Washblog

It's likely that the sentencing structure adopted under Washington's 1984 Sentencing Reform Act (SRA) has helped to keep Washington's incarceration rate lower than the national average. A 2005 Vera Institute of Justice report found that states like Washington that use a combination of 'presumptive' (mandatory) sentencing guidelines, and 'determinate' guidelines for release (no more parole) held down their prison populations relative to other states. (8)  The increase in our incarceration rate, at a time of falling crime rates,  appears to be attributable to increases in sentencing harshness in the course of approximately 200 amendments to the SRA since its enactment. (10)

Washington's legislature has not been immune from the tough-on-crime political pressure that has driven our current prison boom, even over a decade of falling crime rates. But it's also given evidence a place at the policy table.  Since at least the early 1990s, Washington State Institute for Public Policy (WSIPP) has conducted research on criminal justice issues at legislative request, building a knowledge base and allowing for the state policy community to increase its collective experience in applying evidence to policy.

This practice is likely to have helped us maintain our more favorable crime-to-incarceration ratio. And it led to one of WSIPP's key findings and positioned us to better implement it: by employing more effective rehabilitative and re-entry methods we can expect to hold down both incarceration and crime rates, reducing the need for additional prison construction and saving about $2 billion over the next 20 years. (11)

The Department of Corrections Secretary is a member of the Governor's Cabinet and also serves as a Commissioner on the state Sentencing Guidelines Commission. As such, the policy influence of this position extends beyond the operations of the prison system itself to the policy arena. DOC's Secretaries have been an independent bunch, willing to take flak for resisting political fads.

Beginning in 1981, when DOC Secretary Amos Reed criticized Ronald Reagan's $2 billion prison-building spree with comments reported in the New York Times that, no matter how many prisons we build, crime will continue to arise from the "economic, social, legal, psychological and class conditions" that breed it, (16) DOC secretaries have spoken out against the unthinking race to incarcerate and the politicization of crime.  In 1992, a few years before he became DOC Secretary, Joe Lehman co-founded the Campaign for an Effective Crime Policy, which tried to get political candidates to pledge to engage in "a rational debate on crime and punishment".  (17) Chase Riveland, Secretary from 1986 to 1997, spoke out against the state's 1993 Three Strikes initiative, unthinking get-tough policies, and on behalf of investment in treatment and education. (18)

In attempting to hold their own, DOC leaders have weathered intense political pressure.  A 60 Minutes segment on a deadly shooting spree committed by a state parolee included an interview with Secretary Joe Lehman which has been used nation-wide in a training video to help prepare corrections officers for the political heat they can expect to face.  (19) More recently, in response to a media storm over the early release of dozens of people from county jails and the deaths of three law enforcement officers caused by people on community release, challenger Dino Rossi has made  Governor Gregoire's handling of the state's prisons a major campaign theme. (20)The political heat directed at DOC in an election year was thought by some to be a factor in the resignation earlier this year of DOC Secretary, Harold Clarke.

Eldon Vail was appointed by Governor Gregoire in January of this year.  His mandate, as described in the press release announcing his appointment, is to increase public safety and the accountability of the department through "improvements behind bars and in the community, including new prison construction, safety of inmates and employees, and a major re-entry initiative providing housing, drug treatment, supervision, and other support to people re-entering the community from prison."

Vail began his career as a youth counselor in DOC in 1974. He served in the position of Deputy Secretary for Operations from 1999 to 2006 and, most recently, was acting Secretary after Harold Clarke's departure.  In the tradition of "enlightened" corrections, Vail was instrumental in founding the Residential Parenting Program at Washington Corrections Center for Women (WCCW) in Purdy which allows women with sentences of three years or less who give birth while incarcerated to keep their babies with them.

Recent DOC decisions may also reflect Vail's pro-family orientation -- as well as research showing that stronger family connections reduce recidivism. After the failure of a 2008 bill to limit the transfer of incarcerated parents of young children to private out-of-state facilities, DOC announced an intention to bring all incarcerated Washingtonians home.  Vail comments on that decision in this interview. This past session, after Governor Gregoire vetoed a proviso that would have established a Family Advisory Committee within the Department of Corrections, Vail responded to Nicole Brummitt, a family member who contacted DOC on the issue, that although he was not sure the proviso survived in the budget, the agency planned to put together such a group anyway. "It is important," Vail wrote to Brummitt, "that those of us who work in the agency listen and attempt to understand the impact our agency's operation has on the lives of others."  

Vail's thirty-year tenure with Washington DOC spans critical years for criminal justice.  When he began with DOC in the 1970s, an underlying assumption was that the goal of corrections was rehabilitation.  We now appear to be headed back to a new understanding of rehabilitation after having largely abandoned it for harsh sentencing in the 1980s and 90s. Curious to get Vail's take on these trends, I requested an interview.  We spoke in April at DOC's new headquarters in Tumwater.

Noemie Maxwell
I recently spoke with someone who said that her time in prison was the first time in her adult life where she was free of drug abuse and where she had a paid job. She talked about the kindness of some of the corrections officers, including her counselor who helped her find her job in the prison, and the corrections officers who cheered her on on the day of her release. I'm coming to this interview with concerns about how people are treated in Washington prisons. But I've also come to see a lot more complexity in what DOC is about.

Eldon Vail
We're lots of things to lots of people.   There's compassion at all levels.  Corrections officers can be some of the most compassionate.  We deal in confinement and that's not a natural state.  It's critical how we exercise our authority.  

NM
I have to say that I'm in something like a state of awe as it's dawned on me  -- when people go to prison, the government has absolute power over their bodies.  

EV
We do indeed have power over the body and that is an extraordinary responsibility.  Security is based on the inmate's perception of our legitimate exercise of that authority and responsibility.  That is particularly important in Washington State where we've moved from the model of the old style cell house, with layers of stacked cells to a podular design for the medium security living areas.  The newer prisons like McNeil, Stafford Creek, and Airway utilize this design.

In our medium security units, there's a podium here - one or two - Vail sketches a diagram of cells arranged in a podular design around a common area.  Somewhere around 125 people might live in this pod with one or two officers present at any one time. The staff isn't closed away in an inaccessible office they're among the prisoners.  

With this design, the reality, on a tactical level, is that you have one or two officers for sometimes as many as 125 people.  The exercise of voice authority is critical.  If a officer is abusing his or her authority, it won't last long.  We'll hear about it.  There's a philosophy behind this, that people in prison are the same as you and I in some ways: 'but for the grace of God go I'.  In this environment there's the potential for all kinds of good -- and bad things happening among people: sex, violence, theft. But the officers exercise their responsibility legitimately. If they don't the inmates will let us know.  It's a relatively soft system.  Chase Riveland initially chose this design.  Twenty years later, some people question if he knew what he was doing at the time - that this physical design would result in a more humane prison system - one based on the legitimate exercise of verbal authority.  I personally believe he did know what he was doing.

NM
This design is only for people housed in the medium and low security facilities, right?  That wouldn't be the case for people in higher levels of security?  (DOC's monthly statistical brochure for the month of March, 2008 indicates that approximately 45% of Washington's prison population is in medium security.  Another 30% is in minimum security.)

EV
That would be for the medium security.  Minimum security prisoners are housed in stick built buildings. There is no direct line of sight by staff for this group of inmates.  These are the individuals getting near the end of their sentences. The assumption is that privacy is good for people as they need to practice their internal controls out of the sight of staff before they get out of prison.

NM
I recently read an article on changes in the field of corrections over the past fifty years. (29) I was surprised to see that rehabilitation has been the main goal of incarceration since the rise of modern corrections.  It was also surprising to me that we operated most of our history under a "slaves of the state" theory for incarcerated people -- that it wasn't until court decisions in the 1960s that prisoners were seen to have civil rights.

The article indicates that there was really only a narrow window of time where incarcerated people were seen to have rights -- and rehabilitation was the main goal of corrections.  Starting in the 70s there was a stepping back from rights established by the courts in the 60s -- and at the same time this retreat from rehabilitation because it didn't seem to work.  Sentences got harsher and we saw the rise of Willie Horton politics.  So this piece was published in 1999 -- just as research began to really show that the rehabilitation approach does work, after all -- if you do it right.  Your career with the Department of Corrections spans the last 30 years -- as the liberal era was ending. Now we're coming back to saying let's try rehabilitation again.  I've been interested to hear what you think about the changes we've come through and where we might be headed.  

EV
People often refer to a 'pendulum' in corrections that swings between rehabilitation and a more punitive approach. I question this. I'm reading a book by two mid- to higher level parole officers in the 1960s and 1970s. (The Quiet Service II by Bob Kastama and John Pridieux.) There was a helping philosophy behind their training, their approach. But, in a scientific sense, they didn't know what they were doing. They were operating on intuition and good intention. The intention was helpful but the results were sometimes disappointing.  

The emerging meta-analysis today applies an economic model.  It asks, what is the wise investment. We've moving toward a rehabilitative approach again not because we're going back to what we used to do -- the generic 1960s "touchie-feelie" values which were more intuitive, which felt good and had noble intention -- but because we have a much better understanding of what works - what is the cost effective investment. I see this not so much a pendulum swing -- but a progression.

NM
What do you see as the some of the most promising research?

EV
I'm a victim of the science.  I don't have opinions.  I follow what the experts are saying.  Latessa gave a presentation at the last Sentencing Guidelines Commission meeting.  13 Did you see it?

NM
Yes, it's online.  I found it fascinating.

EV
If you believe this research, dealing with the anti-authority beliefs and attitudes is key. If we go after the cognitive programs we get the most bang for the buck. This is where we get to impact recidivism.

NM
Do you see this research as new to Washington corrections -- or something that's been informing programs for a while?

EV
It's been emerging for years. We've been asking, how can we implement, systematically, programs that get the best results.  We had been using a product called Moral Reconation Therapy (MRT). The agency invested in it -- we developed expertise with it over years of training and use.  Then we drifted away and began using other products too.  A couple of months ago we had a meeting of the minds - and oriented toward using MRT again system wide, where we already have history and investment.  

NM
What is the funding situation for these programs? There was a recent appropriation for $25 million in re-entry dollars. Is that enough?   What I seem to hear is that there's all this recognized need, but we spend all this money on building new prisons, and there's never enough for the things that help incarcerated people and lower crime.

EV
The question is how far are we penetrating the need?  And how do we get that metric?

We look at the interventions that we know work - cognitive, family, education, vocational education, chemical dependency treatment -- and we look at where we have developed the most institutional expertise.  Historically, Washington has been better at education and chemical dependency treatment.  We have done some good vocational education but we are now focused on providing job training that leads to employment upon release.  We've also  expanded beyond the kinds of correctional industries jobs that don't necessarily translate to jobs in the outside world -- like making license plates -- to real-world job and skills training.  We've become pretty sophisticated here because this is what we historically have focused on.  Now, we're trying to roll out family programs that are less institutionalized.

Until recently, we'd take any program focusing on family connections: reading to children, Father's Day celebrations, etc..  Now we're backing up and we're systematically looking at what programs have been shown to work and whether we can use them, are they new for us, or old. What experience do we already have with them. This is a more sophisticated approach.  

NM
On the subject of family programs, I've been hearing that people would like a loosening of some of the rules restricting family visits. People who have been incarcerated previously are restricted from visits with currently incarcerated family members.  I talked with a mother who said that her child never gets to be with both her parents at the same time.  And there's the rule that a couple who gets married after one of them is incarcerated isn't permitted extended family visits.  I heard that this rule was instituted about 15 years ago

EV
In 1996-1997, an offender stabbed his wife during an extended family visit. It was unfortunate. And it was two weeks before the legislative session began  We almost lost the program but we tightened the rules at that time and we have not relaxed them much since.  We have no current plans to change the rules of the extended family visit program but I know there is some interest in the advocate community for us to do so.  

NM
I was interested at the recent Sentencing Guideline Commission hearing, during the discussion of evidence on practice -- there was a sense that DOC's policies are based not only by what works -- but also by litigation and the political environment and other factors.  You mentioned litigation.  Someone else said something like, we might know what works, but we're still operating on the "just desserts" theory. There was discussion at several points on the question of -- how do we get the information out to the public. I am seeing that if you implement a program that research and experience shows is the best choice at the time, you can still be held to blame when the inevitable happens and someone screws up.

EV
If we can show that these interventions work to reduce recidivism, if we can show that they remove the need for prison beds from the capital program, then the legislature can build schools instead of prisons with those dollars and, we will get their continued support. We believe in this stuff. We are administering it.

NM
The impact of incarceration on children is becoming clearer. Children of incarcerated parents are more likely to be incarcerated themselves. So if you are putting more people behind bars than the number that's really going to reduce crime, there's a price to pay.

EV
It's amazing in this line of work to think about the impact on loved ones. How many people are touched by our nation's incarceration boom? It's not like we have just 18,000 people we're affecting (our current prison population).  We turn those inmates over pretty fast and most of them have friends and loved ones.  Not to mention the number that are on community supervision.  Our systems touches tens of thousands. Chase Riveland said that at the rate we're going, by the year 2050 we're all either going to be in prison or we're going to be working in one.  He said it tongue in cheek but there is some truth in his statement.  

NM
It was very much appreciated by families that you made the decision to bring people home from private, out-of-state prisons. (30)Obviously, this makes a huge difference for family members, including young children.

EV
It has to be understood that we can bring people home only as we get new beds opened. I strongly believe that when the number of people locked up does not match the number of people we can accommodate safely in the number of cells that have been built for them -- at that point it gets dangerous for the prisoners and for the correctional officers - it gets dangerous for all of us. The answer is not to crowd a third or fourth person into the existing cells. The spike in violence, there is always that aberrant spike in violence that is immediately visible when you do that. There is a cost to take people to other states but it's a matter of how many people we can safely house in this state. This is what's interesting and challenging about corrections. Legislative, political, and societal decisions get made. We at DOC own them and even though we don't make the larger policy decisions we are left to administer the results.

NM
It's been an eye-opener to me also as the incarcerated population grows, industries are growing with it and they do what they can to defend their profits.  There's a story on Washblog that links to the Securities and Exchange form for Corrections Corp of America -- the company that owns the out-of-state prisons where Washington sends people.  It says that increased demand for their beds from various states including Washington are bringing them millions in profit.  When you look more into the financial reports for this company, you see them talking about how they lobby legislatures to encourage a political environment that's friendly to their profit goals.

EV
I'm on the record questioning the wisdom of private prisons. We don't want to get to the point where the profit motive is influencing sentencing policy. But I've not seen evidence of  that kind of (industry lobbying) at hearings in Washington. In general, we've got thoughtful legislators in this state. If we can continue to build, if we can hire the staff, if the money is available, we can keep people here. The forecast council projections guide our prison planning efforts. There is always tension around how the decision is finally made to deal with expanding population.

NM
This is the policy issue that DOC is in the middle of now, that the legislature has directed the Sentencing Guidelines Commission to address and WSIPP to study -- how do we reduce prison construction -- keep both the incarceration rate -- and the crime rate -- down.

EV
This is the big deal, that we are aligning on as best as we can. What should community supervision look like?  In the coming changes, the SCG will continue to struggle with these questions.  Sex offender issues are among the most difficult.

NM
I was really surprised to learn at the SGC meeting that there's a low recidivism rate for sex offenders.  It's property crimes that have the high rate of re-offense.  I had thought the exact opposite.

EV
We are continuing to learn. What makes sense? GPS monitoring? Based on research -- much of it from Canada, we're beginning to get new assessment a tools that allow us to assess imminent risk for sex offenders. Housing for sex offenders issues are a huge challenge for community supervision.

NM
I was interested to hear what the parole officer said at the Sentencing Guidelines Commission meeting -- that she sees housing, in general, as the main re-entry issue.  Do you have a legislative wish list?

EV
I'd ask first that the legislature fund our base to keep up with the inflation for our fixed costs. We have major budget issues. The legislature gave the DOC transfer authority of $15 million - to reach into next year's funds to pay for this year's costs. This might suggest that something is wrong with this year's budget.  We plan to increase transparency of our agency budget so that others understand what we are up against.  The rise in fuel, food and medical costs have a huge impact on our department.

What Senator Hargrove said at my confirmation hearing I thought was wise. He said, 'leave him alone. Give him time to do the things that are already planned.' For example, get chemical dependency services in the right places, get the family programs up and running, etc.  If we do that, perhaps funding in the future will expand to meet the unmet needs. The legislature knows the extent of the need.

NM
I felt a sense of excitement almost at the SGC meeting -- change in the air. Rehabilitation has gotten this bad rap over the years.  Now we're finding if we choose the right methods and programs, this stuff works.  

EV
There are no magic bullets.  We are dealing in a decade-long research effort, we are very much in the middle of this research.  WSIPP has been developing the information for several years now but it takes awhile for their message to sink in.

NM
So, all the research that I've been reading over the past few years on the WSIPP site, this is not just academic - this is being integrated into policy?

EV
WSIPP has had a huge influence on policy. We've had conversations on this for at least 4 or 5 years in the legislature but this time they funded some "what works" stuff and will hold us accountable for doing it right.

On family issues, we're building on the work of people like Alice Payne. She spent most of her career in women's prisons but when she took over McNeil Island she recognized the importance of family to the male population as well - 'Gee, these people have kids too.' If you pick an offender, in his or her background you will often see the same problems: abuse, educational deficits -- what is referred to as 'pathways to crime.' Lots and lots of times, we wind up with a task of rehabilitation.  We have always found it easier to get people interested in rehabilitation for female offenders.  Now we see the interest in men as well.  

NM
This year Senator Kastama introduced an ombudsman bill for the Department of Corrections -- an office for the public to bring complaints too.  I think that's a good idea and I was disappointed that it didn't pass.

EV
It's critical to run a legitimate system.  We did not oppose the ombudsman bill. We did testify. My recommendation would be that the office would be available only for family members, rather than for the inmates who have a grievance system in place already. In a past court-ordered ombudsman program we found that the level of correspondence from the inmates overwhelmed the program and the judge shut it down.

NM
There appears to be this perception that some people have that the more harshly you treat incarcerated people the better you're going to protect public safety.  What I understand is that what I've heard referred to as a 'culture of respect' within prisons actually reduces violence and recidivism.  Would you say that treatment standards would be part of DOC's mandate to protect public safety?

EV
Absolutely, that is part of public safety. We need to do it in a balanced way.  What DOC does is somewhere between law enforcement and social work.  That is the challenge for the entire agency.