Arresting the Problem: Sheriff Daron Hall on Decriminalizing Mental Illness and Justice Reform

Mary Livers: Hello everybody and welcome to the 360 justice podcast. I’m your host, Mary Livers, and we’re really looking forward to speaking with today’s guest, Sheriff Daron Hall. Welcome Sheriff Hall.

Sheriff Daron Hall: Hello, Mary. How are you?

Mary Livers: I’m doing great. I just want to tell everybody that I’ve known our guests as a professional colleague in the field of corrections for way more years than we both want to admit.

And, just want to tell you just a little bit highlights about Sheriff Paul. He, he has been elected to his record breaking 6 term a sheriff in Nashville, which, of course, is Davidson County, Tennessee. He doesn’t look like it now, but he was the youngest sheriff to ever be elected there. And so the longest serving. Sheriff hall has over 35 years of criminal justice service.

He’s well known nationally as being both the president of the American Correctional Association. I believe it was number 101 and he also served as president of the National Sheriff’s Association. One of the projects that he initiated, designed and implemented in Davidson County has become very

well known nationally and rightly so it’s called the behavior care center. It’s a diversion program that decriminalizes mental illness and it’s just an outstanding program. It’s very visionary and we all know that way too many persons end up coming and staying in jails and prisons because of untreated.

Yeah undiagnosed mental illness. And so Sheriff Hall just saw that and just took it on. And we’re so proud of him for that. We have lots to talk about today. So Sheriff Hall, my 1st question for you is, what inspired you to go into law enforcement in the 1st place? And then what’s kept you going?

What’s kept you motivated to continue in this career?

Sheriff Daron Hall: Yeah. Well, thank you, Mary. I, I guess walked down memory lane there, just listening and many of those years I’ve shared with you.

So I was born and raised here in Nashville and when I was 16 years old I didn’t like school. I wasn’t very good in school. , but I read the book Helter Skelter at 16 and I didn’t read a lot. And, and I’ve often thought about this, that That book captivated me. I wanted to know what was on the next page and I wanted to go to the next thing and, and I’ve looked back many, many times and figured out really what was going on was I was in fear.

I was in fear of this man who I think stood 5 foot 2 who motivated young, innocent women really to go murder people. And, you know, as a 16 year old, I couldn’t have said the word I was scared or fear. I don’t believe, but as I grew into what the interest was, it was that book, I just kept flipping the pages.

And I think I know this is true today, but I think I wanted to know why did he do it? You know, why, why would you do that to people? And, you know, and again, I know that’s naive, but the truth was, I wanted to know why. And so once the book was finished, I was lucky enough to finish high school somehow. And I had a.

A very short athletic career, high schools and sports, and I had an opportunity to go play college football. And the weirdness of that situation was I didn’t deserve that either. I was just totally lucky they were there watching another player play and I had a fortunate bounce or 2 that night. And the next thing I know, I got

a letter in the mail saying, Hey, would you come to this school in Kentucky? And, and Cool and the Gang was actually going to perform. And I said, I’m going anywhere, cooling the gangs going. And so I didn’t even, my parents didn’t go to college. I didn’t have a history of knowing exactly what I was going to do.

And I wake up in the middle of this school, trying to play football. The first. Month, I was there and they’re saying, what is your major? And I said, what does that mean? I didn’t really have an interest in in academics and really didn’t like school. So here I was and so the bottom line was I was forced to decide what is it you want to study?

And the truth was, the only thing I could relate to was I wanted to read that book. I wanted to understand why this man or why this happened. So. I find myself , years later, as I had not only went through my undergraduate in criminology, I went back to graduate school so for this kid who didn’t want to be in school, I found the interest of why people do what they do and our title there was criminology. There’s criminal justice out there, but this was in the sociology department. So I got very interested in why,, and that’s really all I’ve ever cared about. I’ve looked back to the Helter Skelter and it’s really true today. And, and so that led me into the field.

And then I have worked in jails and prisons all of my life, nearly 40 years and, and. And if you want to know why people do what they do you know a jail is, is a garden full of, ideas and information. So I’ve had a very fortunate place to be , and been very lucky and , I think Mary, you and I know, and most people in this country know much more than we did, you know, 30, 40 years ago about it, but we all know that addiction and we all know that mental health are

major contributing factors to most crime. And so if we know why, I think it’s our task to try to figure out what to do about it. And that’s what I’ve been trying to do for 30 to 40 years.

Mary Livers: You’ve done a great job focusing on that. We know you stay motivated because it’s just been in the last five years, that you were able to get this behavior care center up and running. Really want to know more about that. Can you go into some of, the nuts and bolts? How does this program work? And how is it impacting the lives of people in your community? How is it making, Nashville safer?

Sheriff Daron Hall: I was the president of years ago. I think it was 2013 and during that time, as Mary knows, 1 of the things that you can do or sometimes are able to do is you go represent the. American Correctional Association and the International Conference.

And my wife and I were, in Belgium, first time I’d ever been to Europe and going this room full of folks wearing things like we’re wearing today that would help translate all the languages of all the major countries in the world. And I was excited. I was here I was going to get to represent the American Correctional Association, but also the United States of America.

I just still get, It feels good to say sometimes I never thought I could ever have done that. And so here, here I was in a room, some 100 people maybe, and we’re all from different countries and it was your turn to go around, introduce yourself. And so, sure enough, I practiced in the room before I got there.

I wanted to not mess up and. I said, my name is Daron Hall. I’m the president of the American Correctional Association. I’m representing the United States of America. And, that, that means a lot to me. It felt really cool to be able to say what I didn’t know was when I looked out and I said that I felt some pointing of fingers and I felt some grinning and almost giggling, if you will, at, at our country.

And the thing that I knew at that time in my life, and we all had heard many times, is that we over incarcerate, or we use incarceration more in our country than any other country in the world, and I had heard that, and I would assume, if you had asked me, I knew that going into the room. What I didn’t know was why.

I didn’t know where we’re different than other people. I worked in Australia for a year in a prison way back in the early 90s, and so I saw over there some similarities to our situations. But You know, in our country, the word race gets a lot of attention on disproportionate issues and it is real.

It is sometimes misunderstood. For example, today in Nashville, the percentage of people who get booked in our jail. 50 percent of the people will be white. 58 percent of people in Nashville are white. And so there’s a gap between that. And I’m not suggesting it’s right or wrong, but it’s 50 to 58%. And so here I’m in Belgium and I remember when people were kind of giggling and grinning at me and I’m standing up introducing myself and I’ve often said, it felt like my zipper was down.

I didn’t know what they knew about me that I didn’t know. And I thought, well, why are you laughing? You know?

Mary Livers: I hope you checked your zipper.

Sheriff Daron Hall: I did. And I do that quite often walking in nowadays. I thought that was an odd feeling that everybody knows something that I didn’t know. And after two or three days in this conference of people from all over the country, what I understood , and I believed to be the truth is it wasn’t about race. It wasn’t about some of the things that we talk about that we over incarcerate. And I’m talking about compared to their countries. The 1 thing that they would not do that we do is they would not put a naked man or woman who is singing to elephants flying over they would not put that person in jail. , so I’m standing in a room and after three or four days of this, and I didn’t ask that question, but what you learn and what I learned is that we use our incarceration in our country to do things that most other countries see a better avenue to solve.

And so I get on a plane, fly back home, it wasn’t overnight, and I really took a deep dive in 2013 to figure out , why are we so messed up in our country about mental health? And I learned that in the sixties we were going to de institutionalize the hospitals. In our country, and what I’ve learned is we never really did that.

We tore the hospitals down and we built jail and prison beds to replace them. And so that led me to one of, well, I don’t like that. Why in the world are people who don’t really understand what day it is and don’t understand to wear clothes, even going in a courtroom and pleading guilty to something that quite frankly, they don’t even understand the law rules and myself and yourself and corrections folks are, are I don’t know.

Housing people. Whereas in other countries, these individuals be receiving care that would help their mental health problem, not being in some form punished. So that’s a quick history to what led me to want to figure out what the heck are we doing, , and at that same time, 2013, 14, 15, I’m in need of rebuilding our downtown complex.

It was you know, been there for 30, 40 years. And, you know, So I was going to my legislative body asking for money to build what you and I would call our booking room or a downtown jail. And so what I did was I took the money that they allocated to build and replace the old building, nearly 200 million, and took that money instead of building a replacement the same way it had been built before.

I basically split the money and built a behavioral care center and a detention center on the same piece of property and it was my vision and my belief that if you brought me to jail and the reason I was brought here was some disorder that I was destabilized or unstable from medication or just treatment.

And I arrive in the booking room, but the reason I’m here, the likelihood that what I did was more of a mental health crisis than a criminal justice issue, then I would be immediately handed over to mental health in our behavioral care center. And then the mental health team, which was a contract we’ve contracted for, but the mental health folks would then take me stabilize me, get me prepared to move back into the community.

And so basically I’ve always said it was like a fork in the road that , when you arrive into the booking room, if it’s a mental health disorder more so than a criminal justice matter. You need to go where the mental health folks are. I love all of my judges. I think that’s what I’m supposed to say all the time in my community.

They’re good people. They’ve worked hard. They are elected by the people, but in fairness, most of them know nothing about mental health. In fairness, most judges are, you know, familiar with the law. But they don’t really know what’s appropriate treatment for a person who is schizophrenic or , severely depressed or, or whatever.

So, we are asking that system, the criminal justice system, to deal with a subject that very few of us know much about. And so, it was my belief that we could decriminalize it by handing the person, over to the mental health system upon arrival, instead of taking them into courtrooms and probation offices and all the things that I had been doing for 30 years the wrong way.

So we built a building I started a group of stakeholders and, you know, I always say around here, if you buy lunch, they’ll come back. And so I bought a bunch of lunches and I was trying to get the people to support what I was doing and the DA’s office, the public defender and so forth. And so, in working through that you know, COVID slowed us down on our opening and our rollout, but we opened, I think, Mother’s Day of 2020 and we’ve been running since then and you know, it’s 30 beds for women, 30 beds for men. The average length of stay is somewhere between 20 and 30 days. This is not a long term treatment. It’s a stabilization unit, gets you out of the criminal justice system. I do a lot of data crunching and about 76 percent of the people in that unit are on medication.

That is their choice, obviously, and it’s one of the recommended treatments. And so they leave our facility with three weeks of medication. It’s not in their pocket, but there’s a card. They can go to Walgreens or CVS and get the medications they need and we do follow up care in the community as well. so to be honest with you, I like decriminalizing that the case, because in that event that that individual arrives here, having been naked in the park, singing to elephants. Historically, they would be charged with indecent exposure, they would be given a court date, they would not appear in court, they’d be given a probation officer, they would not complete probation, and that collateral damage of that arrest was a big deal.

Now, when they arrive, they’re not taken to court, they’re not given a probation officer, they’re handed off to mental health, they’re stabilized for somewhere between 20 and 30 days. And then transition back into the community and they do not know the criminal justice system anything. They don’t have a court date.

Don’t have probation. Don’t have court costs that arrest never happened and therefore it shouldn’t hamper their ability to be successful in our community. So, it’s not the solution Mary for the crisis called mental health. We have a huge system and I believe, and maybe not in my lifetime, but it needs to be overhauled and built back to what we committed to in the 60s.

We were going to build a community mental health system. In the 60s, when we tore the hospitals down, but because of the Vietnam War, president after president and governors after governors have not had the vision to say, let’s go take money away from the corrections divisions and police and sheriff’s offices.

And let’s take that money and build what we need. So you can have a mental health system. Instead, we’re hiding it behind the walls of jails and prisons, and we all are the de facto institutions. So this is just a minor effort to try to improve our own operation. And I think we’ve been pretty successful at that.

Mary Livers: What a great job you’ve done and I know it takes a lot of effort meeting with all the entities, the judges, the D. A, the community, all the stakeholders and getting the buy in to do this was no small feat. And what I really like is, is, you know, we can’t control everything going on in the country, but you took what you could do locally to make a local impact.

And you’ve shown people the way to do this. And I’ve got some other questions for you related to the bigger picture of this crisis. But wow, what a great program. And it appears to be right on target for the issues that we’re all facing so, I’m hoping that other people are looking at what you’re doing and come in to talk to you about it. But 1 of the things I’m going to ask you about is you often are quoted of having a philosophy where you talk about focusing on arresting the problem and not the person. Can you explain to our listeners that philosophy and can you tell us how that philosophy has been adopted in your sheriff’s office and has really turned the culture?

Sheriff Daron Hall: Yeah, Mary, you know, one of the things that I find interesting is our country is kind of fixated on whodunit. That’s what movies are about. That’s what books are about. My wife loves CSI and shows that solve it in 45 minutes. But , all of those things basically are about who broke in the house and who may have committed murder or who may have stolen a car.

And there is something I think natural about people’s interest, curiosity and those kind of things but to me, the arrest of the person, although dangerous, it is a dangerous line of work. It’s not hard. I mean, people who used to be in the 80 percent range, murder is a crime of passion most of the time.

And there’s not that many people in the world passionate about me. So if I turn up dead, there’s a small circle of people that I believe , the police entities would go looking at and eventually be able to solve. You would, you would hope and you would assume, but crime is not difficult to figure out.

It’s dangerous. What’s hard and difficult is to arrest the problem. Once you hand me the person for breaking into your house, and we have to book that person and house that person, if we want to arrest the problem, the issue that led him or her to breaking into your house, that’s hard. That’s a heroin addiction for nineteen years, that’s you know, bipolar disorder, co occurring problems.

Getting you off of the drugs, getting the, the mental health stabilized, figuring out where you’re going to go from here, trying to get you reentering their community with a job and a, a better opportunity. When we all know people who have convictions aren’t the ideal candidates for a lot of employers.

So that finding a job is tough. Finding housing is tough, breaking the cycle of addiction is incredibly tough. So to me, our country is fixated on whodunit. And what I would like to see people move to is, okay, who is important, but why? And can we arrest the person and the problem and quit just arresting the person?

And I think what happens is, I can go on and on and on about this, but politicians love to fund the arresting the person. They, they fund more police officers and they’ll fund more guns which, which may be an important part of figuring out who done it, but very rarely do politicians want to fund the why do they want to fund what do we do to arrest the problem?

Once you bring me the body. And, and so , that’s just been to me. It’s a passion, but it’s also a purpose. I think we should be not warehousing people. I don’t want to be a part of a warehousing industry. I want to be a part of trying to take the individual who broke into your house and breaking the heroin addiction, hopefully trying to get the person prepared to move back into the neighborhood and have a legitimate purpose and a job.

And I think society doesn’t see it that way. They see the solution as the blue lights driving away with someone in handcuffs. They don’t understand that that’s the cheapest thing we’re going to do. Housing them is expensive. The process that we all have is expensive. And so we should want something out of that system instead of just housing people.

And I like to say that arresting the person is dangerous. Arresting the problem is difficult and I think it’s very important before we release the person back into the community and the country has moved in a better direction.

I mean, we couldn’t get people to agree addiction was a disease years ago. We couldn’t get people to really understand that you may need to be on medication for your mental health. Back in the early days, you couldn’t stay on medication and go get treatment because that meant you were addicted to the medication and what that was silly.

So I think, and I never used the word bipartisan, but I do believe mental health and addiction is much more understood today than when I got into this line of work and politically, whether it’s presidents or governors the mental health crisis is in every family. Everyone has someone who’s on medication that could easily slip off of that and find himself in a criminal justice system.

And so I hope we have a better belief that we need to be addressing all that as a country and not just arresting the person anymore. Try to fix the problem. I

Mary Livers: Very interesting perspective and I think you’re so right on. I mean you know, look at the root causes of some of this you know, looking into juvenile justice system in the same way, it’s poverty.

It’s lack of access to livable wages, housing, decent housing. I mean, it’s, it goes on and on, but I love the way that you frame that. That we tend to want to blame the person and not look at the bigger pictures that contribute to some of those bad decisions that people make. So yeah really, really interesting perspective.

And I’m sure that your vision how to approach this problem has helped your. Culture in the sheriff’s office to embrace more of these type of programs. So I just want to brag on you a little bit. I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention that. You’ve received some very important awards and I know how humble you are.

And you’re going to go. Oh, shucks. You don’t need to mention these, but I think. You should be recognized for the fact that you have received National Alliance of Mental Illness, Sam Cochran award and the vision of hope award for your work in Davidson County.

You’ve taken the world that you have some control over and done something about it. Of course, there’s the bigger world out there. And so I’d like to know, what do you think should be done at the national level to address some of these issues?

Sheriff Daron Hall: Yeah, you know, again, I, I was born in 64.

So about that same time I’ve told, I was in my mother’s belly when John F. Kennedy was killed and I’ve always been interested in some of the history. I don’t know why, but obviously prior to him being assassinated. He was the president that brought to the country the idea of let’s deinstitutionalize the mental health hospitals.

And what’s fascinating to me about that is the logic and the reasons that he brought that issue forward was that these hospitals, large institutions stigmatize people for being ill. Basically, this big building you would drive by, I had one in my own community that you’d drive by, and those people were, were as you would call it, sick, but they were mentally ill.

But the president and our country said that person’s being stigmatized in that huge institution called a hospital was not really conducive for quality treatment. So let’s tear these buildings down, destigmatize them, build a mental health system in my community and your community where if your sister, brother, loved one is fighting some disorder you or I could pack, you know, that person up and take them just like today.

If you go to the Walgreens clinic, you could go back then in the 60s to a local community mental health treatment facility. So what’s ironic is let’s roll the tape 60 years later. That promise to de stigmatize a mentally ill person. Guess what we do? We double stigmatize them. Now you’re mentally ill with a criminal record.

And the other thing that we said was that the institutions called hospitals were not the place to treat mental illness. What do we do now? We treat them in an environment that’s far more chaotic, a jail setting that’s built usually to stop El Chapo from getting out of it instead of trying to figure out how to get people in to help people who are ill.

So the promise of the sixties and maybe I caught up in the folklore of that time, but president Kennedy’s promise was we’re going to destigmatize it. And we’re going to build a community mental health system, and it’s going to break these institutions down and make it better 60 years later, none of that ever happened.

And in part, maybe because of his assassination. I don’t know that. , but most blame the Vietnam War for taking the money and the funding in the interest of our country. So every future president and governor and mayor, basically, the executives of our government around the country. Have started and did start to fund things like jail and prison beds because, you know, the naked man has to go somewhere.

And so in the 60s, you would have taken to the hospital because he needs help today. You go to the jail or the prison in any community in our country. And so I don’t agree with the defund the police argument. I think it’s a stupid argument just because it sets the tone that you’re doing something horribly wrong.

And I’m right. And in my own marriage, I don’t do well when I start off with an accusatory. Tone. If we’re trying to work to improve our marriage, I look of everything as a marriage, the marriage between policing and our community needs to start off on an even foot that the community is often calling the police to engage with mental health people.

And oftentimes if those events don’t go well, the police are blamed and there we go in the whole world of accusations today. I agree that the money that you give me, I have 110, 112 million budget. If I’m sitting on here today telling you that I don’t think 30 percent of the people in our jail system belong because they’re really ill, that would be better served in a mental health system, how in the world would I not be forced to give 30 million of the money back?

I mean, 30 being a percent of my overall budget. I mean, if you took 30 percent of the population, I don’t need 30 percent of the money that I’m getting today. And so, just like in Belgium when they were laughing at us, if you take that population out and move it into a mental health system, there’s nothing to laugh at.

We fall right in line with these other countries that really consider us over incarcerating. So if you deduct the population that’s mentally ill, you should also deduct the money that you’re giving me, but quit accusing the police and quit accusing the correction system of being at fault. And maybe we can have those conversations moving forward.

And it’s going to take, you know, a president, a governor’s, mayor’s, You know, I’ve, I’ve often said around here, I lied to get this done. I didn’t tell them I was going to build a behavioral care center. I said, I’m going to replace the building that you had. And I took that money instead of building a jail.

I took a large portion of that to build a detention center and booking room, but I took another chunk of that money and built a behavioral care center. But I. And I’ve told everybody it doesn’t need a sheriff lying. Our country doesn’t need to deny that really what you’re doing is housing the mental health population in a double stigmatized environment. We should be telling people, sheriffs especially, and the prison operators that these individuals don’t belong in jails and prisons.

They need care and help, and that’s not a soft approach. It is just a reality. But if you’re going to do that, I don’t need all the money that the taxpayers give me, because that population is, is gone, and it would be better served in a different environment. So, you know, the big picture is, Somebody in this job one of these days won’t have to lie about it.

Somebody in the mayor and the governor and the presidential executive offices are going to have to make some really tough decisions that sound controversial to take money out of the court system, to take money out of the policing system, to take money out of the correction system, move it to a repurposed fund called a community mental health system, and I don’t know that you need a ton more money.

I know that’s controversial. That’s a lot of money when you take all of that away and repurpose it for mental health. I’m not so sure how much more you need, which we’re spending a lot of money to house people, arrest people and take people to court systems that I don’t really believe need to be going through that system.

If you move that out and move the money, I don’t, I’m not an economist, but I’m not sure how much more you need to do it. You just need to repurpose the money.

Mary Livers: Well, I’m sure you weren’t under oath when you did that lying. And also I know that I know that mom hates that lie. But if you did lie, you’ve made it up right now by telling the truth of the matter.

I mean, everything you said is the truth. Controversial that it is. You’re right. But most people want to hang on to their kingdoms. They want to hang on to the whatever it is, even though it’s detrimental to the overall good of the whole system. And I just wish we had more leaders like you that thought that way.

do have another question for you and it is I know for a fact, because I’ve been to your facility. I’ve toured your facility. I know a lot of your staff and I know that you do a lot of great programming within the facility.

You have a lot of great programs that are addressing, making sure that people don’t repeat their offending. Could you share a success story or two about the programs that you’re doing for the general population inside your jail?

Sheriff Daron Hall: Yeah, well, my staff doesn’t like this when I say it, but it’s true. I have never said no. I have never said no to an idea about a program. What I always say is let’s talk about it and figure out how to do it. And I can tell you things that the general population didn’t know had a person approach me years ago and said, , Hey, we believe performing arts, you know, people acting and performing would, is really therapeutic and helpful for people to come to terms with their condition and so forth.

And actually Tim Robbins in , my favorite movie Shawshank redemption, Tim Robbins started a program out in California, come to find out back in the day . Where they would allow inmates to put on makeup like clown makeup almost and it allowed them to tell their story because they were able to hide a little bit behind this, this, this mask, if you will.

And so that led to some ideas. And this person came to me and said, what if we do some performing arts? And I, I thought they were talking about in the facility and that’s not super hard to do. . No, what they were wanting us to do is take them across town. A large segment of our population and let them work in the performing arts.

That that was being done in a, in a senior citizen center. So here we are, it was kind of crazy, but we took 120 inmates in the wee hours of 11, 1130 at night, I think, and buses across town. No one ever knew this. We went into the performing arts arena area, if you will. And, and, and they had written and worked on performing and doing things.

And it was, it was successful. It was hard to maintain because we couldn’t do it every week and all that, but it was A lot of people in here thought I was totally crazy. We saw some things that, that I thought were very helpful to the individuals get to kind of come out of their shell a little bit.

One thing that I’m super interested in, and I, I’ve always told people that a person going to jail is like me going to the mall. That if, if I go to the, I don’t shop by the way, I don’t like to do this, but if I walked into a mall, my memory of that is I’m going to buy some shoes. No. And so when I \ get to the mall and there’s all these different things going on in the mall, I end up buying a cookie and forgot to get the shoes.

I don’t even really know. I get overwhelmed with all the options. I get overwhelmed with what I’m here for. Going to jail with a All that’s going on with someone from the addiction to the family, breaking up with you to the, Oh my God, I lose my job. Or, Oh my God, my car’s parked in some street somewhere.

There’s so many things going on for a person that when they arrive at the front door of the booking room, there’s no way in the world. They understand what all is going on and they understand what their needs are. And they understand what’s helpful. But as that person detoxes and as that person settles into our environment, I’ve always thought there’s not one one trick pony here.

There’s not one thing that’s going to help, you know, everyone. So we try everything. One of my favorite things that we do is we allow songwriters, obviously Nashville is full of that, but this isn’t to make commercial music. What we’ve learned is especially men have a lot of trouble saying that and coming out and being honest with themselves and getting that out. You know, unfortunately the culture is in our country that you blame the police, blame the judge, blame everybody, blame the referee, blame the school teacher, blame your parents.

And so you ultimately never take responsibility. And so here we are. But what we have found is in the world of songwriting, what happens is writing lyrics, whether it’s rap or country or pop, I don’t really care. These are professional songwriters that help Mary tell her story, bring out of you what you’re trying to say.

You know, and, and what is, it is incredibly fascinating to watch how much easier that is for them to say. And it’s not easy emotionally. I’ve watched, Grown men just break down flopping the floor. I’m not kidding you over having to come, you know, that next lyric might be and she died or you know, and I’ve watched it happen.

And so the point of this whole thing is to get them to come to terms with some of their own decisions and how they got here instead of blaming everybody through the, the art of songwriting. Has become pretty pretty impressive here. We we have a lot of songwriters, but we’re trying to give them a place where they can come to terms with their own their own decisions. I’m really close to this character called jelly roll who’s all over the country right now He went to the same high school.

I did lived in my neighborhood. He’s younger than me he changed his life in one of our facilities. He tells a story a lot and his whole story about being incarcerated and coming to terms with his responsibilities in life. He was asleep in his, in his room and an officer knocked on the door and told him he had a daughter last night.

He got up the next morning and went and signed up for GED and started to think, I need to take responsibility, quit blaming everybody at ACA here in Nashville. He spoke to the group. One of the things he said, I wish we could just reprint and send everywhere. He said, I’m not a victim of this circumstance.

I’m a product of it. And there’s a difference, right? I mean, the victim is. Woe is me. It’s not my fault. And there are victims that are legitimately in need. I’m not arguing that, but the system isn’t doing it to you without your own involvement? And so he saw that as I need to get my education.

I need to find a way to be a responsible father. And so we, as I’ve always said, we don’t say no, because what might reach Mary may not reach Daron. I think it could be everything from getting you in, in, in some behavioral health program, or it could be a songwriter who comes and reaches you.

It could be, you know we do a lot of animal programming where you’re taking responsibility to feed and bathe and clean an animal, a puppy oftentimes Because you weren’t very good parent and you were strung out on every drug now that you’re sober to learn how to Be responsible.

We’re trying to show you that while you’re here And you know, I chased a magic pill back 20 years ago 25 years ago thinking about oh, there’s something we can find that’s gonna solve everybody’s crisis It’s not, I think it’s the mall. I think we need to provide everything we can and hopefully someone walks out of there with what is the link to keeping them on the right path.

I get asked to do some pretty wild and crazy things. And we’ve never said no. We figure out a way to see if we can provide the service years ago. One of the coolest things we’ve applied for a grant. I forgot the name of it, but the bottom line was the grant bought these babies

these are dolls, but they were, they were basically real weight, real life size, if you will, of these infants. And, what we did was we paired them up with these men who, Are very poor usually at this role. I was not good at it either, by the way, but I never had anyone teaching me. So the point was, we give these babies and they literally have all the responsibilities.

And if you don’t have it ready to eat, obviously, it’s a, it’s a mechanical device, but it scored you that you weren’t doing your responsible role and taking obviously the restroom breaks and feeding and sleeps and all that. But the point was someone came to us about doing that with, with mothers and I said, well, what about the fathers?

Why don’t we, why don’t we reach? Every population that we can and so we, you know, right now on Thursday nights, nobody knows this. This is kind of in the clothes of darkness. We take mothers and fathers out of the jail 3 to 5 people a week and male and female, and we dress you back in your street clothes.

We take you across town into a a community center where there’s no 1, but us. We bring your children there. We watch TV. We have homework. We learn how to eat around the table. We, We teach the mother and the father how to be, and I don’t mean both at the table and a mother or a father with their children.

And Mary, one of the things we’re watching is the kids performance in schools, improving, they’re, they’re having a sober relationship with these characters that we didn’t know that they quite frankly, don’t like a lot because they were not very healthy. Mothers and fathers now that they’re sober, we’re seeing that looking forward to seeing you next Thursday and we see The behavior of the man and woman who are incarcerated having something to lean and so, we don’t say, no, we try all sorts of alternatives and we have the largest licensed alcohol and drug treatment center in the state of Tennessee inside our facilities.

So clearly addiction is a big piece. But, but I’m, I’m convinced that it’s the mall and whether you’re, you walk in there and what’s going to help you, we don’t know, but we’re going to try to throw everything we can while you’re here and try to arrest the problem.

Mary Livers: And so that’s what I’m talking about, this innovation, your willingness to take some risks really.

To be able to do the best you can, because we never know. We really don’t know when a person will have that transformational experience. You don’t know. You don’t know whether it’s to be educational, a teacher that shows some care and concern for the individual or community. Or whether it’s opportunities like this to, we don’t know what’s going to flip that switch.

And it’s, it’s just great. I do, I do agree with you. You probably drive your staff absolutely crazy. Which is, which is a fun, a fun thing and a challenge. And then they learn from it as well. Right. Cause , they start to see it themselves. So, I mean, Again, it’s a healthy culture. I want to commend you on that.

So wish we had more leaders like you, Daron Hall. I was wondering you alluded to this earlier but you, you do have 35 years under your belt and you’ve seen, and I’ve seen a lot of major changes in how we do corrections, how we do jails Can you talk about some of those major changes and shifts that have, pushed us in a more positive direction in the field, can you talk about some of those major things that have influenced you to take this approach that you’re on?

Yeah,

Sheriff Daron Hall: you know, And, and for those of us kind of inside the, the forest, sometimes we don’t see the trees, but I, I look back and, and think about, you know, various things. Just say, no, just didn’t work. By the way, dare just didn’t work and I’m not blaming people. Those were efforts to bring attention to the, the, the situation.

I mean, three strikes are out, surely didn’t work. There’s all, I can remember a lot of different phenomena that were out there. This is a bizarre thought. I think the opioid crisis is The most significant I’m going to say crisis within getting us to understand and what, what I really mean by that is I, I, I know family, friends, people, even at work that when I got into this, if you talked about the drug problem and people who are on drugs and drug addicts and all of those things, the mental image of that is on the street, behind the dumpster, you know, whatever that is, and you may break into a building and get some food or something.

Today, the opioid thing moved into every neighborhood, into every house. And what that really means is, I’ve lost family and friends through overdose, there’s, I don’t know anyone who doesn’t have some circle of someone who is not, you know, and oftentimes it’s you know, getting your wisdom teeth cut out or a surgery on your knee and the doctor prescribed back in the day would prescribe a hundred pain pills for you to take in case it hurt.

And that wasn’t true in the 60s or 70s, where people saw heroin as a bunch of junkies who were in the streets. Nowadays, there are people at every socioeconomic status, every environment, and I think that helped the country go, wow, overdose deaths are a major problem. We haven’t solved it, but there have been a lot of efforts nationally to reduce doctors, you know, prescription overkill, literally, and all sorts of other things where.

You know, I don’t, I don’t care who it is, but if you pick the self righteous person in the world, they have it too. They have someone in their family who potentially could or has been involved. And so I think in a bizarre way, the opioid crisis is the most significant thing that’s happened in my time because it used to be easy to judge people and say, you know, that’s over there.

And nowadays it’s pretty universal, at the end of the day. I think our system that you and I have lived through the pendulum has swung in directions and, and, and I agree with you, the country has moved and we’ve moved. I’ll tell you something else that’s controversial though.

I’m a little worried about how far it’s moved in the positive direction. Here’s a great example. Bail reform. Okay. It, it may be the right thing. You shouldn’t be in jail because you’re poor. That’s all true. But here’s what I’m worried about. I see this happen in my system every day.

There are people who were arrested for urinating on the street. I’m just using this who are homeless, who are self-medicating. The mental health crisis. And so they’re arrested, they’re brought to jail, and I’m using them for that case, but, and then now the whole effort to, to get that person out of the system, which I agree with that, but to put them right back on the street with no services is, is redundant and it’s not really helpful to them.

And so what I see a lot is the swing of, okay, we don’t want to punish or punitively or, you know, take anyone’s rights away that they have. But if our, if our society is not going to help that individual in the streets. Maybe the best environment they could be in is a behavioral care center. Maybe the best environment they could be in is a drug and alcohol treatment center.

And, and, and unfortunately what I see happening is we’ve swung the pendulum so far that we don’t want to say that, wait a minute, oftentimes person who is mentally ill doesn’t know they even need help. And whereas doctors and families are begging for them to get help, the individual has to be the one to say that they need it.

And so I think we’ve swung so far at times, it makes me nervous that just making sure they don’t stay in jail is not the solution.

We haven’t helped the person at all. So let’s find a way to pick that person up off the streets and get them the help they need without it being a criminal justice issue.

Mary Livers: Yeah, I, you know, , there’s some movement out there to look at doing some case management programs that would follow these people and help them stay on their medications while they’re out.

Because we know that there’s a cycling problem, but that’s, that’s kind of the next step I think, in, in looking at how to help people that have benefited from your program. But then they’re out there, so how do we keep them, you know right.

Going in the right direction with services and anyway, there’s, there’s a lot of movement in that direction and we can talk about that some other time. But, I want to talk to you a little bit about some of the other messaging that you are able to do, you kind of the big dog in this, you

Sheriff Daron Hall: know,

Mary Livers: you’re the innovator in the field and you’ve run in a very successful program and you get that opportunity.

You get called by New York Times, you get called by CNN, you get called by probably a lot of big national media outlets. So I’m just wondering when you get that chance, Daron, to, to speak to that larger audience what is your message to those audience when you get that chance?

I know you don’t, they don’t give you a lot of time to talk. So how do you narrow that down?

Sheriff Daron Hall: Yeah, you know, that that’s really, I think that’s important and I’m not good at it. I like to have a conversation

but I go back to if all you’re interested in is arresting the person, leave me out of the conversation. And then someone will say, well, what do you mean by that? Well, the person is not the problem. It’s really not.

I mean, I know that sounds backwards, but how many times in my life you’ve dealt with this more than me, probably in the, in the juvenile world, but one of the things that always fascinates me, I hate to hear someone say is, well, I’ll tell you what, their parents, they need to, they need to be taking these people don’t have parents. They weren’t raised in a household like I was with the advantages of a mom and a dad balancing the rights and the wrongs. I mean, you don’t want the parents of these individuals telling them how to, you. To be, unfortunately, that person’s parents oftentimes doesn’t have the foundations.

And so that’s not an excuse to let the young person do what they were doing and ignore the behavior. But if you really want to do something, it’s way beyond the person that you’ve arrested. And I think society has got to get to that. And I, look, I despise a lot of the behavior of the people who are in my jail.

, I despise that I do, but I have hardly ever, ever met or come across bad people. I’ve come across thousands and thousands of people who’ve done bad things. And that’s different. The person may not have had the thing I had to make it.

I’m not excusing the behavior. I’m saying, okay, so when you go to jail and you go to prison, if all we’re going to do. It’s just how you, I don’t want to be a part of that. Like I started out with, Charles Manson was 5 foot 2.

I wanted to know why he would motivate young women typically to kill young people. People why and because I think I was scared of this little bitty man. I think I’m still afraid I’m afraid of what a person Can do if we don’t break that down and and and just arresting them, you know You know this arresting people who are in drugs and and the challenges there that doesn’t impact their life Very few people wake up tomorrow and go I’m gonna straighten up On their own.

Mary Livers: Yeah. I mean, we’ve heard over and over again, all over the years. We can arrest our way out of this problem. We can’t build our way out of this problem. we can’t punish our way out of this problem. So, it’s, it’s not, as simple as, as that. So, you know, if it was, we wouldn’t have prisons overflowing right now.

Sheriff Daron Hall: Right.

Mary Livers: Right. So obviously from our conversation, I mean, if our listeners haven’t figured out that you’re not a status quo guy, they just haven’t been listening hard enough. And I just like to know, how do you keep current with ideas and information how do you keep the ideas flowing and, how do you keep your organization open to innovation and be in the forefront of innovative ideas?

Sheriff Daron Hall: You know, I don’t I don’t know if I’m good at that or not. I don’t what I what I say is I try very hard when we get involved far

Mary Livers: too far too humble. My man far too humble.

Sheriff Daron Hall: Well, like I said, I mean, I’ll be honest with you the last 3 years. Our crisis has been staffing. In jails and in our system, and so I dove off into that issue three years ago and put every, thought and every energy that I could, and I think we’ve tackled a lot of it.

I feel really good about where we are today in that crisis, and all I’m saying is, I think I’m pretty good at getting myself and some of the folks around me focused on if it was mental health or if it’s a, and so I’m probably not, a super good, Compartmentalization person, you know, I kind of get way deep into something that I think is a priority and in an agency this size, we have 1200 employees.

I love them all. And I say this a lot kind of quietly, but another motto I’ve always said is, , the Davidson County Sheriff’s Office where the inmates aren’t the problem because, as you know, managing staff, hiring staff, dealing with staff is a large part of this responsibility and finding the right staff who, philosophically line up with what we’re trying to do.

I tell them the very first day, you know, if you’re here to punish people or take out your needs to feel bigger and better than people, then, then we will fire you and we will prosecute you. That’s the way I feel about it. And now, if you want to help and be a part of a system, I support the officers who have the toughest job in America.

If you ask me and I support what they do, but you’re not going to come here and take out your mental authority over people, but that’s just unacceptable. And so, so we work really hard. I think it’s setting a tone of what we’re here to try to do. And if you want to, you know, start here as a correctional officer, every job we have, which are a lot, we offer to them first.

And so the correctional officer who came to work today who wants to go to law school, we’ve had plenty of these, becomes a lawyer and stays here in our legal division. We’ve got other people who’ve gone on. I mean I’ll never forget one time I had this crazy idea that we want to do this animal programming where we’re going to have these puppies and la da da da.

And so. The credentials to do that we wanted you to have, and I’m going to make it up, but it’s some certificates of the American Kennel Association gives you some, well, heck, I didn’t think there was a chance in the world. Anyone here had those skills. We posted a job. There’s 3 people here who already had those credentials.

And so so my point is, when you come here to work, we want you to stay and find your avenue of what you want to do to participate. And I just You know, and, and I think everybody here may not agree with me, but they do know what our philosophy is. I think we, we do a pretty good job of communicating that to them.

And it’s a, you know, it’s the most important thing you do is to recruit, train and retain. And that, that’s the three things I try to focus on, get the right person, train them the right way and give them best tools and work your tail off to keep them. And we, we try hard at doing

Mary Livers: that. Yeah, great. And I know staffing has really been an issue everywhere.

So, if you’re making some strides there congratulations to you. It sounds sounds like you’re moving in positive direction. You know, there’s lots of up and coming correctional leaders out there that are looking for. Personal role models and people that like yourself and leadership roles. What would you say to them that would encourage them? What would their first step be to start thinking broader and start thinking about how they can impact their sphere of influence?

Sheriff Daron Hall: Yeah, I had a mentor, 30 years ago and he was a super good man and he, he told me that, , if you could hire a person and measure their ability to be flexible and what he really meant back then was, you know, today it’s we’re overcrowding the female population and tomorrow it’s males.

And now we need to do more programming or less, you know, use of force. And I, I guess what I’m trying to say is I have watched people get eaten up by All of those challenges are coming at you , as a leader and you don’t have to have all the answers, but, but I do think you set the tone as a sergeant or a lieutenant or a program director or a manager, you know, you set the tone for how we’re going to solve this problem.

And I I think it’s a really an important trait to have is a calming influence in what we all know is almost constant chaos. . And so I think that person who’s wanting to lead. I think it’s important to be calm, be flexible in your mind and make those decisions.

I’ve watched a lot of people feel like they had to answer really quickly, even if it was the wrong answer. They had to scream loud so everybody would, would listen to you. And I used to say people who force you to try to respect them, we’re never going to be respected and you just need to let it come to you.

And Mary, I failed in that. I mean, I was 20 something years old and in a job and thought if I could make sure that you came to work on time, I was being a boss. Well, that didn’t mean anything. And so I haven’t done it right either, and I’ve looked back and , tried to figure out what, what is the most effective thing and there is some calmness to it, I think, and, and trying to be yourself sounds corny, but a lot of people want to be something when they’re in these elevated positions, and I think it’s not well received.

And I was guilty as well. I look back and I wanted people to respect me so badly. And that’s not important. Looking back, it could have or would have happened if I just let it happen organically.

Instead, I was trying to force it. And And I’ve shared that with young people in my organization. You know, we don’t have great books to read on how to be leaders. There’s a lot of books. I don’t necessarily buy all that. It is a natural instinct that you develop into how, you know, what works for you may not work for me, but on the other hand, people gravitate towards certain people in this country and in this organization.

You know, I’ve always said this. I mean, Michael Jordan is the best basketball player I’ve ever seen. But he was a horrible coach. I mean, he tried to coach. He tried to do all that. He probably had too high expectations to be in that role. And what we’ve done wrong and corrections in my organization. I’ve seen it around the country is. The best officer is not necessarily going to be the best sergeant, the leaders aren’t necessarily the best at doing what you’re doing.

It may be that people who are what I consider to be more well rounded, more holistic about what we’re trying to accomplish versus who gets to work on time. And by God, let’s get our reports done on time and bang and bang and bang. I don’t know how good that is long term as a leader.

Mary Livers: All good things to think about and I’m glad you brought those points up because we probably all been there. You know, I started off young too, and I probably made a lot a lot of really ignorant mistakes. I’m sure I did. I may still be making them. But anyway, , thank you for your thoughts.

And, you know, I could. Sit here and talk with you all day long, but they’re not going to let me do that. So it’s, it’s, it’s time for us to wrap this up. So I want to start the wrap up with saying how much I appreciate you being part of this and being so open and direct with your answers. And it’s been very insightful and helpful.

And I just want to thank you for your time. Cause I know just as some of the examples you gave of what’s going on today. You have a busy life and a lot of issues. So thank you very much. And thank you everyone for listening to the podcast today. You can find this and other episodes on the standard podcast platforms like Apple, Spotify and Amazon.

You can also visit us at cglcompanies. com backslash podcast and if you have any suggestions for topics that you’d like to hear covered this season, or you’re interested in being a featured guest on the 360 podcast. Just as podcast, please email us at podcast at CGL companies dot com. So Daron, it’s been a pleasure.

Sheriff Daron Hall: Thank you so much. And I’ll look forward to seeing you in Orlando. I hope for our next conference. This feels like old times to me. I enjoyed it, Mary. And you make it easy and I I respect you immensely and you know that. So happy to be here. Look forward to seeing you and I appreciate the opportunity to get the word out.