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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
Re-Broadcast - ILEETA Live: An interview with Mike Cantrell and Gary York
This is a Re-Broadcast of ILEETA Live! Yyou can find more episodes here: / @ileeta
Two nationally recognized voices in corrections. One powerful conversation.
ILEETA Live is back July 16 at 7:30PM CST.
This month: Michael Cantrell and Gary York—both published authors and respected subject matter experts—join us to talk leadership, resilience, and the real-world challenges facing today’s correctional professionals.
Check out this episode and many more here: / @ileeta
Plus:
✅ Instructor Development segment
✅ ILEETA updates
✅ The debut of our brand-new Legal Update with Duane Wolfe
Set a reminder. Bring your team. You’ll want to hear this one.
#ILEETALive #TribeOfTrainers #CorrectionsLeadership #InstructorDevelopment #ILEETALegalUpdate
Contact us: mike@theprisonofficer.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ThePrisonOfficer
Take care of each other and Be Safe behind those walls and fences!
Good evening everybody. How's everybody doing out there in Aelita world? We are here in July already. And wow, july. How many days until the next Aelita conference, todd, you know.
Speaker 3:Oh, I have no idea, but this year seems to be flying.
Speaker 2:Let's go with 242 until ILETA 2026. That seems so far off. That's so close. It will be here before you know it. You know what? Christmas is almost here, good grief. So we'll be here before you know it. You know what? Christmas is almost here, good grief. So myself and Todd Fletcher here, and we're going to be giving you another awesome. I lead alive with two great guests from the corrections world. We have corrections representatives from all over the world and it's nice to get a couple of the well-known correctional experts here and we will talk about them here in just a little bit. Before we do that, we want to go with some Aelita news here and we've got some new slides here. This episode of Aelita Live is brought to you by correctional news. Go out there and check them out. There's a QR code and this is something brand new to I lead alive. We're getting some sponsors to help us out with these. I lead a lives here, pretty exciting.
Speaker 3:You're going to go big time on us after this, I think sponsors and ads and all this stuff.
Speaker 2:That's pretty cool Well we're excited for the kind of partnership that Correctional News has been doing here?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's awesome. But hey, let's jump into some news and updates. What's going on in Alita here in July of 2025? Well, the first thing we want you guys to do is check your membership. Is it current? Do you need to renew it? Check your profile have you retired? Have you went to a different department, transferred lateral? We just want you to jump in there and check all your information to make sure it's current, and we know it's easy to make your membership lapse a little bit. It's easy to fix that. Just contact Jenny at the ILETA office. Her number's right there, her email is right there. If you're having issues with renewing your subscription or if you're not a member, she's the go to person to join Aelita. So leave that up there for just a little bit. Make sure your contacts, everything is current up there.
Speaker 2:Early bird registration Aelita 2026. It's hard to say 2026 when it's still 2025. But it's open until October 31st of 2025. And it's $399. That's an awesome deal. So before October 31st, you can get that early bird special. Go in there and register for the Aelita 2026 conference. Todd, when's the instructor? Proposals due.
Speaker 3:Let's go back a little bit. Don't forget also that there's a new multiple member bundle option where, if you register five or more people, you get the same $399 rate for the conference as you would if you got everybody registered as early birds. So that's something new this year and something that I think departments should be taking advantage of Absolutely departments should be taking advantage of.
Speaker 2:Absolutely Many departments send multiple instructors. Hey, take advantage of that benefit right there 100%.
Speaker 3:I mean, you think about that If you were to send five people, it's basically buy four, get one free right? So that's a great deal.
Speaker 2:Very good reminder there, Todd.
Speaker 3:And when you mention the instructor proposals, those are due October 31st. So, unless you're like Brian Hill and some others that are going to wait till like October 30th, try to get those in early, because we're apparently already on track to exceed last year's number of proposals for setting another record. And so there's two trains of thought here do like Brian does and wait till the last moment and really dump everything on on Brian and Joe to get through those, you know, all last minute, or we could help them out and give them an opportunity to take a look at some of these uh instructor proposals a little bit earlier. So, uh, I don't know what are you going to do, brian?
Speaker 2:The pressure is on. The pressure is on, I think you I think that was a challenge there, todd I think I'm going to have to I'm looking at possibly doing something a little bit different this year. So I've got I've got some brainstorm written down on a, on a legal pad, two pages of just ideas that just possibly going in a new direction, maybe some leadership type training is what I'm looking at.
Speaker 3:So oh, very cool. That's exciting, see, and I was going to ask you if you're going to give us a hint or if you're just going to kind of leave it there and let it hang.
Speaker 2:Well speaking of hints and I know you don't want to let the cat out of the bag, but you're involved in some of the most secret squirrel stuff aelita does. What is that me? Yes, you. There's something at the aelita conference that you're involved in that is top secret.
Speaker 3:That's top secret, top secret. I don't know of anything that's top secret.
Speaker 2:Nobody knows, until the night.
Speaker 3:Oh, okay, but everybody knows about Emerson Hour, or at least they should, even if you haven't come to the Aelita Conference. We mention Emerson Hour enough to where people should know about Emerson Hour, but the only really thing that's top secret about that is the who's invited to speak and who the speakers ultimately are. That's my secret, all right.
Speaker 2:All right, One of the best. I mean everything at Alita is top notch, but that's one of the most go-to events that everybody must attend, so I'm kind of looking forward to seeing who your lineup is for 2026.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I've already got my hooks in a couple of people and looking forward to it.
Speaker 2:But hey, while we're talking about we've kind of teased some people about 2026 conference. Since Joe's not here, let's play this little video that I have about what's going on at the Alita conference. Hang on, let me just pull this video up here for everybody.
Speaker 5:The fundamental philosophies and principles of the organization have stayed consistent since the start. It's about the membership. It's about us facilitating training that's going to raise the bar for the profession as a whole, facilitate that learning and that growth for people in the profession that are interested in what can we do to do a better job, to prepare our people for the complexities and the challenges of the profession that they're in. We're an association that's committed to trainers and to training that also happens to run a world-class conference.
Speaker 6:We have an entirely packed schedule over the course of a week. Every night at Aelita is designed to get trainers to connect to each other and to the industries that support training and law enforcement.
Speaker 5:And the environment here at ED was very intentional about creating this culture, where it's a culture of peers. It should be on your bucket list of things to come Once you've been here. Once then you'll understand what all the buzz is about. Ileda is more than a conference. It's not just sharing of academic theories. It's practical application for the research and that information. It's important to have a connection with like-minded people who are going through the same struggles, have been through the same struggles. Knowing that you're not alone and that you have people that you can reach out to is something that a lot of trainers need.
Speaker 6:This conference will always be the cornerstone. This conference will always be the pilgrimage that trainers take every year to find one another.
Speaker 5:So just that connection is a critical component and an important piece of being part of this community of trainers, which is what it is.
Speaker 3:What a powerful video. You did an amazing job on that.
Speaker 2:That is amazing. Is that video available for everybody, Todd.
Speaker 3:Yeah, apparently we're going to to be available for everybody. That's going to be an amazing addition. That. That's really cool. They did a great job.
Speaker 2:Or even to show that to your supervisor, your chief, to hopefully help you get to the ILETA conference in 2026. Hopefully help you get to the Aelita.
Speaker 3:Conference in 2026. Yeah, I mean, it shows the professionalism, the level of commitment to the people that make this association, this organization, what it is, and I think that that's a really good representation of who we are.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. Hey, we have a new segment here on Aelita Live and it's just a short video, and one of our fabulous members that's been with Aelita, I think since the inception of Aelita Dwayne Wolfe, and he's going to speak to us about a legal update. Let's hear what Dwayne has to say here in his a legal update.
Speaker 1:Let's hear what Dwayne has to say here in his. In Barnes v Felix, the Supreme Court reaffirms the totality of circumstances standards of Graham v Conner, rejecting the Fifth Circuit's narrow moment of threat approach For law enforcement trainers. This isn't a shift. It's a signal to double down on scenario-based training, documentation, practices and policy language that reflects the whole picture, not just the split-second decision.
Speaker 1:Hello ILEDA members, I'm Duane Wolfe. I just wanted to give you a heads up about something new that's going to be coming out shortly. Ileda has asked me to host a quarterly legal update and I'm really looking forward to the opportunity. The objective is to sit down, take a look at the current case law, any changes that occurred recently, to get that information out to you for you to better understand how to train officers and how to do your job as a trainer. Of course, the big case that's come out recently is Barnes versus Felix, so that's the first case we'll be looking at. I've seen and heard a lot of differing opinions about how that's going to affect you as an officer and you as a trainer. So we're going to sit down with a couple of experts who are Alita members. We're going to look at that case in depth and come up with recommendations for you, the changes that you may want to take a look at making on your department and in your training in order to better prepare your police officers out on the street. Really looking forward to the opportunity. It's going to be coming out late August or early September, so we're looking forward to seeing you then.
Speaker 1:I'm Duane Wolfe for ILITA and the quarterly legal update. Thank you.
Speaker 2:So I think Duane might be watching on online. So, dwayne, thanks for that Great training tidbit update of some great legal stuff here. I was just going through our chats here. I didn't see him on there, but hey, what's coming up next?
Speaker 3:Todd. Oh, we get a great conversation, hopefully. I'm guessing this is going to be fascinating and it's going to fly with Michael Cantrell and Gary York, so perfect timing on the corrections, guess with our new sponsors. So this is exciting.
Speaker 2:This is exciting. This is exciting. Well, let's bring Michael and Gary on and hang on one second. Bada bing, bada boom.
Speaker 1:And there we are.
Speaker 2:So, hey, welcome to Aelita Live. We are happy to have hey. Welcome to I Lead Alive. We are happy to have both of you on here. What we usually do with I Lead Alive is we have the guests kind of give us a little bit of background and tell us about who you are for the members that don't know who you are.
Speaker 4:So, Michael, let's start with you Tell us a little bit about you and your background and your association with Aelita. Absolutely, I started in corrections almost 34 years ago now, missouri State Pen, which my first place to work is now a museum, if that tells you how old I am. But I worked for about nine years with the Missouri Department of Corrections and then I stepped over to the Federal Bureau of Prisons, worked several institutions there maximum security mostly Ended up in Washington DC. At the end of my career as the Chief of Emergency Preparedness and while I was up there, one of the things I did was talk to them about doing a podcast, because I listen to podcasts all the time on the train and I said let's do a podcast that we can put out to the staff. Well, the lawyers had it for a few years and they never did anything with it and finally I retired. So I thought, well, you know what, I'll do a podcast.
Speaker 4:And so I am now the host of the Prison Officer Podcast. Been busy, you know. I tell people I'm failing retirement. I run that podcast. We're up over 100 episodes and I've written five books since I retired. So I'm failing retirement horribly. But thank you for inviting me. I'm happy to be here, happy to be here with Gary.
Speaker 2:Well, thanks, Michael. I think Todd is failing retirement as well, not to that extent. We can talk about that later. Gary, tell us about yourself there.
Speaker 7:Yes, sir. Right after high school, I joined the United States Army and did 10 years with the United States Army and Military Police. I ended up with a rank of staff sergeant, got out of the Army and needed a job, went to the local prison, got hired and needed a job. Went to the local prison, got hired it was just going to be temporary. Well, 29 years later, I retired from corrections.
Speaker 7:Within my corrections career of 29 years, I was a correctional officer at a state prison. I was promoted to felony probation and parole where I worked felony probation in Ubois City, florida. Then I was promoted to a senior prison inspector where for 12 years, I conducted criminal, civil and administrative investigations within Florida prisons and probation and parole. And then Sheriff Grady Judd had a big bonus sign on and it was the same retirement system for my wife and I left the state prison system and did our last 12 years at the Polk County Sheriff's Office with the judge and retired in 2018. I'm now a columnist for corrections1.com. I work for the International Association of Chiefs of Police. I'm a proud member now. Thank you, carrie Avery, for the Aelita and I really enjoy Aelita. I really am a good fan.
Speaker 3:So you're kind of failing in retirement. Also, it sounds like you're staying busy um and uh between writing and and uh, mentoring and sharing your experience with others, and and well, you're an Aelita member, so you know occasionally a trainer, but always a student, so it sounds like you're feeling retirement miserably too yes, sir, I I'm working in several different areas.
Speaker 7:I haven't left the profession. So yes, I am.
Speaker 3:Excellent.
Speaker 2:I feel left out. I'm the only one that's still working. I'm not retired, I guess yes.
Speaker 3:If you want to get busy, if you want to be busy, retire Everybody that I know that's retired is busier working as retired.
Speaker 4:Yeah, but you're doing what you want.
Speaker 1:It's different.
Speaker 4:Yeah, going out and teaching all the time You're around people that want to be there. It's a whole different thing than going into a seg unit and putting up with inmates every day.
Speaker 2:You know, todd and I I don't think Todd's had any experience in corrections or working in the jail, and neither have I. You know, I worked for a sheriff's department for a while and I booked them into jail and left them there. But that's about the extent. What's the difference between law enforcement traditional law enforcement, and the corrections? And for those that I mean, we all know, but from your perspective that you want to get out to the world, tell us a little bit about the corrections world.
Speaker 7:The difference I call it between the jail or the prison and the street is you're walking into an environment outnumbered more than 101 in many cases with only pepper spray and handcuffs and a radio, and backup is close by.
Speaker 7:You would say it's so close, but yet it's so far, because it takes time to get through all the channels to get there to help you and back you up. But you're dealing with the same population that law enforcement on the street deal with. But you're dealing with them up front and personal, all day long, all shift long, and you're using your interpersonal communication skills. Quite often At least I hope you are, because I would rather use interpersonal communication skills and avoid a confrontation than have one. But you're going to have them, no matter what they're going to come about, and you will have to use one. But you're going to have them, no matter what they're going to come about, and you will have to use force. But that's the difference. You're living with them 12 hours, 16 hours a day, uh, as compared to uh picking them up off the street and bringing them in the book.
Speaker 4:I think the other difference is is how hidden we are. You know, as a police officer on the street, uh, not only do you get to interact with, you know, depending on what call you show up on it, you might be the hero, you might be the bad guy. Depends on who you're dealing with, right? You know, we're pretty much, even though we're not really the bad guy, we're perceived that way. I mean, look at movies, look at TV, look at all that, and we're hidden. And we've done that to ourselves in some aspects.
Speaker 4:We've, uh, we've kept that little society behind the walls, quiet and hidden, because that's what the public wants, that's what they pay us to do. They don't want these people in their backyard, they want us to go take care of them and, uh, they don't want to know that they're part of that justice system that took somebody's freedom away and put them away for 50 years. But the correctional officer inside isn't the one who took the freedom away. We're not the one who is doing this, we're just enforcing the mandate of the judges and the public, and but they don't want to know that. And so we get hidden in there sometimes and people forget that we're in there dealing with it 24, seven, 365 days a year. There is no break, you know. So I think that's the. I think that's the thing that's missing sometimes. I'd love to see some. You know, something besides orange is the new black and and all that junk on TV that has nothing to do with what corrections is.
Speaker 3:It's kind of like cop shows. Nobody wants to sit there and watch it in front of a computer and type, for you know eight hours Right exactly.
Speaker 3:You know I actually am very fascinated by this conversation because I think that bringing corrections and dispatch parole and probation into Aelita is, you know, actively recruiting these other disciplines into Aelita is way past due, because I think that we're all part of law enforcement. We're all part of that, you part of that group and that association, and yet there are differences between what we do and how we operate. And, gary, I want to start with you first. One of the questions I have, looking over your bio and your experience and listening to you, is on the investigation side. You know, I was a officer, I was a sergeant detective, did a lot of investigations, but on the street side, of things you know, from homicides and officer-involved shootings to burglaries and thefts, what is kind of the difference between street-level street investigations that you would normally find detectives or patrol officers involved in, and what we find as far as investigations in a correctional institution?
Speaker 7:Well, first of all I'd like to state that your prisons and jails are small cities within themselves and you would think, okay, I've had a homicide in the prison or I've had an aggravated battery, it's going to be very easy right to find the person who did it. But that's wrong. It's a small city and all the incarcerated, the ones that want to tell you information, are scared to give you information and the others have the code of silence or keeping it quiet, and these investigations can actually get complex. That in my 12 years doing investigations in prisons we worked often because a lot of these cases in the prisons connect to the outside world. You're drug smuggling, you're weapon smuggling, things of this nature, and I worked so many cases with the Florida Department of Law Enforcement agents, even the FBI, and all the local, depending on what county I was in, because we traveled from county to county.
Speaker 7:I worked with the local sheriff's department, the police department. We all had to work together to be stronger to solve prison crimes. So a lot of people don't realize it's not just me, the prison inspector, conducting an investigation from inside the prison. I need help, I need the postal inspector, I need the detective on the street. We have to connect a lot of these crimes from the prison to the street and hopefully result in ending the case with some arrests not only within the prison but on the street, to help stop the crimes that are occurring. So it's not just inside the prison that we invest in. Everything seems to end up somehow back on the street in some way, shape or form.
Speaker 3:Let's see. That makes a lot of sense because I mean, as a as a detective in Oregon, I had cases that connected to correctional institutions in Oregon and then one as far away as a prison in Tallahassee. So you know, I ended up having to fly to Tallahassee to do an interview in a prison, so it makes sense that that would be the case. So how do you bridge some of those divides?
Speaker 7:I always make contact with the local law enforcement and I always felt that the wardens of the prisons should make contact with all the local law enforcement and tell them this is what we would do if an escape occurred. We need to know if we can do some scenarios together, train together to learn how we're all going to react if there's an escape. You know there was a New Orleans escape that was just recent. How is everybody going to react in a 10-man escape like the one that just occurred? We need all agencies functioning together as one to be stronger. But if we're not training together and not communicating and not reaching out to the other agencies when we have an escape from the prison, we're going to be pretty weak in what we do if we don't train.
Speaker 3:Brian did you?
Speaker 2:No, I'm curious to hear Michael's response to your questions as well.
Speaker 4:Well, I think Gary's hit one thing on the head Absolutely Is us working together and part of that comes to us. You know it's inviting people in because you wouldn't think so and I don't mean to upset anybody, but I've ran into a lot of police officers, a lot of ambulance and a lot of you know firefighters who are nervous to come inside the prison. Well, you know, sometimes if we do need help, let's say there's a fire. You know firefighters who are nervous to come inside the prison. Well, you know, sometimes if we do need help, let's say there's a fire. You know, have you brought that fire department in there ahead of time? Have you dealt? You know, have you decided who's going to take what um area during an escape? And I think Carrie hits it absolutely on the head.
Speaker 4:Uh, a lot of what we deal with in prison is gang related also, and gangs are not set in one area, they're spread out all over the country. They do that on purpose, just like any other business would do, and some of those things are actually controlled from inside the prison. We have the ability to give local law enforcement a lot of information if they will just reach out and ask those guys get on the telephones. They're talking to their girlfriend. I've heard them. I have seen where they have talked about murders. Well, there they've talked about hey so-and-so's got this hit. Over here there was a Stradivarius violin that had been gone for years, that was talked about on a phone call and was found, you know. So we have a ton of information. We can't always follow up with everything that we hear, but definitely look towards your local prison, jail, whatever, and see what their monitoring capabilities are, see what they know. Because we do, we gather a ton of information. Go ahead.
Speaker 7:I'd like to point out probation, and parole is just as important. Oh, absolutely, absolutely they have pre-sentence investigation, post-sentence investigation and a ton of knowledge that we need to use not only for the street, but for the prison as well.
Speaker 4:Yes, yep.
Speaker 2:Yes, Yep, community places, but we never went to the local prison or the jail and got involved with them and I think, I think that time has passed and hopefully most agencies are are maybe doing that. And if not, what are some things that you can encourage? Police departments, sheriff's departments, state patrol, to you know say, hey, we, we welcome you to come into these, these jails and prisons, to get to know us and and and the facility it's, it's not that bad.
Speaker 4:Sure, you know, corrections has this old mentality and it is going away in some ways, but they feel like they're an outsider. You know, for years we weren't called law enforcement. People refused to call us law enforcement. It wasn't until the last few decades that we even got called officer. You know, we were called guard or hack or you know those type of terms. Nobody even recognized us as the job that we do.
Speaker 4:And still today, if you go to California, you know those guys go through a complete police academy. They are, you know, officers, law enforcement officers. But yet if you go to the state of Missouri, those guys go through a three-week academy and they're not law enforcement officers. So as you go around the country, there's so many different facets of how we're looked at. But, um, you know, we are being brought in, we are being looked at as law enforcement, now that the training that we have is well above what it used to be. Uh, you'll see that at ILETA also. But sometimes it's just, you know, offering them a seat at the table.
Speaker 4:Um, I did really well when I was working in Springfield, missouri, and I got with the local sheriff, I got with the local police department, I talked to those trainers, we got to where we'd go down to Hy-Vee for cashew chicken or, you know, chinese food once a month, and when we would all get together and they had resources I could use for my guys, I had resources they could bring in you know, a breaching wall, their range, and so we had these discussions about sharing training, sharing resources and sometimes all it takes.
Speaker 4:I mean, when we got done with that, I think when I left, there was like 12 of us that met every month from around the county and stuff, and so sometimes it's just inviting them to the table, letting them know, you know, and you know we're talking about Alita here and absolutely don't take this the wrong way. I joined Alita in 2015, but nowhere on the membership application or anything did it say corrections, you know, and so I always kind of kept that quiet. I knew that I was learning and I was reading the journal and I didn't go the journal and I didn't get to go to the conference back then, but I read the journals from some of the top people around the country. I was a big firearms instructor at the time and was just gathering that information, but I kind of kept it quiet because nobody really wanted to hear from the corrections guy. A lot of that's changed and last year we proved that a bunch with bringing a lot of people in and talking about corrections openly. So I'm excited. I think it is changing.
Speaker 3:And that kind of leads to a question that I also had about corrections and you were talking and you kind of touched on it a little bit, but it's the leadership component and you kind of touched on it a little bit, but it's the leadership component. The leadership what is? I don't know some of the unique challenges as leaders that you find in corrections. That maybe is unique to corrections that you're not really going to see on the street.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I talk oh, go ahead, go, gary. No, you go ahead.
Speaker 6:I talk in my classes.
Speaker 4:Sorry, I talk in my classes to the officers and I let them know this all the time. I'll be quick here. They are leaders. In order to work in corrections, you have to be a leader. You have to take a group of inmates, you have to have influence on them to get them to do what you need done. And a lot of them don't realize that the moment they step into corrections that they're leaders. We have great leaders in corrections. That's why, when you take a look at our staff, you're going to see them in t-ball coaches. You're going to see them running the church organizations You're going to. We get asked to do that stuff because it's it's in us to go grab 12 people and do something. So we are great leaders and that develops great leaders. So that's one of the things I think I want to tell them and let them know Go ahead, gary.
Speaker 7:No, Mike, you're. You're so correct. Our correctional officers are leaders. They have to make so many on-spot decisions daily without a supervisor, and if they don't make that decision right, then something bad could go wrong. As far as midline supervisors, they have a unique job in corrections. You're not only supervising correctional officers, but you're also responsible for civilian staff as well. You need to make sure they're aware of security issues. You need to make sure that the civilian staff are aware of what they are allowed to do and not allowed to do, and then the supervisors of corrections also have to worry about the inmate population as well. So you really, as a supervisor, a sergeant, a lieutenant or a captain in corrections, you really have a huge responsibility.
Speaker 4:I don't think people understand the numbers. You know as, uh, you know, and I work some big prisons, you know, like Leavenworth and Springfield and Thompson, on on a shift as a Lieutenant, as a shift supervisor. I would have anywhere between 50 to 60 staff. I'd have a thousand, 1300 inmates. I'd have half a dozen volunteers inside the institution. I would have, uh, you know, the cooks and the recreation and everybody maintenance working like that and I was in charge of that shift, recreation and everybody maintenance working like that and I was in charge of that shift. Those are big numbers for most people when you think about leadership. Huge numbers, very huge.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:And and unique, right, I mean, that's a unique challenge that, um, uh, you're not going to see out on the street because our, our span of influence or span of control, is intentionally kept smaller. I mean, that's huge. So that is one of those unique challenges. Can you think of any other things that might be unique that are specific to that correctional setting when it comes to leadership?
Speaker 7:specific to that correctional setting. When it comes to leadership, well, when you get into upper management and your PIO, your corrections leaders have to be very careful, just like law enforcement on the street, but the community wants to know answers. When you see something happen in a prison or jail, like the escape, you have to be able to answer the questions of the community and the media, and I think for any criminal justice agency that's a tough job. So add that to the pile of being a leader.
Speaker 4:Yeah, and I think when you take a look at the expectations upon us for a law enforcement officer, I think even it's it's pretty linear, you're, you feel like you're there to serve the public. I mean, that's just, you're there to serve the public. That's what you're taught, that's what you do as a correctional officer. You not only, and you and you have conflicting um expectations from the public and what they expect, because if you talk to the public, you'll hear everything from you know, lock them up forever to let them out.
Speaker 4:Now you've got inmates on the inside, you know, who have their own viewpoint of what's going on and can be violent, can, can cause problems, but yet, at the same time, I've taken an oath to protect them. They are my charge, they are the true reason I'm there. And then, on top of that, I have to look at another set, which is the staff members who need to be protected from these violent inmates in here. So you know I don't have that linear look at you know my job. I have to look all these different directions at all the same time and all the masters I'm serving at the same time.
Speaker 1:Wow Sounds like a challenge.
Speaker 4:Builds great leaders though.
Speaker 2:Well it does, and um, I'm sure, um, once you go up the food chain in corrections, there's some great opportunities to be in charge of different areas. Let me ask you this how is the training ran in corrections? Just because I'm an outsider looking in, I'm not sure how that is done in corrections. How would you go about doing training and selecting the leaders for the trainers?
Speaker 7:Well, I'll tell you, what we always try to do here in Florida is cross train. So if I want to be a sergeant, I need to know my job, but I need to know all the jobs. So we always try to have our officers work in the dormitory, give them a chance to work in transportation, because we have to transport inmates to court, we have to transport inmates to other prisons and other jails. We wanted our officers to work in bookend when I was in jail. We wanted them to work and we would give them assignments. In other words, hey, you're not a sergeant, but let me give you an assignment. By doing that, we're empowering the officer to do something meaningful, but we're also giving that officer confidence and letting them know we trust them.
Speaker 7:That's the way I feel when you give them a job that's meaningful and they complete that task successfully. I've completed several obstacles in leadership. I've shown them that I trust them. I've given them a job to do. I've recognized that they did a good job and thanked them. But I've trained them at the same time by having them do crossover training. And I think before you become a sergeant in corrections, you need to know the entire job field within the prison or the jail.
Speaker 4:Yeah, absolutely. You know, one thing I want to talk about with Aelita and us bringing corrections into the fold is the skills that are needed. Inside are very much the same, and a good trainer, a good law enforcement trainer, is needed as a good correctional trainer, and there's not that much difference. If you're a good firearms trainer, you know in law enforcement you're a good firearms trainer in corrections, and they can learn from each other. Um, I know that. You know I was a little bit of the exception.
Speaker 4:I think corrections doesn't always do, um, objective driven training. Sometimes we just do it to check the box. You know, like something goes wrong at the institution and we, you know something ethically. Well, we'll have an ethics class, but we'll talk about, uh, you know, we'll talk about policy. Well, lack of policy knowledge probably wasn't what, what drove the problem, right? Um, so we do a lot of that check the box stuff and I, pretty early in my career, decided well, and I'll tell you, it was an ILETA member and I got to talk to him this year for the first time at the conference Jim Glennon, I paid my own money, went outside the prison, went to a class.
Speaker 4:I was the only correctional officer sitting there with a bunch of cops and went to one of his classes. He really opened my eyes to what training could be. I started modeling myself after the trainers that I was seeing in law enforcement and spent a lot of money, you know, every year. My wife was really good and she'd send me, you know, here you can go to this training, you can go to this training. So I'd pick something that was totally away from work and, um, it made me very valuable at work. Um, one, because I had skills and knowledge that I learned from outside of what everybody else was learning. And two, it gave me drive, you know, and I worked every day to become a good instructor and a good trainer.
Speaker 4:And I know I'm talking a little long winded here, but here's, here's, one of the most important things I want to say about correctional training. You know, as a correctional officer, I don't get to go out with my buddies to McDonald's once in a while. I don't get to go do that stuff. The only opportunity I have to get out of that housing unit or that seg unit or whatever is when I get eight hours of training and to be able to go out there and network and talk and learn as a correctional trainer. That is such a high level that you need to bring to class. You can't give them a half-assed class. They deserve so much more because that's all they're going to get for another month or two or three or six, right? So if you've got them for eight hours and they get that opportunity to come out there and feel normal I'll put it that way to feel normal, right? It's so important that we take our time and spend it appropriately to help them do that.
Speaker 7:And Mike, you bring such a valid point because we can train and we can give the classes, but what I think a lot of young officers need to know today is, in the end, in the very end Mike brought up a super valid point it is up to you, the individual, to go out and seek that extra training you need if you want to succeed.
Speaker 3:Which kind of brings us to the question of what type of person, what type of personality, what type of individual would be ideally suited for that type of position.
Speaker 4:Absolutely. I think what we get in a bad habit of doing is picking the person that's been there the longest, and that's not always necessarily the best trainer. I want the person with passion. I want the person who truly cares that, when people walk out of their class, that they learn something, and so I think you need to look at the individual. What are they doing? Do you see them mentoring in the housing units? Are they sitting in the corner or are they grabbing the rookie and going come here, let me show you how to do this. That's the guy you want to make a trainer. That's the guy you want to invest the training money in. Not necessarily the guy that's got the 25 years in and might know more. He may not know more when it comes to teaching others. He may just know more policy or have more experience, and that doesn't always translate to more training.
Speaker 3:So it sounds like pretty much the same characteristics that we would be looking at for a police trainer.
Speaker 4:Oh, yeah, yeah, absolutely. And those are the people I went to. I was, you know, I was always in awe of some of those guys out there, um, in the, in the police departments, and and how passionate they were. You know whether it was breaching or whether it was firearms or whatever it was. And yeah, it was, and yeah.
Speaker 7:You have to have the uh, the officers with the winning attitude, the patient officer, and you have to have an officer uh without negativity. The negativity breeds negativity and you can't have anyone with a negative negativity, uh, or grumpiness, as I call. I call it training, another option. You have to have, just as Mike described, winning attitude, passionate and wanting to train someone, even if they make them better than them and they surpass them later in their career, realizing I trained that person, so I did something right. They passed me, realizing I trained that person, so I did something right.
Speaker 2:They passed me. You know we talk about going out and seeking training, making yourself a better correctional officer, a better trainer For those that want to go seek the training. What better way to be a trainer and train? What would you tell a correctional officer that's considering submitting a proposal to teach at the ILETA conference? Great question by Joe.
Speaker 4:That is a great question. I know that we're looking for some great correctional classes this year. You know, my life is all about doors and, and whenever you have a door open it, open it and walk through. You're never going to know what's on the other side. And it seems you know. When you look at putting in an ILETA proposal, you're like, oh my gosh, you know, am I really at this level? Well, take a good look at yourself. Make sure that you do know the subject that you're going to bring forward and then go share it, and that's all it is. It's nothing bigger than that. You're not going to be on a stage like Elvis. You're going to be in a room full of people sharing your knowledge, right? And what more can you ask for, especially as you get older in this business? That's what you want to do, isn't it?
Speaker 7:do, isn't it? And I've been communicating with Joe and I've got a few people from corrections to sign up for Aelita, and that's what the question is. They asked me I don't know if I'm ready for that big of a platform yet. Well, this is what I tell them. I say look, pretty much what Mike just described. We break out in the individual classroom. What Mike just described. We break out in the individual classroom. If you've done training at your agency, it's basically the same thing. You're meeting with your group, you're giving a topic that you have knowledge of and you're aware of and you're sharing information. There is no pressure on you, there is no one on you. There is no one testing you. We're all there to share our resources, share our knowledge and make each other better is what I tell them. Don't have any fear, please begin to give a class. That's what I say.
Speaker 4:One of the things about Aelita that I love you're not going to have people in your class that don't want to be in your class. You've only got people in your class that want to be in your class. So you know, it makes it a pleasure to teach.
Speaker 2:Everybody at Alita is a student. Whether you're teaching or learning, we're all students and um, it's you know the the? The best thing about Alita is a peer driven organization where everybody's on the same level. Nobody is better than anybody else, and we're, we're there to, uh, um, gain some wisdom from each other, whether it's in a classroom setting or in a hallway. But, um, we would love to have more correctional officers come and and impart their wisdom on us, because I would come and impart their wisdom on us because I would like to expand my brain housing group here a little bit and learn a little bit more about the correction side. So that would be very interesting. And so you know, going back to this one slide, we have our sponsor tonight is Correctional News, and what better place to go get some information about correction officers and the industry than going to the Correctional News website? Both of you write there, writing great articles. I've seen a couple of them. Didn't have time to dive into all of them but, michael, did I read something that you write poetry.
Speaker 4:I have written some poetry. It was one of the things that when you're sitting on midnight shift and you know everybody's locked down and you're doing rounds, so I would take out a piece of paper and some of my poetry is pretty dark. But yeah, I've written poetry. I've written a couple of books. Next month I'll have three children's books coming out. So yeah, I'm kind of stretching my whatever my skills a little bit Nice.
Speaker 2:We've got a lot of Aelita members that have written books and a lot that want to write books. What advice would you give to somebody that would is looking to write a book?
Speaker 4:Well, first come to. I lead it next year because we had a. I think last year was the first time we had the author's tables right and Gary and I were there, wayne South, uh, there was a bunch of us there and that was a great time to sit around and, and you know, kind of display our stuff. Um, you know people get hung up with writing things correctly. You know you want it to be on the page the first time, correctly? Uh, don't worry about that. Get it put on the page. You don't know the number of people I've listened to over the years. Well, if, if only I had done this, I'd have a book. You got to do it. Write it down. You can edit it later. People can help you edit. I can help you edit it these days. Just get it written down because your story probably is important to somebody. So, yeah, that's my advice.
Speaker 7:Yes, I tell people, write down, don't worry about chapter order, chapter one, chapter two, chapter three. Write down all your information, what you want to say and the point you want to get across. After you get your points written and get everything written down, you can decide later what chapter order they're going to go in. They're going to go in you can. We have. There's editors out there that don't charge an arm and a leg. If you're not great with uh editing and they will edit it uh for you. Uh, you can. Now I have a traditional publisher. Finally, after my first three books on amazon, that took my fourth book. It should come out, hopefully this year. Uh, but I self-publish on Amazon my first three books. It's free, it doesn't cost you a penny. So you don't have to pay an arm and a leg to publish a book on Amazon and they give you a pretty reasonable percentage of the royalty. So I tell people don't be shy, get it out there, get your books going.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. I published a coloring book. Does that count?
Speaker 4:Absolutely. That takes imagination.
Speaker 2:What is it that Katie says about writing articles? Katie says I'll give the rated G version button seat words on paper. That's right.
Speaker 3:Which I guess is a perfect segue into the journal article submissions being due on September 10th right.
Speaker 2:September 10th Aelita journal submissions. Get with any of the Aelita editors myself, gary Avery, Dan Frazier and Kim Schlau and we will help you anybody get published in the Aelita Journal. So if you haven't written anything and you want to get published in an international publication, we can help you do that. Write a powerful article on any type of training subject. We're there to help our members any type of training subject.
Speaker 4:It's. We're there to help our members. So, yeah, I wrote my first one for the Alita journal in 2015. And one of the things I'll say about that I mean, if you're trying to build your resume, if you're trying to be a professional, and in whatever area of training you are, there's nothing better than to be able to, you know, showcase. You know I've been published in this journal and absolutely I've. I've had a lot of help from the guys um there, but uh, yeah, that was my first one was 2015. It kind of set me on the path there to doing many other articles.
Speaker 3:Kind of get you. You get a test of water, so to speak. If uh, um, if you're interested in writing a book, that's a good way to start small and go from there.
Speaker 4:Yeah, yeah, absolutely, absolutely.
Speaker 7:Exactly A lot of the information in your articles can be used in your book, so you're already writing down a lot of the information you're going to use later.
Speaker 2:Well, hey, we're running up about an hour. Well, hey, we're running up about an hour. We're going to jump into the next couple of segments and then we'll kind of come back, circle back with Gary and Michael and for some final thoughts. So give us just a few minutes. Our next segment is the instructor development segment. We started this last month, I believe, and this month we have Joe Willis giving us some valuable instructor tips. So, joe, take it away.
Speaker 6:Are you reading Make it Stick right now with us? That's the book of the month for Alita this month Make it Stick the Science of Successful Learning and we chose that book because Aelita members recognize it as one of the most foundational books of the work we're doing, and I want to talk about not just what's in that book. So many of us could do that. Many are familiar with it and if you haven't read it, I cannot recommend it strongly enough. But I want to talk about the relevance to me and my challenge to all of us as trainers, which is to become conversant in the topics we teach. Now I am a deputy director of Aelita, but I'm also a coach and personal trainer and this is an environment where I love to come and work and I love to teach and train, and so I was thinking about this as I'm rereading this book that I've actually read a couple of times.
Speaker 6:Its particular relevance to me right now is on the importance of becoming conversant in the topics we train. To be conversant means to be habitually present in a subject, and when we have a conversation with people, we are in the same place at the same time. Oftentimes we see it with trainers and instructors. We're able to go grab a lesson plan, we're familiar with it and we can present it. But that is distinctly different from those who are effortfully conversant in a subject Can take that and have that meaningful conversation in a classroom and facilitate a discussion with other learners, themselves being among them. And so I want to take us just really quickly into the practices in the book this month of Make it Stick, specifically with the concept of effortful retrieval.
Speaker 6:When we become conversant in a subject matter, we often have to delve deep into spaces that we don't necessarily remember all of the details of, or we can't necessarily immediately recall all of the aspects associated with it, and so there's the requirement to challenge ourselves, to go back, to guess before Google, to try to recall things, to do low stakes or no stakes, testing even with ourselves, and to be engaged in a conversation with another person while we're doing.
Speaker 6:That is incredibly important. Also, the space and varied environment in which we expose ourselves to this subject matter and so to be able to contextualize this topic in this space is different than that same topic in this space, and it creates those neural pathways to more effectively and conversively recall that information. Also, the way in which we interleave in conversations is different. Now, don't be one of those people who I want to dabble this topic into every conversation, but, where appropriate, find ways of becoming conversant, habitually present with the topics you teach in varied environments, and you'll find that it's an incredible way to become more of an authority on that subject, to be much more familiar with it and comfortable in that learning environment where somebody says to you hey, I got a question and you're ready to answer it, or at least acknowledge the fact that we both have a little bit of learning to do right now, so let's explore that. So, anyway, I'm Joe Willis. My challenge to all of us this month is to become more conversant in the topics we're trying.
Speaker 2:Thank you, Joe, for that powerful presentation Make it stick.
Speaker 7:Have you guys read that book?
Speaker 2:No, but I will now, it's been a long time. I read it several years ago. But I'm going to have to. I know I think I've got it on Kindle, but I'm going to reread that book, oh, kindle.
Speaker 3:Wow yeah, mine's all dog-eared and I've got torn little sticky notes sticking out of it all over the place. Crazy, it's a good one, highly recommended.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. Hey, we're running up on the 730 hour. I wanted to kind of go around here Todd any final questions.
Speaker 3:comments for Michael or Gary Guys, I want to say thank you for for joining us this evening. I think bringing correctional officers into AelITA is long overdue and I think that you guys are leading the charge, so thank you very much for that. And we talked about the journal article deadline coming up on September 10th and the instructor proposals being due October 31st. So any correctional officers that are out there that you guys know or that anybody in the audience knows that would be interested in being part of our tribe of trainers you know. Recruit them in and let's get them actively involved in helping us all learn.
Speaker 2:Sure, absolutely Echo what Todd said. And one more important deadline to consider December 1st is the deadline for the Aelita Scholarship application, or that actually opens up on December 1st, my bad. So if there's anybody, what's that?
Speaker 1:I was a scholarship kid. Oh, that's how I got started, oh, I got started.
Speaker 2:It's a. It's a great opportunity for those that have not been to a conference, that are willing to come in, and maybe a first time correctional officer. There's some scholarships available and that will open up on December 1st. So look for that coming out in emails, social media and and future Aelita lives. But, guys, I just want to thank you for your time tonight that you give to our Aelita members and coming to the Aelita conference, writing for the journal and recruiting new members for corrections to come to Aelita. I can't say that enough. I'm happy to be discussing correctional issues with more people in corrections. But hey, Gary, I want to give you any final thoughts. Words of wisdom.
Speaker 7:I want to thank you very much for having us on tonight and allowing corrections and and Probation of Parole to be a part of ILITA, and I just want to tell everyone out there that the public trust is what it's all about and protecting the public, and we all need to train together to share our resources to help protect the public and earn trust and in the end, we all meet at the courthouse when everything's finished. We testify to judges and juries and what we do needs to show our professionalism and that we are all working together to reach the same goal.
Speaker 2:Thank you, Gary, Michael. Final words of wisdom.
Speaker 4:You know, the big topic these days is, uh, recruitment and retention. Um better way to recruit and there's no better way to retain the staff you have than to have them well trained. So, uh, you know, a well-trained officer knows his job, feels comfortable when he walks through the gate, is more likely to stay there. So invest in your training, invest in your trainers. If you're out there listening to this from, uh, from sheriffs to jails, to prisons, wherever and there's no better place than Aelita to to get them started, I'm telling you it is a huge um, it's just like a dictionary or encyclopedia of trainers. No matter what you want to know, there's somebody that's done a little bit of it and I thoroughly appreciate being brought into the fold. And if anybody's got any questions, feel free to reach out to me and I'll I'll tell you how to get going here.
Speaker 2:Appreciate it, guys, everybody. I lead a family members. Thank you for joining us tonight and we will see you in one month for another episode of Aelita Live. Have a great night, everybody.
