for you at the beginning of your term. Yeah. It’s a problem all over all over the country, obviously.

Gary Mohr:

Well, and, and, um, and, Oh, I’ll be anxious to hear Ken’s perspective on this. And I, I have, uh, a perspective, first of all, let me just say this staffing and retention was a significant, I think the most significant problem and challenge the systems before. COVID, you know, I, I did work in, in States and I just cited some, some things. Um, I went to North Carolina after five staff were murdered at the end of 2017, uh, when was asked to support their reform there, uh, and their state had a statewide average of 23% vacancy. Well, that’s somewhat misleading because some facilities were at eight or 9%. So you had some facilities on the extreme that, that, uh, that were really challenged to function at all. Uh, and that wasn’t, that was not, uh, specifically North Carolina. I went to another other state, um, where they had mortaring Ohio, um, that had parole officers standing security post and prisons are in an urban prison because their vacancy rate was 43%.

Gary Mohr:

You know, there was a Northern state that closed a high security prison in transferred high security inmates to an absolute Southern state in this country, because one high security prisons took more staff to supervise, uh, and they didn’t have the staff. And that was the first time in my 47 years of this work that I can never remember, uh, a prison moving inmates out of state because he didn’t have any staff. Um, so this, and this was all pre pre COVID. So COVID certainly, uh, you know, expanded, you know, the, that issue. But, um, let me just get to the point here. Um, there are a lot of things and I, and I do want to get into it. There are a lot of tangible things that I think need to be addressed, but the number one thing in my mind is the public image of our correctional staff.

Gary Mohr:

You know, um, I I’ve gone through in 47 years, tens of thousands of incident reports, not just in Ohio, but in other States that I’ve been in. And I want tell you that there is not another law enforcement group in this country that responds to more incidents that could result in loss of life than our correctional employees and our prisons and our jails, not there’s none. And yet I’m driving through North Carolina or I’m driving through any state. And I hear these advertisements about specials for first responders, car dealerships, all these, all these special offerings for first responders. And very seldom are our correctional staff included. I believe I’ve written, I’ve said it publicly in speeches. I’ll say here today. I believe if you look at the pay of our correctional staff, if you look at the vacancy rate of our correctional staff, if you look at the uncertainty, when they report to work, whether they’re going to be relieved to go home and see their family because of staff coming in.

Gary Mohr:

When you look at the incidents that they respond to more instance that could resolve my loss of life and anyone else, I believe they’re the greatest public servants of our time. And I know that’s controversial. And right now I thank God that we have recognized our nurses and our delivery people and our grocery workers and all of those folks that do such a great job for us, but left our correctional staff. And I think based on all those reasons, I consider them the greatest public servants of our time. And until the length that until our public starts recognizing and respecting what our correctional staff do, no one will, uh, aspire to be a correctional employ. I mean, they are critically looked down upon they’re looked at you know, often it’s the lowest rung in the ladder of our law enforcement professionals. That should not be the case.

Gary Mohr:

And I, I believe that the public sentiment has a lot to do with people aspiring to do this. And I, you know, I want to aspire to do that because we do not as a society in our country, respect our correctional staff the way they should. Uh, I think there’s some other tangible things that they quite frankly should be to think about this.

Gary Mohr:

Turnover. We know studies, and we still, I started to significantly in North Carolina when we were doing the reform, but it’s true. Everywhere. Turnover is highest in the first six months of employment. And that makes some sense, right?

Gary Mohr:

Sometimes people going into work and they said, man, this isn’t for me and to get out. And that makes sense. But those first new employees are coming into a system. They typically are the first ones to be called into overtime. They’re the first ones to be mandated either to come in to overtime or mandated, to stay another shift based on lack of seniority. So our new employees that are coming in are most adversely affected by the vacancy rates, which perpetuates this, this significant turnover, uh, that we’re saying, uh, in our systems. I think that’s a big issue. And I think some systems, I think this is another thing that should be studied more intensely is that some systems have gone to 10, 12 hour shifts to help, uh, combat they’ve done an analytical assessment and said, well, you know, we can get by with a few less staff, if we go to two shifts, 12 hour shifts or whatever, and we really have not studied the impact of that.

Gary Mohr:

And I can tell you, and, and you guys know, uh, the pressures responding to incidents, responding to those things. A 12 hour shift is a long time. And then even after 12 hours, in some cases, people are not relieved to go home. And, and that is most affecting those new employees with lack of seniority. So, um, I, I just really think that we need to be looking at, these 8 hour shifts. Uh, I think we need to be looking at, at some, some break for these new employees, um, so that they are not significantly and always, um, uh, maintained. And then finally, and I hope we get into this too. We’ve got too many people locked up in this country in prisons. And, um, and I know that COVID has had a significant reduction. I’m concerned about what’s going to happen post COVID, uh, with our prison populations, butI think the lack of staffing may actually continue to drive our population down because we’re not going to be able to staff our prisons. Um, and that’s also a need for your work in terms of technology, so we can reduce the manual task of counting and those kinds of things. But I, if any, I would love to lift up in the minds of anyone in the hearts of anyone that’s listening, uh, an element of respect for our correctional staff. I think that is foundational, uh, to our profession and foundational to, um, ensuring we have enough and the right people, uh, doing a very difficult job.

Ken McGinnis:

I think Gary is kind of interesting when you look back and you’ve been around as long as I have, you know, when I, when I hired on, they were only hiring people with advanced degrees, that’s how selective they were. And then when I came to Michigan and in, uh, in, in 90 a correctional officer had to have at least a year of college to be hired and people were fighting for these jobs up until the mid nineties. And then all of a sudden things have changed. And, and whether that’s because of change in salaries, benefits, competition, because of full employment, I do agree with you, the number one issue is solving this recruitment retention issue because it just, it puts, uh, everything at risk in a correctional environment.

Gary Mohr:

Can, can you, you kind of opened up a window for me a bit. Uh, I started July 1st, 1974,let’s go back to that time and think about the impact at that time. Ohio had 8,400 people incarcerated in its prisons 8,400. And I believe there were nine prisons at that time. Well, when I assumed my role as director, now, we were able to reduce the population. Some not nearly enough, but with 51,000 people in Ohio prison, we during my career, my life. And I don’t think I’m that old. I know other people do, but I don’t during my career, we went from 8,400 people in nine prisons to over 51,000.

Gary Mohr:

And, and so, so the demands of our correctional staff, and then, you know, the, the, the increase of wellness and treatment, et cetera, uh, the demands and Ohio’s population state population has not as only marginally increased in, in that, uh, 45 years, 47 years. So, and, and the, the crime rate has not increased. So our public response to behavior has, has shifted almost to a default prison culture. I hope, and I hope he’s digging out of that right now, Ken, I hope it is, you know, there’s enough emphasis. In fact, I’m doing a little work in the state of Michigan right now on some legislation that, uh, that, that hopefully, uh, we’ll do do a few things, but, but the point is that you can’t, you can’t increase anything over 500% in a state where the, the, the human beings that live in that state have not significantly increased without, I think, starting to create some challenges with staffing and, and, you know, Ken, uh, in the nineties, uh, Ohio’s start put up some metal buildings, right. Uh, and, and the late eighties and nineties that were temporary housing that are still, they’re still housing people because the growth was so great and expansion was so great in that time. Um, so I, you know, I think our response to criminal justice heavily relying on prisons as an anchor, uh, without any increased staff resources, um, have, have really kind of challenged this whole issue of making sure we have enough and right staff

Ken McGinnis:

Gary, you mentioned, you started to talk about COVID, I’ve asked this of several people, you know, during the last 12 to 14 months, you know, there’s been tremendous challenges, everybody in corrections, and, uh, a lot of, a lot of changes that have been made post to the criminal justice system, correctional practices, correctional facilities, as we come out of it. What kind of things do you think are going to sustain itself in last and, and become permanent?

Gary Mohr:

Well, I’m hoping, you know, I think the prison population, uh, has been most significantly impacted because I think a number of systems have just said, we’re not taking one from jails, and then the court dockets have slowed. So I think once that starts to ramp up, I hope that we still have some lingering effects of, of a reduced, uh, number of people coming to prisons. I don’t know that that’s going to be the case or not. I think it will, I think can, uh, as, as many things do, I think budgets will drive. I, I know that as budgets, state budgets shrink, it does force people to start thinking about how to spend money and prisons are expensive. You know, I was looking at the Washington state, uh, policy journal, and I think it was, it was 2017, I think. And they did a wonderful piece on, uh, programs, cost of correctional programs.

Gary Mohr:

And it looked at all different kinds of community programs and, and, and compared the cost and the rehabilitative value of those programs compared to incarceration. And, and what they fundamentally found as we know, is that community corrections was twice as effective at third, the cost of presence. Um, and I know and Ken, you know, as a former director, we’re both former tractors, um, prisons are not good for some people now prisons need to be in place, but for some people we do some damage. Uh, at least I did maybe Ohio, Ohio is the only one, but I did some damage, you know, think about this, Ken, the fastest growing group of people in our prisons in Ohio and in the country are women. And the women. If, if, and I can, I can talk in detail about the, the characteristics of women versus men in Ohio.

Gary Mohr:

Women had a higher rate according to, TCUs instrument on substance use had a higher rate of substance use at a higher rate, significantly high rate of mental illness and their offenses were significantly less violent. And yet that is our most not is that is a group of people that, that are the highest, the, the largest increasing group of people in prisons. So, um, I almost don’t even know where we started with this, but, but, um, you know, I, I’m hoping that we start, we start looking at science and research in what works with certain groups of people and that budgets ironically w may force us to make more selective, uh, decisions. And, and, um, I, and let me say one other thing here, when I’m connected to this, you know, our budgets are segregated, right?

Gary Mohr:

We have a state budget, we have County budgets, we have criminal justice within the state. We have criminal justice, we have mental health, we have all these separate budgets. And yet the people that we need to take care of the people at risk, or the people that are in the criminal justice system are often have the same characteristics. And yet we segregate our funding and then we segregate and separate the type of sanctions, jails prisons, or for the criminal justice folk or community corrections for criminal justice. And then those people, uh, these grandmas and, and like me and grandpa’s or parents that may have a child that they believe has an addiction issue. And they’re thinking, well, what do I do? Well, we’re spending money on the criminal justice folks over here. You know, we have another pool of money over here. I, I think we have to be think bigger.

Gary Mohr:

And my belief is we need to move the pool of money earlier in people’s lives, uh, to, to, to more effectively address this. And, and can, I don’t believe right now that we have the types of facilities and the types of sanctions and treatments, uh, holistic that are most responsive to that, because I think our individual budgets, we start separating those out and they then end up in separate types of facilities and treatment programs, et cetera. So I, I really think it’s time to rethink this and, uh, post COVID. I would hope would do that, although don’t go into Kenwood we’re so we’re so partisan, and even our state legislators that we have a tough time thinking, um, thinking thoughtfully and strategically and in private sector in your business, that’s what you’d be doing. You’d be thinking strategically. Uh, and, and I think it’s, I would love to see a real think tank rethink our responses to, to not just criminal justice, but addiction and people at risk that eventually, may fall into that. And to think about how we can best respond to them.

Ken McGinnis:

You, you opened up something that I was very interested in when you were during your tenure in Ohio, you spent a lot of time and resources, and we were involved in at least a part of it in trying to develop what the future of the facilities were going to look like. And, um, preparing for changes in and providing treatment programs, changing and restricted housing. Uh, could you talk a little bit about why that was important to you?

Gary Mohr:

Well, let’s, I love this and I can, I can tell you, I can remember the day, and I think we’re down at the orient complex there, pick away, and they’re like seem like a hundred people in the room. I think, and I slid into the back of the world. I slid into the back of the room when we’re talking about this and I, uh, uncharacteristically just listened for about an hour or so. And then I started thinking, I said, you know, we know this, we know that getting a GED reduces a person’s, reduces their risk to recidivate by over 20% and reduces their propensity for violence in prison by, by almost 20% then in EDLD Tessa was in our prisons, looking at every program and looking at violence reduction and reduction recidivism. So we know all these things, we know that substance use programs do this.

Gary Mohr:

We know that therapeutic, uh, types of programs do this. We know mental health, all of these things do this. And how do we operate a prison? Well, we count people eight times a day, right? And every time we count someone, you know, we come to a standstill and in reality, and, you know, I, I don’t mind saying this publicly because it’s, uh, it’s, it should be a calling for change. We tend to be positively engaged with the inmate population, maybe four and a half hours a day after you take meals and counts and everything. So, as we think about what we’re doing, if there’s a value in programming, if it demonstrates an evidentiary value there, if it reduces future crime victims in the community, if, if that’s true, when I believe it is, is that the evidence is there, then we should be designing facilities that maximizes that, that kind of engagement.

Gary Mohr:

And doesn’t just diminish it just because we’ve done counts that way for a hundred years. So, so I think that, and I also believe, uh, so I, I believe in the automated count system, you know, uh, but I believe in that a lot, I believe in, in having residential units and I, I did a study, uh, asked for a study, uh, to be done in Ohio, on recidivism by prison. Right. And, and, and we gathered people that, and we, we, we set standards like, well, the person that had to be spent at least 70% of their incarceration period of time in that prison. So we, we had all kinds of research, helped me with all these kind of factors, but we found out that the Allen correctional institution had the lowest recidivism rate of any, of any prison we had in Ohio. So, and it was a medium security prison, and it was built in the, the, the kind of new generation prisons. So what made a difference?

Gary Mohr:

Well, you know, I, I would be, I would be scorched if I went to a [inaudible] in a lecture to talk about this, that based on my lack of foundation, but what I know to be true is this, the Alvin correctional institution had the most specialized housing units for the longest periods of time. Almost everyone at that prison fit into a specialized housing unit, whether it be, uh, for substance use, whether it be for mentally ill, uh, whether it be we had,people that were struggling, uh, with, with below average IQ, we, we had specialty units. So what happened is not just they were together and not just that the program was delivered in the unit. And as you know, it kind of discussion continues after the program, but staff were assigned to that unit became focused and centered around that topic.

Gary Mohr:

And I believe that had a huge and significant impact on the quality of that prison, not just that the inmates were together, but the staff started to gather an interest in expertise, uh, and continued that kind of programming because they were all kind of housed together. So as you remember those discussions, I was very focused on cause specialized housing, even to the point that if we could dine in the housing units, that would be great. And that the time of staff engagement with their clients or, or inmates should be expanded and we should reduce the manual kinds of things like towns that disrupt that, um, I’ve lived. So, so, so you’re the believer in the research and you start to shift the direction based on that, or you’re anchored a hundred years of practice. And I believe that so much, and I still believe that this is a time, uh, to, to really rethink that. So, uh, I, you know, I, I, I guess can, uh, I do get pretty passionate about that because I don’t think, I don’t think our practitioners in your profession have collectively thought about this in a broader thought pattern than an individual prison. I mean, I just think it’s, I think it would be wonderful to, to engage an energetic team, to look at the future, because I think the future looks different than what we’re doing now,

Eli Gage:

Gary, I’m going back real quick to get the stand up desk working. Um, your, your thought about public image with the correctional officers and, and, you know, we have frontline workers in our facility management division that during COVID, we’re going into these facilities every day without, uh, never stopping. Um, so we feel kind of the same passion for that frontline worker that you do, but, um, this public image of our industry right now, whether it be the correctional officers themselves or the industry as a whole, um, without getting into all the various, um, the spotlights on our industry, you know, maybe even including privatization, where does that effort come from? Is that a job for ACA?

Gary Mohr:

Yeah, and it absolutely is. And I, I didn’t mention, uh, we launched an initiative with the Bureau of justice assistance. Uh, we received a grant to identify it was all around one soul around staff wellness, number one, as well as promoting our, uh, our staff as first responders. So ACA is in the process and they’ve gone around and identified what individual sites are doing, um, and, and publicizing that, and there will be actually a publication and coming out, uh, from that effort. But, but beyond that, uh, beyond that as a warden, you know, I should have been doing more of this, but you know, it’s getting out there starting churches and communities and talking about this. And, and as I said, in my ending speech as president of ACA, I challenged every correctional professional. Every time we hear, uh, our correction staff being, uh, kind of, uh, rejected as great public servants, and first responders, we need to stand up and respond to that.

Eli Gage:

We just don’t come to the defense, of corrections the way we should. And if we don’t do it as practitioners who know what’s going on, it’s not going to get done. Um, and I know this is a long-term issue to start to shift the image of corrections, but, uh, we got, we better do it somehow. And, um, you know, I was pretty disappointed. I wrote an article about our correctional staff being the greatest public servants of our time. Um, and I sent it widespread to media sources and I didn’t see, I saw a couple of minor, uh, articles. It was published in corrections today. Ut, uh, you know, I, I just, I think, I think we have to be the instruments of that change.

Gary Mohr:

Eli, you, you, you said that the word I, you know, we think sometimes our lives are long, right. You know, long life, et cetera, but we’re just here an extraordinarily short period of time, just as kind of a spec, so to speak. And if we don’t get up every day and focus on what’s important and be motivated to change where change is needed, if we don’t do that every day, then, then our life passes. And, and, and that’s why I think I’m, you know, in the, in the, you get 47 years and you know, how many more you usually have, but every day I get up and I think about pushing buttons, you know, I don’t write papers to, to have them accepted, Oh, that’s great stuff. I write things to challenge people and to start to get some debate and debate is what we needed.

Gary Mohr:

And I think it’s this, you know, this meeting, Ken that we had in, in Ohio, that I remember what, there’s a hundred people and me drifting into the end of the meeting. And I stood up and it was pretty dramatic, I think in my comments about how we need to really rethink things. Um, you know, we need more of that. And, uh, you know, I, I don’t, I would hope that in some small way, people that would listen to this podcast would think, you know, maybe this time for some sort of gathering that really can have some life expectancy beyond a gathering and really think through these, uh, issues. And, think about this, guys, it, from your perspective, States get money to do some capital work, right. And they’re all psyched and focused and everything, and it’s a small slice of pie.

Gary Mohr:

Those States don’t have the perspective that you have. I mean, it really don’t, and it’s not their fault. I mean, they, they they’ve lived their life here. Um, we really need to lift up just like we have in the research in terms of evidence-based programs in prisons, we need to lift up best practices, some of the European work that, that you have seen, and lift that up and, and pose that to systems to say, you know, maybe we need to think about doing some piloting of this, you know, when we continue to build, you know, Ken brought up the issue of restrictive housing, you know, we’ve set standards in ACA that talk about programming, that talk about step down to talk about all of these of things. Well, we need to follow that practice with a form that will support that. You know, we can’t talk about a psychologist having an interaction, a professional interaction with a person that’s in restrictive housing, if there is no place for them to talk.

Gary Mohr:

And, uh, and, and until we get there, then management needs to find ways to move them out. And let me just say this too, we build restrictive housing units, right? And if you’re signed to that unit, you’re in restrictive housing, that paradigm needs to change. So these paradigm shifts need to really take place. If in fact, we need to do this, and then we need to engage our staff and say, we’re not putting you at risk. We’re not putting you at risk.

Gary Mohr:

We’re actually reducing the risk of violence, based on what we’re doing here. And we’re going to demonstrate it based on evidence. So, um, man, I would love to, uh, you know, I would love this podcast to somehow be inclusive of a lot of folk and have a lot of interaction, uh, almost on an ongoing basis, Eli, to think about where does the best practices and evidence tell us we ought to be going? And, and this group would kind of chart a path to get there. And I’m not sure that that exists right now. Eli, I just don’t, I don’t know that it does. I know it does in isolated and individual elements like you guys. Um, but I don’t know that there’s a collective movement to talk about that

Eli Gage:

People seem to have their heads down in our industry right now, which is sad to me.

Gary Mohr:

Well, you know,when the governor changes and in your state, you don’t change doctors. I mean, your doctors, your professional that you go to that you consider to be the person that is most helpful to you, but you know, every four or eight years we change and, and the continuity is not to think of, you know, you think about, uh, uh, Gonzaga’s basketball team, 22 years with Mark phew at the head and how every year, they’re just a really good program that continuity and, and he doesn’t have to go out and recruit people, come to him. Well, we change. And, and the people that are appointed feel, they have to appease the person who appoints them.

Gary Mohr:

I guess correctional chiefs are not maybe viewed as professional as much as they are somewhat political and, and that, um, and then every time a new director comes in, there’s a feeling that you have to change something, right. A warden changes the color of a wall, right. That’s what happens in the prison directors change policy. Um, w so, so we, we don’t have that kind of continuity. And I don’t think we have fully embraced the, the Dr. [inaudible] The researchers that are saying, Hey, you ought to be doing, think about thinking about, I was just, I had to get this out because I find this fascinating

Gary Mohr:

Pepperdine did a great study. Pepperdine university did a great study on people that were returned for technical violations. And what they found was that the return to jail, the amount of time they spent in jail had no bearing, no bearing on whether or not they would go out and commit another offense. And they started to study it like from 90 days and then to 30 days to 50. So you can actually go from 90 days to 10 days, and it was no difference in behavior. So, so the Swift certain and fair philosophy started to take place. Well, there’s some pretty hard research to that effect. Uh, and yet it’s, it’s, you know, we’re not, we don’t seem to follow it. And, and, and I just saw a recent research piece in Ohio that matches that follows the national research has said that two people that commit similar offenses,

Gary Mohr:

One doesn’t have the resources so stays in jail until their court hearing. One has the resources to be released into the community. Those two people who commit the same offense, the person that’s coming from jail as a higher percentage of being convicted. And if convicted has a higher length of sentence than the person comes from the community, even though they’ve done the same things. And as long as that decision is based on money and not risk, it’s one of the most fundamental issues with human price I’ve seen and it’s expensive. And it just creates a now, listen, I believe we, we will always have prisons and need prisons. I believe it it’s a public safety issue. I think we have overused it. And I go back to what I said, it’s astounding to me. I would love to have someone explain to me how we can go from 8,400 to 51,000 without a significant increase in population without a significant increase in crime, and be happy about spending all of that money after a criminal event and not wanting to push those resources earlier in life so that we can perhaps save a life.

Gary Mohr:

And we didn’t even get into collateral consequences, but in many cases, even misdemeanors, in some cases, our life sentences, but with the ongoing collateral consequences that go on. So I don’t know, uh, um, it’s time for reform. Um, it truly is significantly the time for reform and maybe the budget issue coming out of COVID might be an impetus to, to look at that.

Eli Gage:

Let me ask Ken a question cause Ken, unlike probably you and I, Gary, although it sounds like you’re staying quite busy. Um, Ken goes all over the country doing this work, doing this great work that he does. Um, Ken, what do you feel like the appetite for as Gary calls it a paradigm shift? How do you feel that appetite is?

Ken McGinnis:

Well, I, I, I agree with Gary. I think the impetus for change in state government is usually budgetary. Um, you can talk philosophy all you want, but when it comes down to the bite and the bullet, I think dollars are going to drive change. And, um, you know, in the eighties and nineties, there was this huge movement to divert reduce recidivism. I mean, this is not a new, a new thing we’re talking about here. This has been going on since the eighties. And it was all because of budgetary restraints is people realized they couldn’t build their way out of the situation to the degree they’d done in the eighties because of the operating costs. And I think people are searching for solutions not only to the, to the social issue of use of prisons, but also to the budgetary impact of use of prisons. And I think, I think the opportunity exists right now to rethink what a prison is, um, to rethink, um, how they’re structured, how they’re built and how they’re operated, and then what the outcomes are. And I think as Gary has pointed out repeatedly, there’s a lot of data out there that says there’s effective ways of doing it different that we’re not utilizing. So I think there’s an opportunity right now to do that.

Eli Gage:

Might’ve been you, Gary, someone, someone told me that this year, or maybe it was last year that there are, and I could be wrong on this stat 26 new directors across the United States.

Gary Mohr:

Hat’s correct. And, and Eli, that’s a phenomenon that typically happens every eight years and there’ll be a spike in four years too. Uh, but yeah, there’s 26 new directors. Um, just, that’s the importance of CLA I think, uh, you know, as well to, to try to get them, uh, I think as much intelligence as possible, uh, collective intelligence from around the country. Um, but it’s, uh, yeah, that’s the way it is. It’s, um, putting a new stamp on things and yet, uh, it is so different than the continuity that we relish with people like our doctors.

Ken McGinnis:

Interesting. Gary, what issue we, we just touched on briefly. It was, which become to the forefront just recently, because it was presidential action is the issue of privatization. You, you have the unique background of working on both sides, and I just wonder what’s your feeling on that? I mean, I think there’s good and bad in everything we do, but, uh, this has become a hot button issue,

Gary Mohr:

This could go along a long time, but I’ll try to, to make my comments focused because there’s some very clear thoughts about this, um, private prisons, uh, when someone starts to talk about private prisons, it’s like, it’s a stereotype, quite frankly. Uh, I think they need to go to the agency listen, the agency is the organization that directs policy that directs the contract that monitors the behavior that has sets the expectations that deals with how inclusive they will be with that private partner. It’s it’s the agents. And, and I will just say, this can wait. You know, um, in Ohio, uh, in 1999, a law was passed that mandated that at least two Ohio prisons be privatized. Uh, when I became director in 2011, I was known as the private guy, right? I spent, I spent 38 years in the public sector, the private guy, but the reality, the reality was when I left, we only, still only had two private prisons.

Gary Mohr:

We didn’t have any more, but here’s the deal.I don’t believe there has to be an operational difference between a private and a public prison. I don’t believe that I believe it’s how it’s managed. I believe that if you put a full-time monitor in these prisons, in the right, the contract and the policies are exactly the same that you have the same time of a, the same type of aggressive internal monitoring every year, what a numerical score, uh, that’s more aggressive than the ACA audit process. And on the other side, if you are inclusive if the private wardens are every warden’s meeting, if you’re deputy wardens or an every deputy warden’s meeting, if you include them, so you can learn from them as well.

Gary Mohr:

Cause there are some lessons to be learned here, uh, particularly in some cases with employee incentives that the state doesn’t offer. Um, but if you can do that, I believe private facilities can operate as well as public facilities. And, and the data in Ohio demonstrates that when, at least when I was there the aggressive internal management data demonstrated that, that our private facilities are operating as well in some cases better than some public, uh, operated facilities. And that level of competition can be used to lift up the performance of everyone. The systems that fail are systems that have a contract that monitor, but maybe not monitor as much that don’t require the same policies that the state has. Um, and, and don’t include them in meetings to talk about why we’re doing things and be inclusive. Those systems, I think, tend to have private facilities that do not perform as well as their public facilities. But I think the focus is on the public agencies handling of those and not the private sector performance. I believe that, and, and I will always believe that in, based on my experience with that. And then finally, I did work literally with, uh, a private sector company, um, as, as, uh, the director of organizational development and staffing as small as a consultant. And I never had as much freedom in my life to create initiatives and best practices than I did when I was in the private sector.

Ken McGinnis:

Interesting.

Eli Gage:

Well, guys, I want to be respectful of your time, although I think this is definitely, um, got me thinking that, uh, part two may be in order with you, Gary.

Gary Mohr:

Well, all, I want me to just say this to you, like, so, so one of the thoughts we’re gonna do is what does Gary Mohr do next? And I do have, yeah, I get more correctional insight, LLC. I do some things and I’m working on some legislative things as well as working with some other folks, but what I’ve realized after this hour, I just want to travel around with Ken. That’s what I want to do in my future. So, so now I know what I want to do. So you kind of made my vision clearer iin the future. So, but I appreciate, it’s been, it’s been, uh, it’s been, uh, uh, fast paced and, and, uh, enjoyable hour.

Eli Gage:

Yeah. Well, I appreciate your time, Gary and Ken, thank you for your time as well. You know, Gary few, if you travel around with Ken, he sustains himself on a diet of a diet Cokes and Twinkies.

Gary Mohr:

So I saw the diet Coke. I didn’t see the guy behind there, but there are worse things can there. Absolutely. Are you in North Carolina still? Now? I I’m back in Ohio. Um, okay. We still live in Chillicothe most of the time, although we we’ve had a residence at sunset beach, North Carolina for about 18 years.

Eli Gage:

Well, good. I’m hoping that, uh, you’d be willing to come back to the summit.

Gary Mohr:

I think so. And so, uh, it, Eli has been great and I, I, I really appreciate it, Ken being on, uh, the line, I, I didn’t give him nearly enough time to, to chat, uh, but it was a pleasure being here in it and having kin, um, you know, once, once you’re in the seat of a director, it’s, it can be pretty lonely. And you remember those feelings after you leave and just being able to engage with another director is, um, uh, I think therapeutic, um, and it’s enjoyable. So, uh, I wish you guys well, and I, I respect you. I respect you personally, and your company a great deal, um, for your openness and, uh, focus on the customer and, uh, your thought about the future and what the future holds and how you can contribute to that. So, uh, I valued that a lot and, uh, I appreciate you asking me to be on today.

Eli Gage:

Well, we appreciate your time..

Eli Gage:

Well, having done several of these podcasts now, that was great stuff with Gary Mohr, and I particularly enjoyed the director to director conversation. So thanks everyone for listening to our podcast today, you can find this and other episodes on all the standard podcast platforms, Apple podcast, Google podcast, Stitcher, and Spotify, or you can visit us at cglcompanies.com/podcast. Uh, if you have suggestions for topics that you’d like to hear covered over the, over the next year, please reach out to us at podcastatcglcompanies.com. Thank you.