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The Prison Officer Podcast
The Prison Officer Podcast is a place where prison officers and correctional staff share their experiences, discuss leadership, cope with stress, and learn survival strategies for one of the toughest careers out there. Hosted by Michael Cantrell, this podcast delves into the lives, dreams, and challenges faced by those who work inside the walls of our nation’s prisons. It features interviews, insights, and discussions related to the unique and demanding world of corrections. Whether it’s overcoming difficult leaders, understanding rehabilitation, or addressing misconceptions about incarcerated populations, the Prison Officer Podcast provides valuable perspectives from professionals in the field.
The Prison Officer Podcast
98: Transforming County Jails: Leadership, Innovation, and Second Chances - Interview w/Justin Hall
Ever wondered what it takes to manage a county jail? Join me, Michael Cantrell, as I sit down with Justin Hall, the elected jailer from Nelson County, Kentucky, who has spent nearly two decades in the corrections field. We'll uncover how he navigated his way from the Hardin County Detention Center to overseeing operations in his hometown. Learn about innovative technologies like biometric sensors that help monitor inmate health and the relentless battle against contraband. Justin and I also examine Kentucky's unique law enforcement structure, where jailers and sheriffs operate independently, a system rooted in history to prevent corruption.
Justin reveals the distinctive hurdles jails face compared to prisons, especially when welcoming inmates under the influence, and how he's using his local roots to effect change. We'll also discuss opportunities for inmate employment and rehabilitation programs designed to reduce recidivism, helping inmates transition back into society.
Nelson County Kentucky Jail
Nelson County Jailer Justin Hall - jhall0125@gmail.com
Justin Hall on LinkedIn
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Take care of each other and Be Safe behind those walls and fences!
In more than 28 years of corrections, I have used or supervised Pepperball hundreds of times. Now, as a master instructor for Pepperball, I teach others about the versatility and effectiveness of the Pepperball system. From cell extractions to disturbances on the rec yard, pepperball is the first option in my correctional toolbox, with the ability to transition quickly from area saturation to direct impact with the non-lethal PAVA projectiles. Pepperball provides me with a range of non-lethal options for cell extractions involving non-compliant inmates and when the use of force is over, decontamination is easy with no oily residue on the walls or floors. To learn more about Pepperball, go to wwwpepperballcom or click the show notes below. Pepperball is the safer option first. Hey everybody, welcome back to the Prison Officer Podcast. My name is Mike Cantrell.
Speaker 1:Today I have the elected jailer from Nelson County, kentucky, justin Hall. He began his career in 2006 at the Hardin County Detention Center, which is the fifth largest jail in Kentucky. Over the years, he's worked his way up through the ranks to lieutenant, gaining invaluable experience along the way. In 2022, he was elected as the Jailer of Nelson County, officially took office in 2023, and this marks his 18th year in the field of corrections. In 2023, and this marks his 18th year in the field of corrections, the way I first found Justin and we haven't talked, so this is going to be an open conversation. But I was on LinkedIn and I got to notice in these posts from somebody who was just very passionate, who was showing a lot of the leadership things I teach in classes and you can just tell he loves his job and he loves the people he works with and I just wanted to talk to him and find out more and see if I can learn something from him. So welcome to the Prison Officer Podcast, justin.
Speaker 2:Well, thank you, michael, I appreciate it and, like I was telling you earlier, I'm sure I can learn something from you too, with all your experience that you have as well.
Speaker 2:I appreciate it. Like I say, it's an honor to be on air, especially when it comes to corrections, a lot of officers and whatnot. You know everything that we do is behind a door. It's behind, you know, the general public don't get to see it as much because if there's a big arrest on somebody that makes the news headlines and the police department oh look who we caught, you know, and whatnot, but a lot of people don't realize that person has to go to jail and prison. So there's a whole other group of people that's having to make sure their constitutional needs are met, that they get to court, that they have their you know their day in court and whatnot. So a lot of correctional officers and, of course, in our line of work, deputy jailers. We a lot of times, you know, we feel like, or can't say we feel like it, but a lot of us feel like that. You know it's kind of like we do and we do a really important job.
Speaker 1:That doesn't get seen by a lot of people, it's true, it's absolutely true and I think jails and you know we all work in corrections and we know that but from the outside I think people have these totally different viewpoints of what going to jail is and what going to prison is. But a lot of the jobs that we do inside are the same. Now I spent my time in 30 years plus working in prison and I've been learning a lot about jails in the last few years. But it is a different job. You're handling people that haven't been vetted as much. A lot of them are coming in, they're still high, they're still drunk and so you guys have a really rough job. Tell me a little bit about Nelson County Jail.
Speaker 2:Well, nelson County, I'll tell you, of course. I started out at Hartman County Jail, which was the fifth largest jail and it has 648 beds, and so I worked my way up to third in command when I was there. And then my hometown is Nelson County and I always worked in Hardin County, so that way I wouldn't deal with the people I went to school with. So after about 12 years I came to Nelson County to work and then decided to run for office. So now I get to run into people that I know. You know, unfortunately, when they get arrested, but we have a population of almost 50,000 people in Nelson County. As a matter of fact, 90% of the world's bourbon is made here in Nelson County. Your.
Speaker 1:Jim Beam, your.
Speaker 2:Baker's Mark, all that stuff. There's distilleries. As a matter of fact, there's a distillery walking distance from the jail where I'm at right now and we are a small jail. We have 102 beds here. We're looking at expanding to 400 to 700 here coming up.
Speaker 2:But because unfortunately the last 20 or 30 years the jail has been kind of an oversight, when I took over as jailer it was in a state of disrepair. I mean there was mold, there was, I mean, the living conditions. And I always look at it this way. Regardless, if somebody comes into jail with a cold check or they're charged with rape or they're charged with murder, I'm going to treat that offender the same, no matter what, and I make my staff do the same thing. Treat that offender the same, no matter what, and I make my staff do the same thing. But if my family member or my daughter was to get arrested, there's a certain level of care and a certain condition that I want them to be housed in and it did not meet my standard.
Speaker 2:And so we have completely went through this facility. We have painted, we have redone showers, we have redone, redone. I mean it actually made it, um, you know, through our state jail inspection by inspector. When he first walked in my first, uh, first inspection, he first thing he said was it don't stink in here anymore. I was like yeah.
Speaker 1:I was like, yeah, we actually clean it now yeah, well, that one of those posts was the first thing that caught my eye, because when you say we, I think you picked up a paintbrush.
Speaker 2:You did some of the paint scraping.
Speaker 1:I mean it wasn't you telling other people what to do. It was you leading a team of jailers to get this up to par.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. I mean, I got many times you can roll back our video where I'm sweeping and mopping our front lobby. You know, I mean yesterday, as a matter of fact, we had the ice storm. I went over the road department, got our county skid steer and I was cleaning out our front. I was cleaning out our front parking lot with it.
Speaker 2:So you know, I never want to ask staff to do something that I would not do. And even my daughters at home, you know we had this ice storm and stuff and they said oh, daddy, it's a snow day, stay home. You know? No, I got to go to work and they're like oh, you got people at work and I had to explain to her she's young, she's real young. I was like I will not ask my employees to come into work and battle a slick road if I'm not willing to do the same. And that's the way I explain it to them.
Speaker 2:I'm a facilitator here, the way I look at it, and my job is to help mentor somebody. I'm not going to be around forever. My job is to help grow the employees I got here and so that way, when I decide to hang it up, there's somebody that can take the reins over and can run this place. You know, I mean that's what the goal is. I try.
Speaker 2:I always got aggravated in my career and I saw it happen many times where a supervisor would teach somebody just many times where a supervisor would teach somebody just enough to do their job, but not enough to where they could jump up to the next level. And if you do that, you're not. It's not only not fair to the employee and some employees take offense to it, because if you're training somebody that's only done this one job for the last 10 years and you're saying, all right, I'm gonna bring deputy a and b in to learn your job, oh god, he's getting ready to fire me, so I did something wrong. Well, no, if you have a medical leave or you need to take off or whatever, the jail still got to operate.
Speaker 2:So I want people cross-trained. There's nothing personal, sure. Especially in a small jail, you don't have 100 people to choose from. I also have biometric sensors in our single cells that use radar. Now to where they actually monitor respiration and heart rate. So if somebody goes into a detox or a heart attack situation, we get an audible alarm in our booking area.
Speaker 1:So I know a little bit about some of these, but so is that on their wrist or on the wall?
Speaker 2:No, it's actually in the ceiling. Matter of fact, I got one up here I'll show it to you real quick.
Speaker 2:Hold on, Okay, this is my spare in case it goes down. This is actually in a protective housing, because you don't get inmates in a single cell where they wouldn't destroy it, but inside of it. There's an actual radar chip in here, right? So this is mounted on the ceiling of the cell and inside. So this is mounted on the ceiling of the cell and inside. It actually monitors the chest going up and down and it actually can sense the pulse of the inmate.
Speaker 2:No kidding, yes. And so in my control room and inside my booking area I have a screen and it's green for if the inmate's good, and it's red, if the inmate's bad, and if it goes orange, that means that, hey, we lost a pulse, we lost a heart rate.
Speaker 1:And so and the reason I did that you mentioned earlier.
Speaker 2:We get people that come in all the time on all different kinds of drugs. You know, when I installed the body scanner, everybody was like, oh, you're never going to get contraband in that jail. Now you got a body scanner. I'm like no, I was like everything that we have is a tool they've been getting contraband in jails since the 1500s, you know, and um, and the body scanner is not going to stop it.
Speaker 2:It's a tool and we have, we've had non-felony indictments out of the body scanner, which has been a great tool. But if we have somebody that has some fentanyl a very small amount and it doesn't have the density for that body scanner to pick it up, and if they're strip searchable, if we go do a strip search on the person because Kentucky is one of the only three states that you can't strip search everybody that walks inside the jail, believe it or not there's actually a criteria we have to follow. So if they're strip searchable, um, and we don't find it, that's in a body cavity, it's now in the institution. So and um, and luckily you know we've saved some people's lives that you know that's happened. But we also um, several months ago we had a lady in a body cavity that had 40 fentanyl-laced pills. It was enough to kill seven people that we intercepted before it made it inside the jail because of the body scan. So it was a blessing.
Speaker 2:It was a blessing because the last thing, a lot of us, you know, there's never headlines in a jail or prison that says look what the jail did. Today there was three people that you know got their GED today. You know that never makes you know late breaking news, but if somebody dies that's going to be all over the news and the last thing any of us want in this business is for somebody to die. I don't know a single person that's been in correction that I mean. There's some of them that give you a hard day, you know a hard time or a hard day, but at the end of the day I want them to go home to their family and get the help that they need.
Speaker 1:You know I mean.
Speaker 2:and so you know that's what's a little bit different with the prisons that we get people that come in on drugs and we got to protect them from themselves the other population and we got co-defendants. You may have five or six people that's arrested in a drug charge or a violent charge and we have to keep separate so they can't interfere with the case. You know, and a lot of times once they go to prison and the case is adjudicated, then you know that's not really too big of an issue because you've got different prisons you can go to, but they're stuck with me until their case is done. Yeah, yeah, so when got you?
Speaker 1:started. In corrections I saw that you went to college for IT.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and it's kind of a funny story. That's what my college is in is actually in IT, network security, and that's unfortunately it's a curse too, because I'm also the IT guy for the county too, so I'm a jailer class IT person. I don't make any extra off of it, but you know, hey, there you go. But I got into IT and I'm sure you can tell I'm kind of a talkaholic, so computers don't really talk back to you very much.
Speaker 2:And after I got out of doing college I was like I'm not going to stand in front of a screen eight, nine, ten hours a day, and I always wanted to get in law enforcement. A lot of people use corrections as a stepping stone to be a police officer and stuff like that. Well, I had this big dream that after I got out of college I was going to go get in corrections. I was going to, you know, get in top flight shape and I was going to go to the state police or sheriff's department and all that stuff, you know. And then the job just took a hold of me. It just took a hold of me, it became a passion. I realized that I could do everything that I wanted to do inside of a jail without having to deal with the other stuff. And I progressed.
Speaker 2:You know the old saying hard work pays off. When I started Hardin County Jail, I knew no one. I didn't know the jailer ahead of time, I didn't know any of the command staff, did not know a single employee that worked there. And so when they say hard work pays off, in 12 years I was third in command at that facility because of hard work and anybody that follows your policy and procedure do what you're supposed to do. And hey, I made plenty of mistakes. I'm not saying that I'm, you know, the perfect and oh, I did all this great stuff throughout my career and never made a mistake. I made my mistake, but the thing about it is you don't make it twice, right, yeah, yeah, and so it's been a very rewarding career.
Speaker 2:Now, I've had, I've witnessed, my fair share of bad things. I've had, I've witnessed my fair share of bad things, I mean, especially in jail. You know we've had some suicides, you know, and stuff like that. Unfortunately it happened. I will say the suicides that we had in the past, all of them had a heartbeat, you know it wasn't, they wasn't, you know, in there for an extended period of time. Everybody did their job but, and you know, and it showed that we did what we were supposed to do. But that's stuff that a lot of people don't realize, that I still remember every one of them. I still remember every one of their faces and that never goes away. And a lot of people don't realize that that's the stuff that, over a career that you're going to take with you, that's going to always be on your shoulders. You may not think about it all that often, but they're always with you.
Speaker 1:That's always something you take with your career. I know as you got into corrections tell me about. I always like to hear about this. What was that like when you first walked in? Did you know people in jail? Did you you know family members?
Speaker 2:I had. No, I had nobody. I got what. Everybody has a one cousin or uncle that you know goes to jail, hit and miss and stuff like that. We all had those. Nobody was in jail. But I remember my first day like it was yesterday. Of course it's before they give you a uniform, before you go through your training, your FTO period and everything else, and I remember walking through the doors and it was during court day. So Arden County Jail has this big long metal bench. You know I'm 21 years old, just turned 21, and I remember walking in through those two big metal doors and slamming behind me and there's this big row of orange. You know inmates, you know on there and not going to lie.
Speaker 2:You know you're a little intimidated when that happens you know, and I was thinking there for a little bit, I was like I may have just screwed up. I was like I may have just screwed up, but once you go through your training and then you realize that it's just the color of the uniform, there's actually a human being still inside of that and it's a people business. Now there's sometimes in this line of work it's not always rainbows and butterflies. I'll try to help somebody, but I will be the first one. My inmates know how I operate. They know I'm fair, firm and consistent.
Speaker 2:But if you cross over the rules, you know I'll be the first one to get into them, and so that is a line that you know. That's a learned skill. And I will say, the first week there I was on pins and needles whenever I walked in that door, every single time and and the first time you know actually had a, you know, physical use of force, the first time when you, the first time when you're doing a self search and you find contraband, the first time that you're doing a pat-down, first time you have a medical emergency, all these little things or whatever, slowly start building your experience inside of everything. But they also but they also reprogram you a little bit to where you know, to where you actually have to realize that you're dealing with people and your job is to not only protect the community that you're keeping them away from. You actually got to take care of them too.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, there are charges Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely, yeah, there are charges Absolutely. Yeah absolutely so. Now I think, before I go to the next question, I need you to explain something to a lot of people, because I didn't know this until a few years ago. In most places, when you say I'm a jailer, that means that you work in a jail In Kentucky. That's the jail administrator. It's an elected position. It's an elected position. So explain to me why Kentucky's different. If you know, and what it takes to become the jailer.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and basically what happened was, of course, indiana and a lot of the ones that border us. Their sheriff's department runs a jail. And what happened, and I believe it was the third constitution of Kentucky. They made the office of jailer and they made the office of sheriff, and the reason they split both of them is because back in those times Kentucky was riddled with corruption, so the people doing the catch-em was also the same people doing the holding.
Speaker 2:So, we were friends with the person and money was passed under the table and all that stuff. So the mindset was at the time was we're going to split both offices. We're going to have a separate person that's elected to run this jail, a separate person that's here to be a sheriff, be the law enforcement in the county and so there's two elected positions the sheriff's department and the jail.
Speaker 2:We are completely separate. They're different budgets. We both have the same constitutional arrest power. If I want, I stay in my lane, but if I wanted to go ride a speeding ticket, I could.
Speaker 1:I don't do it. You know, if I wanted to go serve a ticket, I could, I don't do it Interesting.
Speaker 2:If I wanted to go serve a warrant, I could, I don't so can you be opposite parties?
Speaker 1:Yes, can you be Republican.
Speaker 2:Well, matter of fact, I'm a Republican and my friend's a sheriff and he's a Democrat Interesting, but yeah, so it's separate. I mean, I'm real good friends with our sheriff here in nelson county and uh and um, and we're not running against each other. It's basically a different. The office of jailers a separate box on there, you know for, and there's a and there's 118 elected jailers in the state of kentucky. That is just so interesting.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it is, and I'll tell you an interesting fact If you ever get to look at the history of jailers and also lynchings that took place in Kentucky, if you get into some of the history, there's an interesting story about a jailer that was in Owensboro, davies County, if anybody wants to look that up. And what happened was? I just want to paint a picture for you. Sure, okay, this is right during the middle of right, during the middle of, you know, peak of racism, the peak of you know, really, african Americans, everything they went through. And there was an African American man that was charged with, I believe it was rape or murder, and he was held in Davies County Jail.
Speaker 2:The jailer at the time used to be a Confederate soldier. Okay, used to be, but he wasn't anymore. He got elected as jailer. Well, the town mob came to the jail to get this man out because they was going to lynch him in the street. The jailer, who was a white man, them held off the town as much as he could. They actually shot and killed the jailer, ran into the jail to get the guy and and did what they did to him. And unfortunately I mean you just look at, think about this a confederate, an ex-confederate, okay, gave his life to protect an african-american that he was duly sworn to protect until he had his day in court. But unfortunately, what happened? But that's actually an interesting story. If you look at some of the history of the jailers in Kentucky, there's a very robust history with all of them.
Speaker 1:That's just so fascinating. I mean I can think of some ways why that would be so good. And then I could see well, I've seen jail administrators and sheriffs. The jail administrators are pointed and they still bump heads.
Speaker 2:Yeah right.
Speaker 1:Sheriffs often don't even like dealing. I won't say don't like it, but dealing with the jail is the part of their job that they normally dislike the most right and that's um.
Speaker 2:And there has been talks um over the years, you know, because it has been obvious. You know everyone's like you'll get a legislator. Somebody said why don't we just all the other states just merge them together? But the sheriffs, you know they got their own stuff. They said, you know, if it's not broke, don't don fix it. You know, and so you know every law enforcement agency you're going to have some disagreements and stuff.
Speaker 2:I'm very blessed we have a really good relationship with ours, you know, and whatnot. But none of the sheriffs want the headache, you know, because honestly, as a sheriff you know, hats off to the sheriffs that run the patrol and the jails, Because I mean they got a jail administrator but at the end of the day, whenever something goes wrong with that jail, their name goes on the bottom of that lawsuit and they're not even there to deal with it. Right? And another thing is that I'm here every day. So the people in Nelson County if they got a family member locked up or something at the jail, Matter of fact, I'm one of the few elected officials that I publicly post my phone number.
Speaker 2:Everybody in the county can call me directly at any time and sometimes they take very good advantage of that. But me and the sheriff, I believe, are one of the few elected officials and we actually leave our cell phones public Anybody that's a citizen. We work for them. So if they need to get hold of somebody that they hired at the election box, I think it's only fair.
Speaker 1:Interesting. So let me pick your brain again, because there's something else I saw on your posts that I didn't recognize or haven't dealt with before, and that is this fiscal court. Fiscal court, yes, and I have seen where you have taken checks and you're sending them back there. What is?
Speaker 2:that all about.
Speaker 2:So and this is what I always find quite interesting, because I always ask somebody and I may ask you what you all do in Missouri, because every state is so different on how they do things.
Speaker 2:In Kentucky every jail has a contract with the phone service provider Because the way the state law is written is that all the phone calls are collected, part of the contract of allowing a certain carrier into the jail, whatever their profit is, they get part of the profit back to the fiscal court to help offset the cost of the jail. Basically, the best way to look at a fiscal court it's basically the county's city council. That's the best way I can describe it. So you have a judge executive which is technically the mayor of the county, and you have magistrates which are elected, which are basically the city council members of the county, and basically they hold the checkbook. I present a budget, they approve my budget and you know budgets in jails is just it's just educated guesswork, because I don't know if I'm going to have an inmate with a major medical expense or something like that.
Speaker 2:But also the state statute also allows us to charge um a per diem rate, you know, when somebody's house a booking fee when they're housed, and um also allows us to take a percentage of deposits when they put money on their canteen. So that money that you see me that I'm writing checks for. Uh, let's say somebody's been in here 10 days and their parents put a hundred dollars on their books for them to buy, commissary, the jail would take $10 of that, that $10 at the end of the month, depending on how much is taken and what book it fees. Those are the checks that I cut back to fiscal court that in turn help operate the jail. Okay.
Speaker 1:Okay. So, it is coming back around.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it is coming back around.
Speaker 1:Yes, it's not set aside just for you. If this month the road crew needs more money than the jail does, they could use that money over there.
Speaker 2:They could use it over there. Yeah, it's shown as an income line item on the budget but ultimately it ends up in the general fund Interesting and on our commissary account and I know several jails have commissary accounts and whatnot the profits from it. You know we have a work program. You know inmates get to go out and paint and you know pick up garbage and different trade items. I'm getting ready to start HVAC and plumbing. We had welding last year. But the deputies that I have go out I pay their salaries out of the profits from the canteen account, so it don't cost the taxpayers any money for them.
Speaker 2:The body scanner that we got. I can spend that money on inmate work programs, something that benefits the inmates or something that benefits the security of the jail. It's all I can use it for. I can't use it to go anything. That's Buy pizza for the staff for sure. Yeah, I can't buy pizza for the staff or throw a Christmas party with it. Right, like I said, we have about four inmate crews that go out during the week. As a matter of fact, I got five out today. That's helping salt some of the sidewalks and stuff from our ice storm that we had. They all like it. They're in their own work dorm.
Speaker 2:When they go out to work. I have them a really high-calorie lunch that they go out with them. They probably get an extra thousand calories of what we serve inside here at the jail. We actually exceed the state requirement by about 600 calories just for our regular inmates. So, yeah, but, like I say, the technology has been the biggest thing, and I'll tell you, as far as you're talking about when I walked in this jail, about how in dire repair it was, I'll tell you, my first day I walked in the jail, we had a person on suicide watch and it was shift change, and so I'm just using this as an example. So setting the clock rolling around and I see an employee over here doing this is a law right Person on suicide watch, and I see this Forging a law, and not only is that illegal. That showed me that they're not doing their job.
Speaker 2:And we basically had a big, huge training with all the staff on what to expect and I switched everything to electronic logging. There's RFID tags on the cell door with all the staff on what to expect, and I switched everything to electronic logging. There's RFID tags on the cell door. I got a grant for all new cameras with audio, and so they have to physically RFID scan and open the cell door and count a respiration of an inmate that they're sleeping to mark them during their check. And under state law in Kentucky on our regular dorms it's one check an hour. If somebody's on a suicide watch, it's every 20 minutes, or a medical watch, it's every 20 minutes. So now they can't. There's no way for them to forge a law if it's all electronic, and that was very troubling to me, taking over as a jailer, to see that, because if that's been happening, then guess what it's been happening for a long time.
Speaker 1:Unfortunately, there is a portion of our staff that do stuff like that.
Speaker 2:Right, exactly.
Speaker 1:When I made lieutenant I got access to the camera systems and at the time I worked, the camera systems would show if there was movement on the camera. You could see this little deal. So the other lieutenant's teaching me how to use this and we pull up a housing unit and it's flatlined for six hours and I'm like, well, what caused that? And so we go back through the cameras and up until that point because I'd never done it myself, never seen anybody do it. Right, you couldn't tell me that there were people who skipped counts. Yeah, I didn't know that. And, uh, it just blew away. It broke my heart. It's what it did.
Speaker 2:It's a hit and a miss. Until you remember those suicides and stuff I was telling you about before, or any incident that you have in this field. If you stay in it long enough, you're eventually going to have to do a deposition in your time. I've done several.
Speaker 2:They're never pleasant, and until you actually are getting drilled by an attorney for about three hours on what you did and didn't do and one of the cases when you wasn't even there and you're getting drilled about what your staff does until you're in that seat.
Speaker 2:Sometimes the importance and the severity of somebody's actions does not register with them and I can tell it to them a thousand times. We've had meetings with staff where I'm like you know your boss documentation and your checks and your follow-ups and everything and and the way you treat inmates and stuff. Like you know, when you first start out in this field, you know you get some officers that are really cocky and you know and whatnot and you try to tone them down a little bit because nine times out of ten I can walk and talk to somebody and it may take five minutes but without me even laying a finger I can get what we need accomplished done. Sometimes we can't. I mean sometimes you have to go to that next level and I tell my staff if we have to go to that next level, our policy allows that and we do it. But if I can talk somebody down and save a page and a half on the incident report, I'm all for it. You know, absolutely. Can you talk a to me about staff.
Speaker 1:And another thing that I see. You know I've got several of these posts where you highlight your staff. You talk about the good things they're doing. It's not just you know. The only coverage we normally get is when something goes wrong. Right, exactly. You can keep 1,000 inmates inside the walls. One gets out and all of a sudden it's in the media. Yeah, right.
Speaker 1:You can save a dozen inmates from suicide, but if one dies, it's in the media. So it's so important and I love what you do. So talk to me about how you build up staff and how your leadership style.
Speaker 2:Well, my leadership style is number one is that I have an open door.
Speaker 1:I tell all staff.
Speaker 2:All staff can come and they don't have to. If they, I encourage them to use their chain of command, but they know that they can sidestep it if they need to come talk to me over something. Now, sometimes, if they come in and it's something that needs to go through the chain of command, I will redirect them where they need to go. But I think the leadership style is that I've told them, if you follow the policy and procedure and do what you're trained to do or whatever, I think they see that I have their back on things. You know. I think number one is your staff has to have trust in you. Now I've had to let people go, but every person that I've let go have known what they've done wrong and I'm not a person to just walk in one day and say, oh well, you're five minutes late, you're gone, I don't need you anymore. You know, I try to bring them in, I try to coach people, try to correct it and, plus getting training.
Speaker 2:This year we actually the jail never had this. We actually did a Deputy of the Year Award, a Rookie of the Year Award, a Lifesaving Award, and we did a Christmas party for all the staff with food and everything else and some giveaways and whatnot. The jail never really had anything. I think it had a few things like that in the past. You know, at Christmas time I try to give them extra stuff. And another thing I did too when I took over as jailer.
Speaker 2:You're going to find this is crazy, because I thought it was crazy too. How many days a week do you think the full-time work before they had a day off? I'm going to see if you can guess their normal schedule. Let's say I hired you as full-time at Nelson County Correctional Center, how many days would you expect to work before you had a day off? Five, seven. They were working seven on, two off every other weekend and I was like, how can you? I mean, that's just, that's just. So we switched to a 10 hour shift. They now have three days off, you know, and so they have more time home with their family.
Speaker 2:You know that was one thing that we did and I let them put an input. I say I may not take every word, but I think people having the confidence where they can because here's the thing, complacency is evil okay, I'm guilty of it myself. I may have been doing something the last 18 years. Somebody may come along and say why are you doing it this way? And make a suggestion, and I'm like that's a good idea. I never thought about that.
Speaker 2:And having that gear open and never acting like you're better than somebody else. I tell you I treat our inmates and our staff like they're human beings. You know I compliment, and one of my good friends who's also a trainer as well. You may know him, jeff Carter.
Speaker 1:I know him.
Speaker 2:I know him, Jeff Carter.
Speaker 2:He does a lot of training in Kentucky, and one thing that he said that's always resonated me on leadership is that a good leader, you're going to know, if your staff member's married, what their kids' names are, what their wife's name is. It doesn't mean you have to know every personal detail about them, but if you don't know the people that's in your facility on a level like that or whatever, then you really don't know who you're working for. I really think a respect thing goes a long way. I really feel like they're getting more invested into them. Like you know, when I took over as jailer, there wasn't a single deputy firearm circle. Okay, yeah, so we're all sworn peace officers, and I'll just tell you how I figured this out If you want another funny story to add to the podcast.
Speaker 2:I'm at my first month in right. So I have a person that's charged with attempted murder on a police officer and this individual decided to um pour tylenol and decided to take a bunch of them. That he was cheating, you know, and and he was able to get passed on on that, and so he ended up taking a bunch of them. So he had to get sent to the hospital to get his stomach pumped, right. So I'm at home when this happens, so they call me, so I start heading up to the hospital, you know, and I'm saying, all right, be sure, there's an armed deputy that's firearm certified.
Speaker 2:And then my staff's like what's that? Nobody here is certified with a firearm. I was like Nobody here is certified with a firearm. So we're taking somebody to the hospital that's charged with attempted murder on a police officer and the jailer is the only one that's firearm certified. So the training has been a big thing. We've firearms, firearms, use of force, you know, restraint, pair and stuff. They never had any training with it. They did the bare state minimum training here. But we are now doing training all the time and I feel like when staff gets involved they feel like they're being invested in you know. They feel like that. You know, all right, they actually care about me, that they're wanting me to succeed, and I pay trainers to come in from all over the state of Kentucky to sit down with the staff to do it and I really think if you show that effort with your staff it really goes a long way, because the training that they had before was a little online training.
Speaker 2:You know they could have been doing their dishes and not even listening to what it says, but if you have a, you have a person sitting in a seat that's listening to somebody talk. You know that they're getting the material and that's the way.
Speaker 1:I look at it. So what I'm hearing here is a combination of many things, and I'll get to one deal One. You're listening to your staff, you're letting them have input, you're making them more successful and giving them skills so that they can succeed in whatever they decide to do. This is a staff member that's going to stay around, and where I'm going with this is. I saw, I saw where you'd posted the circuit court, the jailer's report, and I got to looking at that and you are 100% staffed.
Speaker 2:Yes, 100% staffed.
Speaker 1:That right there says a lot, and now that I'm talking to you, now that I'm hearing some of this stuff you're talking about, I understand why you're 100% staffed, because they can tell that you care right and and they know, and they know, at the end of the day, I still have to be their boss.
Speaker 2:But they know, at the end of the day, whatever happens, they're going to get a fair shake right. And I always tell them I'm not perfect. You know what I mean. I mean I've had to suspend employees, I've had to let people go, but it's never a first time ordeal. It's always.
Speaker 2:I bring them in here and I try to talk to them. I'm like you know, I was like, just be, you know. I tried to explain to them. I was like, if you want to go work down at the factory down the road, they're still not going to allow you to be late for work. You know, I think you know I'm like regarding, I was like you know there has to be, uh, and I guess the best way I it was hard the first six months because the tail was wagging the dog here, unfortunately.
Speaker 2:Yeah, staff was coming in whenever they wanted to leave and whenever they wanted to write. I mean, incident reports are not getting done. There was a culture, yeah, and it was a culture and so it's been a. It's been a lot of work, a lot of sleepless nights. I'm not going to lie, but I'm a religious person, you know, and part of it to me is that you know God always says to help your most vulnerable, and stuff like that. So I think it's a very honorable profession that we do. It's because most of the people that's in jail are ones that society has cast out, and there's some people inside this jail that do not need to get out of it. I have about 20 or 25 of them. They need to go to prison for the rest of their life and as soon as they get out, they're going to hurt somebody.
Speaker 2:They don't need to get out. But I also have a lot of other people that are in here for drugs and have a substance abuse problem, that need treatment, that are actually good people once they get sobered up. And those are the people that I try to reach with these programs. The ones that are violent offenders and stuff like that I can't change either. I can't. You know, I can't change evil. The ones that have raped somebody and done stuff like that, I can't. And even statistics have shown you can't change that behavior. Right, you know their chances of reoffending is very high. But if I got somebody that is a real good person, a hard worker, and they want to go through some of the programs that we have here, I will try to to get them a job. When they get down, I will try to get them housing.
Speaker 2:Uh, we had a guy that went through our program, was a state inmate here, because we hold state prisoners here too. I doesn't want to go out and work, so we hold state and county and uh, he, his family, was up in cincinnati that's where he was from and he ended up being down here and so he had no way of getting home. So remember the commissary account I was telling you about, you can use it for the benefit of the inmate. So guess what? I bought him a bus ticket and drove him all the way to Louisville so that way he could get on a bus and get to his family in Cincinnati for New Year's. But it's little stuff. You do like that to people.
Speaker 1:That's not little stuff. When're in internet, sitting in prison and you see that kind of stuff, that's huge. They may have never had anybody take the time when when they're sitting in jail and they see staff taking time to to get the mold out of the shower and put fresh paint on there, because that's where they have to take a shower every day right, they see you guys.
Speaker 1:I saw dorm two, I think, where you guys are doing a bunch of, you know, cleaning up the beds and the walls and all that stuff. That's huge to those inmates and jail as well as prison. People talk about it in prison but jail runs on respect also Absolutely and I know that just from what I see. They feel the respect there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and know that just from what I see they feel the respect there I'm probably one of the few jails too. It used to be, and you probably remember this, I know you do, and several jails probably still do this. I'm sure whoever watches this will know the paper it may request agreements, right, of course. All of ours are electronic now you never have to worry about. Well, he wrote a green with an omega. It didn't make it to the box, right, so you?
Speaker 2:don't have to worry about that, which that builds confidence with inmates too, but they also have a box on there where they can select jail, and it goes straight to my laptop in here, and if they have a legitimate concern that the grievance process is not addressed and they make request process is not addressed, they can write me directly yeah, they can they can bypass the staff completely and write me directly now.
Speaker 2:sometimes I'm really good at checking email, so sometimes I'll be like, hey, when's my next court date? And I'll be like, use a regular request and be patient. I'm not going to do that, but you would be surprised on how much that cuts down on litigation, because I can catch something before it turns into a civil rights issue.
Speaker 2:I can catch something before it turns into maybe an inmate and deputy conflict, an inmate on inmate conflict and having that open door and having that flow of communication. My jail inspector, I think, said it, and again I'm not trying to brag there's a lot of jails and a lot of prisons that do probably a better job than I do. I'm not saying that we're like a gold standard by any means and.
Speaker 2:I hope nobody takes it as that way. But one thing that my jail inspector I never really paid attention to it as much. When he comes down, we have two jail inspections a year and one of them is planned and one of them is a pop he just randomly shows up like hey, we're going to do a jail inspection. But one thing he brought up that I never really thought about was after we were done doing the rounds. We go inside every single dorm. He asked every inmate hey, are you being treated fairly? Is anything going on? And stuff like that.
Speaker 2:And I tell the inmates too, too, because I'm with you. I'm like guys, this is a no judgment zone, something's wrong in here. I want you to tell them. Tell him straight up what's wrong. I tell every inmate do not pretend like, pretend like I'm not here, I want you to buckle. And he said, uh, after he got done he's like, out of all those inmates we only had one complaint, he like. But a lot of times, whenever I get walked around, the inmates will huddle around the jailer asking a thousand questions because they've never seen and they'll want to know questions about when they're going to work.
Speaker 2:And he said none of the inmates did that to you when you walked around and I was like that's because I'm available.
Speaker 1:You know, and so that helps out a lot. It's such a good lesson. You know, if you go back in the 70s and 80s, the big riots that happened across the country, oh, absolutely, absolutely the end of the day, it was about not feeling heard. They couldn't get their grievances heard, nobody was listening. And you're absolutely right to the point. I've seen this so much in my career, especially, and I'll say, in prisons. Sometimes we're overstaffed up top. Okay.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, right, right, yeah.
Speaker 1:No, I mean more, more at the bottom, fewer at the top Right, but you would. You see these people who make that. One hour after their lunch on Wednesday. They walk through the housing unit. You know the deputy or the warden or whoever it is could be the captain or a psychologist, and they don't ever stop. They just walk through so that they can be seen on camera. And you're right, when they get the chance, those inmates are just blah because they haven't talked to them in forever. Right, you do see that if you're into security and you walk around an institution, you will see the inmates who feel like they're hurt, who have access to staff.
Speaker 2:This thing is following up. I always tell staff don't be scared to say no. But also, if you say you're going to do something by the end of your shift, if you say you're going to do X, y and Z, x, y and Z better be done, because the only thing you've got your word and respect in here and once you lose it, it's done, it's done.
Speaker 2:And it's very, very hard to get back and it's a two-way road. Inmates got to give it to receive it as well. I mean, it's a two-way road. But I've had people, you know, on both sides of the spectrum. You know, some people have went and said, you know where I'm trying to offer programs and stuff and they're like, well, you're too soft on them, feed them bread and water Heck, you know, chain them to a wall. You know, do whatever. You know. You know why don't they cane them like they do in Singapore and stuff? And my thing is there's several different answers to that. Number one treat others the way you want to be treated.
Speaker 2:I'm not a judge. I'm not a judge nor a jury. My job is to. My job by statute is to make sure that our constitutional rights are met and that they get fair access to the court. I'm not allowed to judge them, but just by my law I'm not allowed to judge them at all. That's number one. Number two why would I not try to help somebody if I'm in a position to help somebody? Number three is that it's not always rainbows and butterflies. I do post a lot of positive stuff or whatever, but there's times when I'm sure you'll see me if I'm in the back and somebody's yelling or whatever. I'll jump right in the mix and set them straight too. So I mean it's. It's not always like that. I mean there's times when you have to jump in and be and take over a situation, but a little kindness never really hurt anybody.
Speaker 1:No, it doesn't, and I've been around long enough and in enough places that I've seen the inmates who were treated like that, who were treated the way you're talking about. Some of those people wanted and one thing that people don't understand when it comes to security if you've got an inmate that has nothing, he also has nothing to lose, absolutely, and they're unmanageable, right. So it's so much easier and people don't like this sometimes, but you've heard me talk about it on the podcast before it is so much easier to lead inmates as a leader, to have influence with them, than it is to walk in there and try to.
Speaker 1:You're not. You're once you get them down and they have nothing. You can't do anything with that.
Speaker 2:Yeah and just a regular officer and deputy. You know I'll ask them or whatever. Uh, I ask them most time two questions. I'm like number one um, as soon as we walk into the jail, are we using force on the inmates that's in here? And they're like, no, we, no, we're all right here. I was like, yes, you are, you're keeping them in here. That's a use of force, keeping them inside this building. I was like number two I tell them, whenever you're actually interacting and dealing with these inmates that we're talking with, don't ever think that you've got cameras above you and everything else.
Speaker 2:Always pretend like these cameras in these ceilings are broadcasting out to CNN and Fox News at all times. And I was like, if you have that mindset, then you are going to do what you're supposed to do. And because the cameras are there to protect you just as much as they are anybody else those cameras have saved, I don't know. I remember when we first put cameras in at Hardin County Jail, the deputies were like, oh man, cameras everywhere. But guess what? You don't know how many times an inmate wrote a grievance and said well, such and such did X, y and Z at this time and pulling up on camera. It never happened and it saved. I remember when we used to have a fight or altercation before we had cameras inside the dorm we'd have to put in inmate statements and you know there's only two toilets in there, but all 15 of them would say it was in the restroom when it happened, you know.
Speaker 2:They didn't see nothing right, so you know, but it's technology's helped out in corrections big time as well.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So what made you want to become jailer? How did you take that step from hey, I'm a correctional officer, now I'm a lieutenant to. I want to take over the. I want to be in charge of the whole jail.
Speaker 2:Well, to tell you the truth, I had ambitions on doing it back when I first started. I've always been kind of goal-driven. Once I decided it was kind of one of my goals. I was always like you know, I'm going to run for jailer one day. Well, then my kids were born and my priorities changed and it just so happened that one of my friends who was jailer for one term here before I took over he talked to me and he said you know, I'm probably not going to run again. He's like I know how you operate and stuff and I really think that you would do the jail some good if you ran. And I was a hard no at first I was like do I want to put my family through all the political stuff that comes along with it?
Speaker 2:And you know, as soon as you file, if you've got an R beside your name, then the D's automatically hate you. If you've got a D, then the R's automatically hate you. And so I was like, do I really want to put my family through this? So I prayed a lot, talked to my wife a lot, talked to my kids a lot. I was a no, had more people talk to me.
Speaker 2:I guess once other people was kind of figuring out who was going to run. And finally I looked at it and I was like, well, I've had enough people in the county ask me to run. Maybe it's a sign, let's do this. And if the people decide that they want me in this position, I'll do it, you know, because I do have the experience to do it. And if they decide that I don't need to be in it, then I'll just go on doing what I do.
Speaker 2:And so I had a contested primary and a contested general election and I ended up getting 70% of the voting vote. So it was very uh. It was uh, very emotional for me because it was a goal. It was a goal that I honestly put on a shelf. Well, once you get your kids and stuff like that, it was a goal that, yeah, back before I got married and stuff, I was like you know, I'm going to do this, this and this, and then, once your kids and your family and everything start coming into play, you kind of be like, well, I need to be a dad, I need to do Do. I want to put them through elections and politics and people saying bad stuff about their dad on the Internet?
Speaker 2:and all this other stuff that comes with you know, every time.
Speaker 2:I'm just went on Facebook today and there was a person dogging me on there today. It was a Facebook account, but I mean, it's just, you can't get, you can't get away from it. You know, one thing you can do is laugh and smile and go on. Yeah, I mean, I mean it's, it is what it is. But I mean, at the end of the day, though, I'm blessed I believe it's where god put me to be at um I get to help people. I know I've changed several people's lives.
Speaker 2:Um there's some people there's some people I can't help, um, but uh, I really think that I. I really think I'm where I need to be in until god tells me that I need to do something else. Hopefully, you don't tell me I need to sit in front of a computer screen the rest of my life because I like talking to people. I like talking and working with people. I'm very blessed.
Speaker 2:A lot of people look at this as a job. This is a career. Anybody that puts on a uniform, this can be a career that can benefit you. But you have to look out for your family life at home. I still bring stuff home with me that I couldn't.
Speaker 2:It's an ongoing thing that you have to work on. It doesn't just go away overnight. There's traumatic stuff that you see that stays with you and stuff like that. And an ongoing thing that you have to deal with is you have to learn how to separate it and leave it at work. And I've gotten better with it. I've gotten better with it over the years. I really have gotten better with it, but far from perfect. I will say we all are. Yeah, I know we all are. Yeah, I know we all are. But somebody has to do this job, and I would much rather somebody do this job, because here's the thing All of us have done something in our life that could have got us on the other end of the spectrum or at least locked up overnight, at least once other end of the spectrum, or at least locked up overnight, at least once. All of us has or there's always that one friend we could have hung out with more. That would have took us down a different path.
Speaker 2:We are really- Lots of those friends, oh I think there will be, but the thing about it is is that all of us have always been one decision away from not being where we're at right now. And some people get into this line of work because I was, I did do part of my job as being a lieutenant over at Hardin County was. I did internal affairs too, and I had three employees that we arrested for solicitation for basically telling an inmate's girlfriend I'll get him out of jail if you take me to your apartment and I'll just let your imagination go there. And the other two were contraband related. And so, unfortunately, there's people that can't say no and cross that line, and it's sad when that happens, because all of us, if you're in this line of work, if you're not, if you're not comfortable saying the word no, then uh, um, as soon as you say yes, it could be just bringing this ink pen, and this ink pen can turn into a cell phone it can turn into marijuana, it can turn into drugs.
Speaker 2:I mean, um, and unfortunately there's people that once they got you hooked and you got a family to feed and you got a paycheck that you rely on, once they get you on the contraband hook or anything, it's best if you just brought in the ink pen and realized that you messed up. Don't tell your supervisor right now. You can stop what you're doing up. Don't tell your supervisor right now you can stop what you're doing. If it gets to a point where you're going to bring in a knife or hand grenade, then you have definitely went too far.
Speaker 1:Definitely went too far, absolutely. So you said you're goal-oriented. What's some of the goals coming up for? What are you trying to get done?
Speaker 2:Any big projects you want.
Speaker 2:Yeah, right now. I just submitted an application with the US Marshals to start doing some federal housing, trying to get federal inmates inside the jail, and then after that we're working with the fiscal court right now to hopefully build us a new facility. Our facility was built in 1987, and it was originally built for 20-something beds and it now has 102 beds and it was added on to in 1991. It hasn't been touched since. It was added onto in 1991. It hasn't been touched since. So my goal is, if I had everything the way I kind of want it, my goal would be to have a new, updated facility where I can do programs that the state's got. It's called like a SOAR program, where I can actually contract with the factories and people go out and work during the day. They send the paychecks to the jail. We take part of that money to go towards child support or restitution and then part of it goes in the savings account with them and everything else.
Speaker 2:And my goal is to try to keep the bad people away from the people in Nelson County. But the people that I can try to change and try to get them a job housing, away from what they're doing. And here's the deal, the success rate on this is three or four out of 10. I'm not, I'm not sugarcoating anybody by saying, oh, I'm going to change the world because I can't. But guess what? That's three or four different people, that that we don't have to worry about reoffending, that you know, maybe get a chance to be with their kids and stuff. So I mean, how awesome is that?
Speaker 1:I worked around a similar program. It's the one thing in all my years that I thought truly changed some inmates and changed their lives. Because for them to be able to go to work just like a normal person, we sent them out. They went to work, they worked with everybody else and they saved up money. And I've seen so many guys leave prison with 200 bucks. You can't do nothing with 200 bucks. Those guys left prison with maybe as much as $10,000. They could pay first in the last month's rent, they could pay their water deposit, they could buy a small car and a lot of them. On Monday morning they got out of jail on Friday On Monday morning. If that place thought they were a good worker, they hired them back. Yeah, and those were the guys who were changed forever.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and we've also had on our county road department and our city road department the guys that go out and help with like leaf pickup and stuff like that. We've had the city hire an inmate. You know, once he was released the county's actually hired some of the four too. So I mean, if they show that they work I mean our city and county government, like for our road departments and stuff they're not scared to give them a chance, which I think is great.
Speaker 2:It is Because it used to be the. Of course, you know you always run background checks on people and a background check does paint a picture to a certain extent. Don't get me wrong. But you know I've seen people change. People can change, I mean, sometimes they don't. But the fact of the matter is, is that I say give somebody a chance until they prove you otherwise?
Speaker 2:You know, I mean and, and you know what that person may be so thankful that you give them an opportunity. They may be one of the best employees you ever hire. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:This is not enjoyable. In here.
Speaker 2:A lot of people think that, oh well, they keep on coming back. It's enjoyable. It's like no, because let me tell you, if you're addicted to a substance or whatever, you will burn down a church to get hold of. If it meant you got your next fix of drugs. I mean, that's just how bad of a hold that these drugs have on people.
Speaker 1:Well, you know it sounds like you're doing great stuff. I'm going to keep watching your LinkedIn and maybe we'll get you back on here in a few months or a year and see what you've got to do and where everything's going.
Speaker 2:Well, michael, I would greatly enjoy that and I appreciate the videos that you all are doing and, like I say, you show a field that not very many people get to see and actually hear about. So I think it's very important that even people that don't work in corrections just actually listen to what goes on. I mean, your tax dollars paid for it. You might as well know about it, you know, right, yeah.
Speaker 1:So in the show notes is there some contact information I can put on there, like the website for the jail.
Speaker 2:You can put the website. You can even put my cell number on there if you want.
Speaker 1:Okay, we'll put it on. Maybe you'll get an employee, if you ever get an opening.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, you can put my email, my phone number, the whole nine yards.
Speaker 1:Okay, that'll be in the show notes. Thank you for stopping by today, justin. I really appreciate it and I'm looking forward to talking to you some more.
Speaker 2:Well, thank you very much, Michael, and I greatly appreciate you having me today, absolutely.
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