Leann Bertsch, director of the North Dakota Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, has received national attention for her work on prison reform. She joins us for our very first episode to discuss how her department is making better neighbors.
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| North Dakota's history is full of legendary people, and today North Dakota is a place where anyone can be legendary. | |
| Theodore Roosevelt, 26th President of the United States, once said, far and away, the best prize that life offers is the chance to work hard at work worth doing. | |
| This is a show about people doing just that, for the people of the great state of North Dakota. | |
| Here's Mark Staples, a member of my team, to tell you more about today's episode. | |
| Hi. | |
| Here on Work Worth Doing, I'll be joining in every now and then to give you a bit more context, background, and perspective on the conversations you'll hear throughout this series. | |
| Our very first guest is Leanne Birch, Director of our Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. | |
| Leanne was first appointed Director of DOCR in 2005, and Governor Burgum recently reappointed her in 2016. Welcome | |
| to the first issue of Work Worth Doing. | |
| Leanne, welcome. | |
| Thank you. | |
| It's great to have you here. | |
| Tell us a little bit about the scope and the scale of the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation in North Dakota. | |
| Corrections is work worth doing. | |
| The Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation has been an agency since 1989. I think people don't understand the whole scope of the Department of Corrections because some of what we do is not visible to everyday citizens. | |
| So we run the prison system, we run parole and probation, and we have the juvenile system which has the Youth Correctional Center as well as our community supervision of youth in the community. | |
| So we run the State Penitentiary, the James River Correctional Center, The Missouri River Correctional Center and then we have 16 parole and probation offices around the state as well as our Youth Correctional Center and eight juvenile district offices. | |
| So we touch every community in the state. | |
| Tell us as you think about your work today, what are some of the biggest challenges that you face? | |
| The biggest challenge is we work with people that come to us with a lot of needs. | |
| They come to us with a lot of risks and we're a public safety agency and I think sometimes Public safety in the history of this country, but also in the state, has always translated into a punitive approach. | |
| And we know that a punitive approach doesn't necessarily make gains long term. | |
| And so when we have people come to us, whether or not they're on supervision in the community or whether they have a sentence to incarceration, we have to give them the things that change behavior. | |
| We want them to desist from crime. | |
| A lot of people come to us Dealing with the chronic disease of addiction. | |
| Some of them have some significant mental health issues. | |
| A lot of them have a lot of challenges not having the educational background or have had a very less than stellar introduction into the school system. | |
| And they're facing issues of homelessness, maybe no vocational skills. | |
| And so we know that Crime is behavior-driven, and so we have to give them the tools and the incentives to change those behaviors. | |
| And so if we only take a punitive approach and really not focus on the rehabilitation part of our agency, we're just turning people out probably in a worse position than when they came in, and that's not long-term public safety, and it's a waste of taxpayer dollars. | |
| Again, maybe share for our listeners, what does it cost the state of North Dakota to have somebody housed in one of our facilities? | |
| So right now, the cost for a year of incarceration with the Department of Correction and Rehabilitation is around $42,000 a year. | |
| So that's an expensive remedy for something that could be more humanely and more effectively done in the community. | |
| And I think when people hear that number, they're often surprised at the size of it. | |
| When someone's in our custody, You know, your agency is responsible for not just food and clothing, but for healthcare and all other ask us. | |
| Would maybe just share a little bit about all the programming that you're required? | |
| And some of this is not optional because some of these are required through federal mandates that you're dealing with that drive that cost up. | |
| But sort of describe a little bit of the complexity in the day in the life of operating this really complex organization you're managing. | |
| It's kind of like running a whole community when you put someone into a prison system. | |
| Individuals who are on inmate status are the only people in the United States that have a constitutional right to health care. | |
| And so that health care cost is borne by the general fund because they're not entitled to Medicaid dollars when they're on inmate status unless they're outside of the system for at least 24 hours in a hospital. | |
| But in addition to food, clothing, health care, We have to attend to their behavioral health needs. | |
| That's a constitutional and a community standard of care. | |
| But we also have to attend to their religious needs, their legal needs. | |
| And so all of those services have to be there. | |
| And because we know that we have to do the right thing, we also have to give them opportunities for education and vocation. | |
| To not do that is a waste of money as well, because we know that's probably one of the biggest factors in giving people The tools to succeed. | |
| So it's like running a small community with all of those resources there. | |
| We have everyone from correctional officers, nurses, psychologists, plumbers, electricians, food service, nurses, dentists. | |
| So it's really kind of an expensive endeavor to continue to expand those types of services rather than look to alternatives to deal with that kind of behavior. | |
| As Leanne has said, simply putting people in prison to wait out their sentence is a misuse of taxpayer dollars. | |
| We know that roughly 35 to 40 percent of North Dakota's former correctional residents end up back in prison. | |
| Leanne and the department believe that there is more we can do to reduce the recidivism rate in North Dakota. | |
| But before we get into that, let's talk about where this new model is coming from. | |
| Leanne, you've had a chance to be honored nationally by organizations, internationally by organizations for your leadership and innovation in terms of how you're driving corrections and rehabilitation. | |
| And I think some of it ties back to your philosophy that we're trying to make better neighbors, not better prisoners. | |
| What was the point in your career where inflection point or a light bulb went off where it really changed for you and you said, hey, this is the work we need to be doing? | |
| The most dramatic career event in my career in corrections was really in 2015 when North Dakota Department of Corrections was chosen to participate in the U.S.-European Criminal Justice Innovation Project, | |
| and they were trying to show correctional administrators a different way of doing Corrections that nowhere in the United States was there an example of what we could see in a different country. | |
| And so we went to Norway, and the Scandinavian countries are probably about 20 years ahead in their philosophy of trying to be progressive and give people the skills. | |
| And I didn't think I would be as moved as From what I saw, because I thought we were running probably one of the best systems, and I still think that. | |
| What we saw in Norway was really rehabilitation and what they call punishment that works, because they recognize that if you don't create the environment when someone's in prison, where someone can actually make the change, the environment is just as important as the intervention. | |
| So the environment has to allow for the intervention to work. | |
| So they had a very... | |
| Lightbulb moment 20 years ago where they recognized that they were doing a lot of damage to people by not changing their philosophy to one that was very, very punitive to one where you really focused on trying to help people change. | |
| And so when I saw that, I thought we could bring a lot of those philosophies and those foundations back to North Dakota and apply them in our own system. | |
| And when you're in Norway, what were some examples of things you saw that really moved you to think that we needed to change our approach? | |
| So they have one of the lowest recidivism rates. | |
| They have a very low incarceration rate. | |
| We saw people wearing their own clothes. | |
| So even if, and of course in our system, they wear uniforms, khakis, and t-shirts. | |
| So they wear their own clothes. | |
| They actually are making decisions every day, so they have smaller housing units. | |
| They're allowed to kind of do their own shopping for food so that they learn budgeting. | |
| They have smaller housing units, so they cook together. | |
| They learn how to communicate. | |
| They learn how to live and work with other people. | |
| The facilities do not look like a bunch of cages, so they're more almost like a college dorm room with a private bathroom. | |
| They don't double Bunk people one because they believe people need solitude and not be grouped together, which creates more violence in the system. | |
| And the facilities really try to bring A presence that's calming. | |
| So you see a lot of trees, you see a lot of artwork, you see colors that are not just the institutional white with no color and no greenery. | |
| So it's just a much different atmosphere that you would experience. | |
| But probably the biggest piece was dynamic security. | |
| And dynamic security really focuses on that relationship between our corrections staff And the person that's incarcerated to the point where they really talk about being humane, focusing on that relationship that's helpful versus very punitive and directive. | |
| And that was a big switch to bring that back to North Dakota because there was like, why should we treat people that nice? | |
| They've done something wrong. | |
| And that's where you get to, what's our job? | |
| We want to make people better, not angry. | |
| And so I think now that we've been doing this for about a little over three years, it's just amazing to see the transformation of what's happening in our institutions. | |
| We have what we now call resonance versus the very kind of dehumanizing label of inmate. | |
| Write letters to talk about how that kind and professional and humane treatment and respect and knowledge that people care about them has really inspired them to do the work to change and desist from crime. | |
| As you've been implementing some of these new approaches the last three years, what kind of reaction have you seen from the residents? | |
| What kind of acceptance have you seen from staff? | |
| Tell us about some of the challenges. | |
| Change is always hard in any organization, but tell us about how that's been going. | |
| Change is hard, and this is a big culture change. | |
| Traditionally, people who come to work in corrections Love a very structured, almost militaristic environment. | |
| And so when you have to start interacting with the folks in a much different way, It makes their job harder. | |
| So there was a lot of resistance. | |
| When you are just looking at that individual as a widget, I have to feed them, I have to get them from point A to point B, make sure they're locked down, and you're not looking at them as a human being, the level of caring is very, very low. | |
| And if you don't have to care, it just makes your job probably a little easier emotionally and psychologically. | |
| But when you actually have to have meaningful conversations and address their Their needs and actually look at them as a human being. | |
| Now that job is a lot more challenging. | |
| The skill set is different. | |
| And I also think their job is more fulfilling. | |
| But it took a little bit of, it took some time to reduce that resistance. | |
| And when they start seeing that it's working, they come along. | |
| And some people They probably had to leave corrections because they couldn't come on board. | |
| But we're hiring a different type of people, and there's folks that have been long-term in the department that understand the change is a good one. | |
| And from the residents, it's really, really amazing what you see. | |
| So we have people that have spent time in other prison systems, and they will tell the warden, and they will write letters to me and thank us for what we're doing because they say, this place is making me want to be a better person. | |
| We recognize that That this is the first time we believe that someone actually cared about us and that's a very powerful motivator to do better. | |
| We say that we're trying to change the culture of the state from the inside out because if we can't change the culture within the agency that deals with individuals who are incarcerated, how do we ever start changing public opinion about individuals who are incarcerated? | |
| So the other piece The Norwegian model is the import model and that's really bringing the community in so that the community accepts individuals who are in the criminal justice system as citizens because they still are citizens and they have to see them as individuals having value and we actually want the community to see them as individuals having value so one of the things we've been doing is having A lot of community service and justice, | |
| what we call restorative justice. | |
| So you've probably seen stories on the folks that are incarcerated at NDSP doing charity work. | |
| They're hosting charities inside the prison and donating money to the Great American Bite Race, and they're going out and doing United Way Day of Caring, and they're contributing, and they don't make a lot of money when they're incarcerated. | |
| But they're still contributing. | |
| So they're doing special projects that give back to the community. | |
| And we have volunteers that come in and give back, that give a lot of resources to the individuals that are incarcerated. | |
| But we want the people who are incarcerated to go back and give to the citizens. | |
| So it's a two-way thing. | |
| And when people start seeing that we're all people, some with more challenges and that have done some bad things, but they deserve another chance, That's how we're going to start changing the bigger population's attitude towards people who are involved in criminal justice. | |
| Tell us a little bit about Rough Rider Industry and how those kinds of programs can help prepare people to come back into society. | |
| So Rough Rider Industries is our prison industry program and it's self-supported through special funds. | |
| They make their own money to generate their existence. | |
| But what Rough Rider Industries does Is they employ our residents while they're incarcerated, and they teach them a lot of skills. | |
| And the product is really the citizen that comes out, the returning citizen that comes out with employable skills. | |
| So they have a furniture shop, they have a metal shop, they have a cut-and-sew shop where they learn upholstery and sewing. | |
| They actually learn computer-aided design or CAD drawing. | |
| So they learn welding skills. | |
| Skills on how just to be a good employee and how to work with others. | |
| So we manufacture a lot of products that state and governmental entities can purchase, but the end goal is really the returning citizens. | |
| So if public entities and nonprofits purchase from Roughrider Industries, for every dollar they spend, that generates actually another return on investment by four dollars. | |
| We can spend those dollars over again It's an investment that really pays it forward by giving great job skills to individuals while they're incarcerated. | |
| And this also helps with reintegration because they are getting paid a wage. | |
| Right. | |
| Below minimum wage. | |
| It is right now, as I understand, but they're getting paid a very low wage. | |
| But even with that, when they end up leaving the system, they have a better chance of being successful at reentering because they actually may have some assets built up that allow them to find a place to live, take the time to get a job, and they've learned a skill that makes them employable. | |
| They do. | |
| Rough Rider Industries jobs are sought after employment when you're incarcerated because it pays a higher rate. | |
| And it's really something that makes the period of incarceration be more meaningful because they're productively employed, they have a job. | |
| It's just like you and I going to our job every day and then they're returning back to their home or their residence in the evening. | |
| And so it makes that period of incarceration more meaningful where they're actually Getting something of value that they can be proud of. | |
| Leanne, your office is part of the new North Dakota State Penitentiary building that was built a few years ago. | |
| Coming to work there every day, there's got to be, there's stresses on anybody that works in the correction system. | |
| Work worth doing? | |
| What, for you, for this job, what's the, where do you feel the The challenges and where do you feel the real purpose behind the work that you do? | |
| The work is worth doing. | |
| Anytime you can have a positive impact on someone's life, when we have a positive impact on someone's life, that person is going to go back out and be a better citizen. | |
| So we multiply the impact on the total community. | |
| But we're working with people with a lot of challenges and issues. | |
| And so that can be really, really stressful for our staff. | |
| So staff understand they really have to be invested in this kind of work and it's fulfilling to them, but it can also be extremely challenging because when some people come to us, they've never had some of the opportunities and they might come to us with some really difficult and violent tendencies. | |
| And when our staff stay and work and see significant change in individuals that's really, really fulfilling, But we also have to recognize that this work is very, very difficult for our officers in the community, for our staff that are working in the facilities. | |
| And one of the things that we need to do is make sure they understand the value and the appreciation that they deserve and that I hope the rest of North Dakota and all their citizens, even though they're not visible because they're behind a wall or because they're In plain clothes, working in people's homes and in their office, that the work they're doing is really, really important and it's an important aspect of keeping our community safe and healthy and vibrant. | |
| And tell us about some of those reforms. | |
| I know there was some landmark legislation that That you yourself worked on, the legislature worked on, the judicial system worked on, the executive branch worked on, all under the title of Justice Reinvestment. | |
| But share us a little bit about how significant that was and what direction it's taking us. | |
| There was a lot of momentum last biennium, and I think it continues during this legislative session, to address the way we were doing criminal justice in the state. | |
| And justice reinvestment really was a process of looking at the data and really doing some analysis on how we could do things better without over-relying on incarceration. | |
| So there was a lot of collaboration and agreement between all three branches of government. | |
| One of the key things that got passed last legislative session was the prison prioritization plan. | |
| The legislature recognized that corrections is a finite resource and that we cannot continue to build our way out of this. | |
| So they authorized the Department of Corrections to put a cap on the growth in its system. | |
| They also gave that same authority to the county level, and I think just that recognition among all practitioners in the criminal justice system was that we have to start looking at alternatives and develop alternatives. | |
| Along with the prison prioritization plan, they addressed minimum mandatory sentences. | |
| They provided good time for those individuals that were sitting in county jails pre-trial. | |
| They addressed some other issues that were drivers of people coming in, such as minimum mandatory sentences. | |
| So there was a really comprehensive bill that went forward and got passed and is now in the process of being implemented. | |
| Because they were able to say, we can actually put a cap on the number of people coming into prison, they were able to push $7 million out of the corrections budget and to repurpose that into an upstream funding mechanism To address problems before people came into incarceration, | |
| and that was the Community Behavioral Health Initiative, now called Free Through Recovery, which provides peer support and case coordination for individuals in recovery that are on parole and probation. | |
| And that got up and running in February of this year, and we've seen over 620 people served. | |
| This is going to be huge in helping people be successful. | |
| Yes. | |
| Free Through Recovery, the First Lady and I had a chance to meet with an individual who was participating in that program, hearing some great feedback in terms of how that's going. | |
| But tell us with your experience, why is it working and do we have an opportunity to expand the services that we're providing, the peer support services from Free Through Recovery to an even broader population? | |
| Sure. | |
| We're in a very rural state where sometimes Your workforce that provides behavioral health services is not necessarily there across all parts of the state, but we recognize that recovery is not just about primary treatment. | |
| It's a process that requires supports even after primary treatment. | |
| And we recognize that those folks, peer support specialists, are often folks that have dealt with addiction themselves and are in recovery, and they're the best folks That can help support other individuals who are now in recovery. | |
| And case coordination just helps shepherd all of those services and put those services around people who need that type of service. | |
| So the nice thing about it is even in the rural parts of the state where some of those resources are limited, we can train people to be peer support specialists. | |
| One of the things that when we were going through Justice Reinvestment that I think really What was very powerful for policymakers to hear is that 70% of our state court judges indicated they had sent low-risk, nonviolent people into prison just to access behavioral health services. | |
| And I think that was pretty sad to hear that people needed to come to prison to access those services. | |
| Our parole and probation officers were frustrated that they didn't have more resources to help them work with people who were on parole and probation. | |
| And now I think now that the program is up and running and we're We're ironing out some of those bumps. | |
| I think this is a good model to expand services, not just for people who are in the criminal justice system, but for other people who are struggling with the chronic disease of addiction. | |
| So I think, hopefully, the legislature during this biennium will see fit to expand those services to those populations as well. | |
| Tell us a little bit about, as we talk about the disease of addiction, what percentage of the population that you're serving in corrections and rehabilitation has been impacted by the disease of addiction? | |
| Over the years, it's as high as 85% of people coming into the Department of Corrections that have a diagnosis of substance abuse disorder that are requiring some level of treatment. | |
| One of the biggest factors that contribute to failure while on parole and probation is the chronic disease of addiction and the continued usage. | |
| People relapse. | |
| And that's a natural thing of addiction, but before, rather than trying a different type of intervention and recognizing that's part of it, the reaction was to Revoke them and put them in jail or prison and put them through another round of treatment, | |
| which was frustrating not only for the individual, but it was frustrating for our criminal justice practitioners and recognizing that there's a different way to deal with relapse, and we can try some other interventions in the community that are going to be more successful and more cost-effective than always relying on incarceration to respond to that. | |
| Well, I think what we're learning and what people are learning in the health systems and the health world is that the disease of addiction is a chronic disease. | |
| It's progressive and it's ultimately fatal. | |
| And when you're using the word treatment, I'm thinking you're referring to might be like a 28-day treatment program. | |
| And this has been likened to giving a diabetic 28 days of insulin and then wondering why they don't get better, why they might relapse on day 29 or day 30. And we really have to think about this as a lifetime of supports. | |
| And part of where that support comes from is peers with lived experience. | |
| That's exciting to see the positive results we're getting from free through recovery because it not only is getting better results, it's also a fraction of the cost of incarceration. | |
| And we know that if someone has a chronic disease, you don't cure that disease through punishment. | |
| We do not. | |
| It's any more than you could punish someone for having cancer or diabetes. | |
| It's not a Punishment is not a cure for that, so we have to focus on the underlying disease which may have created the behavior, which created the criminal activity, and so it's great that we're looking at that holistically. | |
| The system, when I had a chance to tour with you, one of the things that impressed me, and I know the people that watch movies about jail always know the phrase solitary confinement, and that was a practice. | |
| Even the new facility included that, but when I was there, I saw very limited use of that. | |
| Talk a little bit about how you're moving away from that and what the benefits are and what would be the goal eventually. | |
| There's a lot of focus around the country to reduce the use of solitary confinement or restrictive housing. | |
| There's a lot of names for it. | |
| The reason being is that the research talks about how just damaging long-term it is if someone spends time in solitary confinement. | |
| Even as short as a few days can have a dramatic impact on people's lives. | |
| Mental health and physical health, actually. | |
| But it used to... | |
| I think when we talk about the criminal justice system being overly risk-averse, that the prison system itself had its own version of risk aversion. | |
| So that if someone's behavior was not perfect, we had a jail inside the prison, and that was called solitary confinement. | |
| And so when we built the expansion... | |
| That thinking really wasn't as prevalent in our country. | |
| And then as corrections progresses, we recognized that we were over-relying on it. | |
| So we did some pretty dramatic reforms. | |
| We're one of the states that has gotten a lot of recognition for the reforms that we've made. | |
| In reducing the use of solitary confinement. | |
| And that was a big, big risk that we took. | |
| And that was a big change in our department. | |
| But I don't think people in our department would go back to overusing solitary confinement. | |
| We've been able to sustain a reduction in the use of solitary confinement Probably 68 to 70%. | |
| At an all-time high, we were at over 100 people, and now we're in the 20s at any given time that are coming through there. | |
| But we revamped the program, and we really restricted how people end up in that unit. | |
| But we actually put some very intensive behavioral programming around so that people who are going into that program, they're not left isolated. | |
| They're having a lot more interactions with our staff. | |
| A lot more intensive programming and they're actually going back into general population and staying in general population. | |
| So that's been really, really successful. | |
| We have people from all around the country coming to see what we've done and how we might assist them in doing the same thing in their system. | |
| And the feedback from our residents is really one of gratitude that we put the resources where they needed to be put. | |
| Leanne and her team have been implementing these reforms for a few years now, and they're seeing some real results. | |
| Over the past 20 years, the overall population of the state has grown by approximately 18%, but our incarceration numbers grew 250% in the same time period. | |
| However, for the first time in 10 years, North Dakota has seen a reduction in the number of people coming into the corrections system. | |
| As Leanne and her team work to continue seeing reductions in North Dakota's incarcerated population, they are striving to deliver an equal level of services to all our residents. | |
| Essential services such as physical and behavioral health care, educational opportunities, vocational training, and more. | |
| The need for these services is perhaps most apparent at the women's prison in New England. | |
| So the state itself does not own any facilities for serving women? | |
| We do not. | |
| There's a lot of challenges. | |
| The history of women in corrections is one that because they've always been such a small percentage, they make up about 12% of our total incarcerated population. | |
| It used to be a lot smaller percentage. | |
| So as early as the Even in the 1980s, we had probably less than six women in total incarceration. | |
| But when I told you that 250% growth in incarceration over 20 years, the percentage of women coming into incarceration was almost 500%. | |
| And I really believe that they were such a small percentage, they've always been kind of an afterthought. | |
| So we started out pigeonholing them into a male facility without really thinking about a gender-responsive way of of working with the women. | |
| For the longest time, we pigeonholed them into a housing unit at the state penitentiary. | |
| Then when they outgrew that, we put them onto a couple of floors of the James River Correctional Center in Jamestown. | |
| But then in 2003, the Department of Corrections had a plan to actually have a separate women's prison. | |
| However, a small town came in and said, hey, put the jobs here. | |
| So they located the women in New England, North Dakota, which is now called the Dakota Women's Correctional Facility, And we knew that was going to be a huge challenge, and now that we've been left with that contract for the last 15 years, those challenges have really been borne out. | |
| They're isolated from their children, and we know for women that are incarcerated, connections with their children, especially in their other family members, is a huge factor in their success and not recidivating because that's probably one of the biggest challenges they face during incarceration is being separated from those family members. | |
| The other piece of it is... | |
| So many of these women have children that are under the age of 18? | |
| 79% of the women who are incarcerated have children under the age of 18. And at any given time, because there's also a pregnancy as well? | |
| Right. | |
| We've had as high as 10% of the incarcerated population being pregnant. | |
| And when someone comes into incarceration and is pregnant, typically the reason they're incarcerated is to get them to stop using drugs. | |
| And so they come in and they're very high-risk pregnancies that we're putting into a location in the state that probably doesn't have quick and easy access to the highest level of prenatal care and neonatal care. | |
| The other piece of it is that women have higher access to behavioral health and medical needs when they're incarcerated, but we put them into a location where there's very limited resources to connect them to All the treatment resources that some of our men are getting in our facility. | |
| So it's been a big challenge, not just the treatment, but also vocation and educational opportunities that I think if we put them into an area of the state where we could really access the full continuum of care, I think we could really see that women's population decrease over time and have a lot more success. | |
| And I'm also concerned about the intergenerational impacts on their children. | |
| Who are separated from their mothers during that time of incarceration. | |
| And there's a proposed solution to reduce some of these risks and improve the conditions for the women residents? | |
| There is. | |
| So the Department of Corrections has really put a lot of thought over the last few years, but during this past year we came up with a plan to present to this legislative session. | |
| We really want to relocate the women in Bismarck at what's now the Missouri River Correctional Center a minimum custody for men and really make it a multi-custody facility with gender responsive services for women on that campus. | |
| We believe that relocating the women to Bismarck would really serve them as far as giving them access to their children and family members and giving them access to the full continuum of services that they can Right now can't access. | |
| And to put that into perspective, where the women are coming from, 31% of all of our incarcerated women come from Morton and Burleigh County. | |
| 90% of the women come from central and eastern part of North Dakota. | |
| So we know that would cut down on a lot of distance for family members to increase visitation and to give them access to their loved ones. | |
| Family is important to all of us, and the residents in prison are no different. | |
| The data shows continued and quality interactions between incarcerated individuals and their families, improves well-being during incarceration, and supports successful reentry to their communities in the long term. | |
| Not only does this improve the lives of our residents, it also offers a better future for their children so they won't end up in the same place. | |
| Around 5 million children, roughly 7% of all children living in the U.S., have a parent who is currently or has previously been incarcerated. | |
| It's an obviously negative situation. | |
| However, the world is starting to open its eyes to just how traumatic this can be and the long-term consequences that can follow. | |
| One of the phrases I learned as part of the word was ACEs, Adverse Childhood Experiences. | |
| Maybe you want to just share a little bit because some people wonder how do people end up in the situation they're in, whether it's in the youth or an adult. | |
| But we're learning some new things about experiences that shape people and maybe talk a little bit about that and how that can affect an individual and how the rehabilitation side of what we do is trying to help those individuals who may have had an unusual set of challenging experiences in their lives. | |
| So just in the past year and a half, our department has really started to focus on the Children of Incarcerated Parents Initiative. | |
| We recognize that any time a child has a parent that's incarcerated, whether for a long-term in prison or multiple stays in jail, that having a parent incarcerated is actually one of those... | |
| Predictors? | |
| It's an adverse childhood experience. | |
| But there's things that you can do to reduce the long-term impact on those children. | |
| And what the research talks about is there's a real sense of loss. | |
| I think sometimes people think, well, if their parent's a criminal and they go to prison, it's probably good that the children don't have access to their parents. | |
| We know otherwise that it's still very, very important to try to maintain that parent and child relationship and reduce The stigma and shame that that child faces and put some services around. | |
| So one of the things we're working very closely with the school system and social services and doing things in our system, are there things that we can do to reduce the impact to those children when they have a parent That is incarcerated or is in the criminal justice system. | |
| We know that providing some really structured services around that parent and child while they're incarcerated can reduce some of that. | |
| We know that some of the things that we do with the children when they're in the school system by giving them opportunities to thrive and have some services and even talk about The impact on that child about being incarcerated can reduce some of that stress and long-term things. | |
| But we do know that when children, without some of those services, when they do have a parent that's incarcerated, they're five times more likely to become incarcerated or involved in the criminal justice system themselves. | |
| They have higher rates of depression, higher rates of drug abuse, and some other negative predictors. | |
| So when we talked earlier about cost, the $41,000 a year, that didn't include the fact that we might be creating an entire new generation of people, the children of people that are incarcerated, that we might also end up seeing down the road. | |
| So it's fantastic that you're looking at this in a holistic way because if we reduce population now, we might actually be reducing it in the future. | |
| That's right. | |
| And even just by decreasing the number of people in our system by 8% that we've done Just in this last biennium, we've estimated that we're impacting 700 fewer children by reducing the number of individuals in our system. | |
| So I think that's pretty telling that incarceration has some pretty expensive and dramatic collateral consequences to other individuals. | |
| You mentioned the youth correctional system. | |
| Like all these facilities where I've had a chance to take a tour and seeing the dedicated professionals that work for you across all aspects, but at the youth correctional, I was fascinated to see that we're running a high school. | |
| We are. | |
| And it's a certified North Dakota State Public High School as part of that system with dedicated teachers working with these young people. | |
| But tell us a little bit about some of the challenges and opportunities when we're working with youth. | |
| So there's been a lot of work by the Division of Juvenile Services along with the Department of Human Services and the court system to really focus on children and better outcomes for kids, recognizing that Even though we're doing a good job in our state, we are still above what the national average is as far as what we should have for a state of our size. | |
| And so the push is to really not rely on deep-end institutionalization, but to really bring those services and beef up some services into the community and actually reduce our footprint for those kids so that there's fewer and fewer kids at the Youth Correctional Center. | |
| And we're really making some strides in doing that. | |
| So I think we're trying to put ourselves out of business, but we're doing some amazing work with the kids. | |
| But the kids that come into the Youth Correctional Center have high, high needs. | |
| And one of the big things that we're doing is having good success catching them up in that high school that has some pretty intensive teaching and teaching with some kids that have not had good experiences in probably some of the schools they came from. | |
| So they come in Two or three or four grades behind and we catch them up pretty quickly so that we return them to their homeschool, caught up and probably better to reintegrate back into their communities. | |
| You talked about wanting to put ourselves out of business for the youth, which is absolutely a great goal. | |
| If you looked out 50 years, 100 years from now, do you ever envision a world where the entire department could be out of business? | |
| Well, I would like to put our department out of business, but if we're not able to totally put ourselves out of business, because there will always be a small fraction that needs to be isolated. | |
| I mean, that's probably the most dangerous individuals of our society that can't safely be in the community. | |
| But I really think that we could shrink our footprint significantly and move those resources into services that are much more effective in the community, much less costly, Such as increased behavioral health services, better education services, and support services for individuals that could really succeed if they had those resources put around them in their home community. | |
| And I think that applies to adult and juvenile as well. | |
| And looking forward, in addition to solving some of the facilities and equity challenges between gender, what things should be looking for in the years ahead from the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation? | |
| Well, I think we need to keep doing more of what we're doing, recognizing that the type of person that we want to come and work in corrections is one that wants to help people succeed. | |
| We really talk about increasing humanity. | |
| So how can we actually find people find their humanity? | |
| And that's really all about, it should be pretty common sense, treating people with respect. | |
| Respect gets respect. | |
| And I think over time, We'll see a lot less violence in our facilities and that'll translate to people being more successful and desisting from crime in our communities. | |
| So we have to recognize that by the time people come into the adult correction system, they've probably had a lifetime of trauma and challenges that can't be fixed in 18 months and that we have to actually put a continuum of care around them for when they go back into the community To help them not go back to the same environment. | |
| So if we can actually start reducing our footprint and pushing more resources into upfront strategies, maybe someday we'll really reduce our footprint and hopefully work quite a few of us out of jobs in the Department of Corrections. | |
| Talk a little bit about what does North Dakota mean to you? | |
| North Dakota is a small town with long streets. | |
| I think We can be really progressive in this state because people care about people. | |
| And I think there's no stronger bond between citizens than there here is in the state. | |
| So even though it's cold sometimes, it's always fun to come back to the great people that live and work here. | |
| Well, appreciate your working here and appreciate your staying here. | |
| I know you're highly coveted. | |
| I'm fighting off all those other states that want to hire you to come run their correction systems and bring the success you've had here to their states. | |
| But we're glad you're here and hope you'll stay. | |
| And thanks for serving the people of North Dakota and thanks for being part of our cabinet. | |
| We're signing off. | |
| Our guest today was Leanne Birch, the Director of the Department of On our next episode of Work Worth Doing, we sit down to discuss the proposed Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum. | |
| We'll talk about what it is, how it would benefit North Dakota, and what we can do to move forward. | |
| One last note before we leave. | |
| North Dakota has 33,000 jobs waiting to be filled, and Leanne's nationally recognized department is also looking for dedicated and passionate employees to add to their team. | |
| They have several positions open right now, and you can find them on DOCR's website at www.docr.nd.gov. | |
| Believe me, this is a team you'd want to be a part of. | |
| Just this week, I had a friend of mine, who had never even been to North Dakota, move halfway across the country just to work for Leanne Birch and the DOCR team. | |
| They must be doing something right. | |
| That's all for this week on Work Worth Doing with Governor Doug Burgum. |