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Michael Cantrell    00:00:54    Hello and welcome back to the Prison Officer Podcast. Today's guest is, uh, a longtime friend of mine and a former boss. Um, we worked many years ago at the Ozark Correctional Center, and he's someone I respect and I've been waiting to do this podcast for quite a while where I get to interview him. He's a retired major from the Missouri Department of Corrections, and his name is Paul Young. So welcome to Prison Officer Podcast. Paul.  

Paul Young    00:01:21    Glad to be here.  

Michael Cantrell    00:01:22    I have to kinda watch myself cause I'm wanting to say Major, so I'm do it a little bit more informal. I'm gonna say Paul, but I called you Major for a long time, so I like to start with all my guests. Tell me a little bit about where you grew up and,  

Paul Young    00:01:35    Well, I grew up Seymour Missouri. Graduated in Seymour in 1956. Uh, from there I went to work at Caterpillar Tractor Company in Peoria, Illinois, and was drafted by my friends and neighbors in Webster County. And, uh, went to the United States Army and went to Italy and, and they decided to send me to Lebanon from Italy and spent a couple of years over there. And, uh, what  

Michael Cantrell    00:02:01    Years were that?  

Paul Young    00:02:02    Uh, 1957 and 58. Okay. In 1959 I was in the reserves, was transferred back from Italy to the Reserve Army Reserves and, uh, done, completed my eight year obligation. And, uh, from there, uh, I joined Springfield Police Department in January, 1960.  

Michael Cantrell    00:02:30    Tell me a little bit about that. What, what was it, what did it take back then to get on? What year would that have been when you got  

Paul Young    00:02:36    On in 1960? Well, okay, uh, just basically had to graduate from high school <laugh>, and if you kinda like the Army, if you could breathe good and, and, uh Okay. Passed the physical. That's about it. Okay. And, uh, I was one of the first dog handlers they had. And, and, uh, I worked, uh, mostly patrol, uh, south Springfield mm-hmm. <affirmative> in the West End, did driving districts until they took the dog. And then Jerry up, a friend of mine, he had a dog. And we worked into our city. We responded to fights and Rick weekends. And in 1966 I resigned and went to work for Missouri Department of Corrections, Missouri State Penitentiary for Men.  

Michael Cantrell    00:03:24    Okay.  

Paul Young    00:03:26    There was a, in from 1966 to 1974, we were a, a satellite institution of Ms. P, like Church Farm, Ms. Farm, and Al Gore. We all worked for Ms. P though. Okay. And, uh, we were assigned in 1974, we line item budgeting, put us away from Ms. P mm-hmm. <affirmative>. So,  

Michael Cantrell    00:03:53    Uh, so you were assigned to MSP, but you worked part of the time or all of the time down here? Ozark Correctional Center?  

Paul Young    00:03:58    Uh, most of the time. Most of the time. But, uh, just about the time you think you was full-time at, uh, for the honor camp, which is for the honor camp, then Sure. Uh, they would say, Hey, go back to MSP for a month.  

Michael Cantrell    00:04:11    Right, right. So what was it, what made you do the change from the, uh, police department to the Missouri Department of Corrections? Was it benefits or something?  

Paul Young    00:04:21    Or free housing?  

Michael Cantrell    00:04:22    Free housing,  

Paul Young    00:04:23    $17 a month for housing.  

Michael Cantrell    00:04:25    No kids. Okay.  

Paul Young    00:04:26    The pay was very close to the same Uhhuh <affirmative>, but I got a free house plus safe furnace utilities, which made pretty good pay raise.  

Michael Cantrell    00:04:35    Right, right. And, and that was on the reservation here?  

Paul Young    00:04:38    Yeah. At Portland. And  

Michael Cantrell    00:04:40    Was that housing there was the Air Force, was it originally Air Force Housing? Yes, all Air Force. Okay. So it came with the place  

Paul Young    00:04:47    Came with the place the state of Missouri bought, uh, fort an honor camp from the federal government for $1, but they had to have, for 20 years, they had to provide education for inmates. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And that was through, uh, vocational education. Like, uh, well, we had a upholstery shop, we had a school, and we had to have, the school was mandatory. Right. The education part was mandatory. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, they could not have that place without the school. Plus we had, uh, uh, mechanic shop, Uhhuh <affirmative>. And that was how we started off with it. And, uh, I'd have to say it was very successful. We had a lot of escapes and, uh, I've done a lot of chasing conducts. I went to Florida 13 times pick up convict  

Michael Cantrell    00:05:37    <laugh>. So for those that don't know, um, where the Ozark Correctional Center sits now, that was originally a radar installation. 

Paul Young  Yes. Air Force for the Air Force. 

Michael Cantrell  Air Force and the two of those, I don't know about now, but when I worked there, still two of those buildings were the old radar towers. Yeah.  

Paul Young    00:05:56    Yeah.  

Michael Cantrell    00:05:56    They're still there. Are they still there? Okay. So you went, uh, came in as a CO one,  

Paul Young    00:06:02    CO one.  

Michael Cantrell    00:06:03    When was your first chance to move up that ladder?  

Paul Young    00:06:07    Well, it was a s p controlled the promotions. Well, if it was a promotion at Fordland, it always came from MSP Warrick. Donald Warrick was the first, uh, superintendent there. And he was a sergeant. That was my first boss.  

Michael Cantrell    00:06:24    <laugh>. Wow.  

Paul Young    00:06:24    <laugh>. There were seven employees. I was the seventh employee, for example, like the 4th of July. I might be working that place for myself. And was Right. I'd done the cooking, I'd done the supervising inmates, and I recall a, uh, fight. Had a fight there that was Major Lewis had taken over then. And I made two inmates fight. And he told me the next day, he said, young, we don't do that. Said you had to lock them up. And I said, how do you lock up 85 Mad Inmates  

Michael Cantrell    00:06:57    <laugh>? Right.  

Paul Young    00:06:57    You know, I'm by myself. I said, they're going to fight. So I got 'em out there and made 'em fight. I was over, and that was the end of it. Right, right. And, uh, he said, well, don't do that again.  

Michael Cantrell    00:07:08    <laugh> got it outta their system. Yeah,  

Paul Young    00:07:11    Yeah. Anyway, interesting. But, uh, uh, I've made Sergeant in, uh, been there about eight or 10 years at that time, there was a little conflict and the, uh, chief of custody got transferred to Jefferson City. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And I started in as chief of custody as a Sergeant and stayed in the same chair for 21 years.  

Michael Cantrell    00:07:33    Wow.  

Paul Young    00:07:34    And got promoted from. Right. I don't know.  

Michael Cantrell    00:07:37    Uh, but still chief of custody, all through those  

Paul Young    00:07:40    Steps, all through those steps, worked for 21 different superintendents.  

Michael Cantrell    00:07:43    Wow.  

Paul Young    00:07:44    And, uh, that is 21 different versions of how things need to be done. You know, everyone has their own approach in trying to readjust with each superintendent to survive.  

Michael Cantrell    00:08:00    So that's a great leadership, uh, talk there. So walk me through that a little bit. How did you navigate that?  

Paul Young    00:08:07    Well, uh, you have to be able to, uh, change. Yeah. I mean, from one day to the next,  

Michael Cantrell    00:08:17    That's some, that's something we're resistant to in corrections. Usually  

Paul Young    00:08:21    <laugh> very resistant.  

Michael Cantrell    00:08:21    Right.  

Paul Young    00:08:22    And, but you learned, if I'm gonna survive, I've got to change with it. This next guy's not gonna see what I'm doing. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> the same way I see it. Right. Plus, from 1974, the federal government stepped in and we started recording all our handling of inmates. If you had to get rough of an inmate, you had to have videotape it, and you had to have, uh, people who supported you and around you when, when you had trouble mm-hmm. <affirmative>, uh, and I, I was very blessed.  

Michael Cantrell    00:08:57    Right, right. Well, and that's, uh, definitely a leadership topic There. You'll see leaders who get mad about the way things are, and I'm just gonna do my own thing. Well, in prison, you can't just do your own thing. The team around you matters. You have, and even if you don't agree with them, you still need to have those people in a position to where you can at least have a conversation. So  

Paul Young    00:09:19    You never want to give an individual something to do that you wouldn't do. Yeah. Never. Yeah. And, uh, I found that worked real well for me.  

Michael Cantrell    00:09:28    Yeah.  

Paul Young    00:09:29    No. If it needs to be done, I'd go out there and do it myself, rather than sometimes I'll probably should have sent somebody, uh,  

Michael Cantrell    00:09:35    You know. Well, that, that's one of the things on my notes to talk about when we, uh, maybe later on, but we'll talk about it now. One of the things that I always admired about you as a supervisor is you led from the front. Um, there was nothing that you would have somebody do that you didn't go do. And, and a good example of that, how many years did you go to Equa? Because every year e squads across the state of Missouri go and they meet a physical challenge.  

Paul Young    00:10:04    I was one, one of the beginners. Yeah. And I ended still on the East squad at 63 years later. <laugh> very difficult to pass that test, by the way of 63  

Michael Cantrell    00:10:14    <laugh>. But you were there with us every year. Yeah, yeah. Rode that bus to Jeff City and  

Paul Young    00:10:18    Yeah. Yeah. It was very difficult.  

Michael Cantrell    00:10:19    And that puts something in, in people's minds, you know, that when you have a leader that's willing to do that, that lead from the front, that's very important. And I think people remember that. I know I did. I remembered it. So tell me about, um, what were some of the major incidents that you had as you were doing some of that?  

Paul Young    00:10:39    Well, first of all, in 1974, the laws started changing. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, federal government stepped in and said, you can't do this. And you can't do that. You can't. For example, uh, when I went to work there, if we put a man in an isolation cell, he got breaded and water once a day.  

Michael Cantrell    00:10:58    Interesting. No  

Paul Young    00:10:59    Bed. Right. Bread and water. Wow. The federal government stepped in. We hadn't been doing that all for two or three years there. And they stepped in, said, you can't do that in water. You've gotta give them a bed. So we give them a one inch mattress, <laugh>. Right. And we give them bread and water twice a day. <laugh>. Right. And the federal government said, well, that's not good enough. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, you gotta beat that. So it, it really, the federal government changed every step through my entire career right up to the day I left mm-hmm. <affirmative> in terms of what I could do and what I couldn't do. Great. Uh, you know, it, we videotaped our videotaping, everything we done. And, uh, was that good or bad? Yeah. I thought it was good. I didn't have, I didn't object to that. Right. I didn't believe in, in, uh, beating an inmate. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. I didn't believe an inmate beating me either.  

Michael Cantrell    00:11:56    <laugh>.  

Paul Young    00:11:56    That's true. And, uh, I, uh, responded. Yeah. If it needed to be responded, I responded to with more violence than they could offer. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And I expected, as a correctional officer, when you lose that ability to not be able to respond with more more violence than they offer mm-hmm. <affirmative>, then you lost your way.  

Michael Cantrell    00:12:17    Right.  

Paul Young    00:12:18    And, uh, you know, I know a lot of people don't agree with that. And, uh, I've seen things sent the walls that, that I didn't agree with. I won't discuss, but Sure. Uh, they're all dead now. Very,  

Michael Cantrell    00:12:31    Yeah.  

Paul Young    00:12:31    So it really wouldn't matter.  

Michael Cantrell    00:12:33    Yeah. And I think all of us have it sometime in our career. Um, some of those changes were needed.  

Paul Young    00:12:38    Oh, I agree.  

Michael Cantrell    00:12:39    Um, but in some ways we have went too far. Um, I, I think a lot of the public doesn't understand that a lot of those inmates from the time they were born, they grew up with violence. Violence is what they understand. And I don't mean, like you said, I don't need to go take a stick and just beat somebody for no reason. Right. But once they come at you, you can't just pussy foot around it, you know, um, you're absolutely right. You gotta go back at 'em with the same stuff that they brought to you.  

Paul Young    00:13:09    I think you'll survive that way. Well, I know you will. I did. You did  

Michael Cantrell    00:13:13    <laugh>.  

Paul Young    00:13:15    Anyway, uh, starting from 1974 is, uh, was a crucial time. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, we had a director came in from New York and the first thing he'd done was cut all the handles out holes and garden equipment at rents farm and sold all the mul too.  

Michael Cantrell    00:13:35    Right.  

Paul Young    00:13:36    And, uh, I said, well, we're not gonna make no more gardens and we're not going to farm. And, uh, that took a lot of change at msp. It was very difficult for those folks to change with that style mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And, uh, then from then on it was just one change after another in a different direction. You had to be able to change with that. And, uh, it was, uh, I always used, uh, we had training in Jeff City and this was always a good one. We, we all went up there. We was all majors at the time, and we all had on Polish.  

Michael Cantrell    00:14:13    Yeah.  

Paul Young    00:14:18    This guy out of, uh, Lincoln University is an instructor mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And he seemed he was all Polish  

Michael Cantrell    00:14:26    <laugh>.  

Paul Young    00:14:26    He never catch on what was going on,  

Michael Cantrell    00:14:29    <laugh>.  

Paul Young    00:14:30    But you had a good laugh. Right, right. Anyway, we got away with it, but, uh, a lot of things happened. Had a lot of humor in prison and, uh, you gotta, you gotta see the funny things or you don't ever make  

Michael Cantrell    00:14:44    It. Absolutely. Um, now when he came in, when that new director came in and he took away the, a lot of the ability to work the inmates, cuz when we took away the farms, a lot of the inmates weren't working anymore. Um, especially at your penitentiaries and your higher security institutions. But one of the things that I always admired and liked, uh, working around at O C C was the fact that it was a working camp. You know, we had, you guys had a fire department there for many years. Oh. Highway crew goes out and cleans up the highways. Um, and then they've had work release there for a long time. What was it like supervising some of that and Well, how did you feel about that? Those  

Paul Young    00:15:26    Well, uh, oh, I thought it was ideal. It was, uh, it was a, a, uh, it gave the inmate work experience mm-hmm. <affirmative> and, uh, some of 'em had never cut a sprout. Some of 'em had, uh, never picked up trash. And, uh, it, overall I thought it was excellent. Right. It, uh, it they used it. Yeah. Some of 'em did, but very few. Right. We had, we had the answer for that. And, uh, the, uh, uh, learning phase of that was a lot better than the down part of it. Sure, sure. And, uh, I just, I thought it was excellent. And, uh, I think that's part of how I survived by going along with what, what they had planned through the, and that's when the drug treatment program come along. It totally changed again. Yeah. Because then, uh, instead of labor, and we still had the labor with the drug treatment program, but it was mostly training Yeah. Then with the drug treatment program. Yes. And, uh, I agreed with 98% of the drug treatment program, uh, if I hadn't of Jordan Lombardi had sent me <laugh> to  

Michael Cantrell    00:16:45    Egypt. Sure.  

Paul Young    00:16:46    <laugh>. But I, I, I did agree with it though. Got along great with those people.  

Michael Cantrell    00:16:51    I mean, you're, you're like me. I worked at the walls, I worked at occ and I, and I really got to see inmates who had opportunity and those aren't correctional center. And I saw inmates take advantage of some of that, and I didn't think they would come back. I mean, they actually seemed like they changed. And you don't see that a lot in, you know, your maximum security presence. Oh, no. Yeah. So I always thought that was good programs. I think we need more of that in this country. Uh, inmates working is, is always a good thing.  

Paul Young    00:17:20    I agree.  

Michael Cantrell    00:17:21    But, um, well, I know something that's near and dear to your heart. And you mentioned a little bit that you started off with, uh, as a dog handler there in Springfield, but we also had one hell of a dog team here at Ozark Correctional Center, but I was proud to be part of, but I believe you started that, correct?  

Paul Young    00:17:40    Right. Yeah. We had, uh, blood downs from just about the beginning. Our dogs first originally came out Algoa.  

Michael Cantrell    00:17:48    Okay.  

Paul Young    00:17:49    And, uh, we got a couple dogs from them, but then we started getting our own dogs. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, I got some of them. Or the dog you had, I think I did outta Arkansas. Right. Yeah. The Department of Corrections in Arkansas. And, and, uh, we had some really good dogs, and then we had some wasn't good. So, uh, the manhunt, uh, I remember one of the better ones was Joe Owen and I got a Taney County jail trail trailing a guy outta the Taney County Jail. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> and a deer goes across front of us. <laugh> the dog I had took out after the deer. Right. Well, I up that dog's head and we had to get rid of that dog. That thing turned mean  

Michael Cantrell    00:18:35    Oh,  

Paul Young    00:18:35    <laugh>. I couldn't even look at the eye and bite me. Oh, wow. So we finally had, we sent it back down. But, uh, yeah, there's a lot of different experiences with them dogs mm-hmm. <affirmative> some good and some really bad, but, right.  

Michael Cantrell    00:18:50    Yeah. I called, I was coon hunting one night and called a, uh, called a dog back to me. And the dog didn't see the bluff. I was standing at the bottom of the creek and that dog did, you know, just a cartoon, Wile E Coyote off there and then hit the creek and looked up at me and never would deal with me again. She thought I'd done that on purpose. You know, they, they get something in their head and they're done. We mentioned a little bit about, uh, escapes. And of course, one of the, uh, bigger escapes, or, or one of the biggest man hunts in Missouri was John David Brown. And you guys were right in the middle of that, weren't you? Well,  

Paul Young    00:19:24    I spent probably 45 days chasing brown. Wow. Uh, total, which we chased him at Denton first. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, well, he chased him with OCC when he first escaped, but then we, we spot, he was spotted in Camden to Missouri. And, uh, we were up there for all about two weeks chasing him. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And, uh, this guy was good. He, he knew he had to get away from us. Yeah.  

Michael Cantrell    00:19:50    Start me. Um, for the people that don't know that Manhunt now, he was at Ozark Correctional Center. Tell me about the story there. He escaped, and then how he led to that big manhunt.  

Paul Young    00:20:01    Well, he, he first escaped o Ozark Correctional Center. Uh, and he rode out from under, under the rode out through the front gate underneath a vehicle. Uh, and that's how he first escaped. And, uh, we, uh, at that time we didn't, we had the old gate. We didn't have the new gate that got out. Right. And, uh, they didn't check the vehicle good enough and they didn't get away. Well, uh, we started chasing him then thinking he was in our area, which he, what he would live, he'd went to Buffalo. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And then Joe Owens and I went to Buffalo and chased him for a day or two. And, uh, the next man hunt was on with him was he started robbing places in Lake Ozarks. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, he'd rob a place and run off behind, down in them deep valleys. And they couldn't catch him.  

Michael Cantrell    00:20:55    Right. Now he was kind of a survivalist. Right. Wasn't it? The covenant, the sword in the arm of the Lord. Seems like that was the name of the, the survivalist group he was part of. I think that was in Arkansas or southern Missouri. No,  

Paul Young    00:21:08    That was the guy that killed the trooper. That wasn't Brown.  

Michael Cantrell    00:21:11    That was Glen Paul. Sweet. Yeah. Okay, we'll go ahead with the story about Brown.  

Paul Young    00:21:15    Okay. Brown. Brown was, uh, he was just a old kid outta Buffalo that was just slick. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> fast. He known how to run some law. Right, right. Uh, we chased him up there at Camden for I know, a week or two and got close to him. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. But the next, the next time they called us was about a, oh, a month later they called us out Bra mm-hmm.  

Michael Cantrell    00:21:43    <affirmative>.  

Paul Young    00:21:44    He was at a motel and he come out on the upper deck of that motel and a police officer seen him up there and he shot that police officer or shot at him. Right. And I, I think he hit  

Michael Cantrell    00:21:54    Him. He wounded him,  

Paul Young    00:21:55    I think. Yeah. Yeah. I think he wounded him. And then we got chasing him up there. And, uh, at Doolittle he killed a guy in a, uh, a church over a cleaning guy, cleaning church here and do little Hmm. He shot him in the back of the head cause he wouldn't give him his car keys. Oh, wow. And that's when we man us started big time. They got, we had everybody from the National Guard to, we was all up there for about a month chasing that guy. Yeah. And, and eventually they caught him in Oklahoma on these man hunts. Especially if these dogs, people will call you and say, well go to well Highway Patrol name. They go to a certain place and check this out. They seen him. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, they didn't see him. They got scared, thought he'd see him and Yeah. You had to go and chase them. Nothing,  

Michael Cantrell    00:22:50    Looking at the shadows,  

Paul Young    00:22:52    Looking at shit. Yeah. And, uh, we chased a lot of shadows up there, which, uh, and we chased him. We got real close to him a couple times. Right. And finally he's doing life sentence where he needs to be.  

Michael Cantrell    00:23:06    Sure. Sure. Um, any other ones that, uh, you know, you just recollect those memorable? Cause I know you guys were on, oh, I don't even know how many dozens  

Paul Young    00:23:20    That in the one down Taney County where they kill the Trooper, that was the two big ones. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And, uh, we done good in both places at Highway Patrol, took real good care of us down there. They got us vest and lights and things that we didn't have. Right. As Major Fisher never forget him.  

Michael Cantrell    00:23:39    Right. Just for taking care of his people.  

Paul Young    00:23:41    Yeah. Take care of us. Yeah.  

Michael Cantrell    00:23:43    Yeah. Yeah. Cause a lot of people don't realize. And you know, I was on that team for six, six plus years and Josh Carlisle, remember the little autistic boy that you guys sent us on down there? And I think that was Taney County also. And then, um, oh, I can't, Joe Johns and that was up north. He'd killed the, uh, killed the old man and then went to Joplin and killed a woman. But walking through the woods with your hand, one hand on a dog, you know, lead while they're pulling you through there in the middle of the dark and you're just hoping the other guy hasn't stolen a pistol or something. Cause they're gonna see you coming before you ever get there or hear you. Um, it's a little nerve-wracking.  

Paul Young    00:24:24    Oh yeah. We had, uh, for example, down in, we was looking for this guy to killed the trooper down there, uh, Captain Owens and I was bridge right across from Bass Pro Shop down there, Ranson mm-hmm. <affirmative> Landing. There's a bridge right across the lake there. Right. We'd come out from under that bridge down there looking for this guy. And, uh, in the highway patrol had one of them helicopters up. Well then Army Helicopters come right up, right up over that bridge. And we was coming out front of that bridge. Things got real tied there. Yeah.  

Michael Cantrell    00:24:56    <laugh>. Absolutely.  

Paul Young    00:24:58    Wow. And we knew this guy had a .357 Magnum. He'd got that. We'd found him up at Lake the old yard. We knew he had that gun with him. We knew he'd target practiced up there. And Yeah. We got in some real, real encounters when you're holding onto a dog and a shotgun.  

Michael Cantrell    00:25:17    Yeah.  

Paul Young    00:25:17    We got you got hold that shotgun's tied that you can't make it work.  

Michael Cantrell    00:25:21    Right.  

Paul Young    00:25:22    Yeah. Things were pretty tight.  

Michael Cantrell    00:25:24    Oh, absolutely. Wow. Yeah. And that was Glen Paul Sweet down there in Yeah. Taney County. And, and he had some skills cause he, uh, hadn't he cashed like weapons and food and stuff out in the woods? There was,  

Paul Young    00:25:39    They said he did, but they said he was, uh, whatever. What, what'd you say? He belonged to this group of  

Michael Cantrell    00:25:45    People. Yeah. The covenant, the sword and the arm of the Lord. I think  

Paul Young    00:25:48    Idaho.  

Michael Cantrell    00:25:48    Okay.  

Paul Young    00:25:51    Me and Colonel Fisher and someone else with highway Patrol was in that park down there at Forsyth. Uhhuh. <affirmative>. And I told Colonel, I said, we, we got enough people here if we line everybody up. He was like, we knew what direction he was.  

Michael Cantrell    00:26:08    Right.  

Paul Young    00:26:09    I said, if we line everybody, uh, four feet apart mm-hmm. <affirmative>, we're gonna find this guy. Right. We did  

Michael Cantrell    00:26:17    <laugh>.  

Paul Young    00:26:18    First thing we found was where he camped at mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And all he had was toilet paper and a gun. Right. And he'd left it behind and the next day we, we'd done the same thing the next day and they caught him down there in the park. Yeah. But he wasn't, he wasn't nothing what he was no way near the character that  

Michael Cantrell    00:26:41    The news media made him to be.  

Paul Young    00:26:42    The news made him, made him to be.  

Michael Cantrell    00:26:44    Yeah.  

Paul Young    00:26:44    Yeah. They had him come outta Idaho with all this crazy stuff. Nah, right.  

Michael Cantrell    00:26:51    Just a just a criminal.  

Paul Young    00:26:52    Just a  

Michael Cantrell    00:26:53    Criminal. Yeah.  

Paul Young    00:26:54    Trooper lost his life over something that was totally insane. It was shame, really. Right,  

Michael Cantrell    00:27:00    Right. So, um, such a long career. What, what, what was some highlights? I know you won, uh, you got employee of the, the state for the Missouri Department of Corrections  

Paul Young    00:27:14    State. Yeah. I that, I don't know either someone was a good writer or I was a good employee. I don't know. That's good. Yeah. It, it was, uh, part of the manhunt. We was on the manhunt so long and then part of the accumulation of just sick leave and mm-hmm. <affirmative>, uh, being there. Right. You know, one of the things, whenever I lived there, you know, if I was out in my backyard and trouble at the prison, I knew mm-hmm. <affirmative>, I didn't have to go up there. They didn't have to call them. Right. But you can ask her many a time. I, I got up my breakfast table and went, broke the fire. Yeah, yeah.  

Michael Cantrell    00:27:56    <laugh>  

Paul Young    00:27:57    Come back and said, look at you. Yeah. Now we can't go where you're old. Dirty <laugh>. I said, well, these guys needed help. Right. You know.  

Michael Cantrell    00:28:06    So was that, uh, I mean you lived there on the reservation most of your career? 34 years. 34 years.  

Paul Young    00:28:13    I lived off of maybe a year.  

Michael Cantrell    00:28:15    Yeah. Yeah. So is that, was that tough to never be able to get away from work? Or did it just part of what you did?  

Paul Young    00:28:23    Well, I think you, you just get used to it, you know? Yeah. It's part of, part of the job. And, uh, I was required to live there. I didn't have a choice. First of all, when I got promoted Sergeant, that was the end of it. You had to live there mm-hmm. <affirmative> and, uh, you just accepted that fact. Uh, that's part of it.  

Michael Cantrell    00:28:46    You don't see that anymore. And I, I think, and there, O C C wasn't the only place. Lots of places had reservation, housing and upper staff. They stayed there. They were available there. And I, I think it'd be hard to get employees to do that these days. Couldn't do it. Yeah. Yeah. And that's too bad. Cause there's, uh, it, it was positive for the institution. It, it did, how do I wanna put that? There was, there was always somebody there, you know, always somebody to respond. And I, I think there was some positives to that,  

Paul Young    00:29:19    But Well, we never had enough help. Yeah. That's what our problem was. That that maybe with 178 to 200 inmates, I don't have two people there. Wow. And, uh, and maybe one, one, some, one in food service and two other people. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> working the weekend. Yeah. Well, you know, it's hard for two guys to watch 178 men and did not have trouble. Some they're gonna be trouble somewhere. Yeah. And, uh, a majority of 'em, over the years, I had good help. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, everybody's got their own opinion. And, and when you're dealing with people with different opinion on how things should be done, I know a lot of guys didn't agree with me and, and, uh, I didn't agree with them. But, uh, you're gonna have that in in any given in, especially in a prison situation. Cause normally when a guy who's working in prison and, uh, or gal and they come in and they said, said, jump, well this is, things are not good here. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, of course they're not good. It's prison <laugh> <laugh>. But if you let that eat at you personally Yeah. Instead of trying to make a positive thing out of being there, then you're going to have a very un positive attitude in your entire career. Yeah. And it's best that you went home. Right. Then it's stay in corrections. Cause uh, no, nothing ever good there. It's just, it's gonna be bad, you know? Right.  

Michael Cantrell    00:30:48    It's something I've talked about on this podcast before. Cause I went through that myself and I caught myself getting so angry and getting so upset with how things weren't working and this and that, that it took me several years. And this is actually when I went into the federal system and it took me several years to get ahold of that and to realize that I was the one causing my myself to be unhappy at work. <laugh>. You know? Um, not the bad things don't happen. Bad things happen every day, but a absolutely your attitude  

Paul Young    00:31:19    Yeah. Is, is, uh, you first thing you gotta do is like what you're doing. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> and very few probably of all the people I interviewed at hard and far and I only had probably one or two come with me and say, Hey, this is not for me. I'm going to the front gate and I'll see you somewhere else. Yeah. And I did have people say, and I appreciated that cause hey, they off, that's this guy's office. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, you know, he, he said, this is just not for me. Sure. And, uh, you don't see that very often. Usually a guy hang around and hang around and when maybe he should have went home years ago. <laugh>. Yeah. And, uh, it, if it becomes, uh, an atmosphere, mal contents sometimes because you didn't harm my brother or you fared my brother.  

Michael Cantrell    00:32:11    Right.  

Paul Young    00:32:12    Or my brother should have got the promotion. And when you deal with that for so many years, yeah. People love to talk and they love to talk in prison mm-hmm. <affirmative> because that's all they got to do. Sure. And, uh, they tell stories that, that were just unreal sometimes. And you got to understand that that's going to happen to you mm-hmm. <affirmative> if you're usually making decisions. Yep. Or if seen you have an inmate that he thought or she thought that it was not the right way. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, uh, so he called his legislator, or she called his legislator. And uh, they called you a good example of that. One night had a, a black kid there. He was about 18, 19 years old. He had made a weapon out of a room, handled old nail suit, a medieval weapon. And he was, he was attacking an officer and they called me up there and I locked him up. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> and, uh, locked him up and never thought nothing about it. Went home and next morning, get up and go to work. FBI's search front gate there, you, they've come often after 74, you know. And I said, well, who do you wanna see? He said, bill, wanna see Paul Young? You wanna see me?  

Michael Cantrell    00:33:30    Right.  

Paul Young    00:33:32    Okay. I said, okay, where you meet? He said, well, this black guy calls his blood last night in Kansas City. Well, after I left the officer let him make a phone call. He calls his mother in Kansas City. Tells his mother how I beat him and shut his hands in the desk drawers, trying to get a confession outta,  

Paul Young    00:33:54    Hey, well, I said, come on in. And, uh, took him up the office. I got that guy outta the cell and took him back there in strips down. Said, now look at this guy. Do you see any marks on this guy? Boy, that FBI didn't eat that guy up alive now. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, he told him how it was. Yeah. Cause he'd told his mother the biggest lies that ever was about how I'd beat him and stuff. And usually stuff like that worked out in your benefit, you know. Sure. And it did in that case for me. But, uh, you never know. Right. You know, you know, it's just unbelievable what links some folks will go to get even with you mm-hmm. <affirmative> or to cause of their own, Hey, I'm mad at myself, you know? Right. Yeah.  

Michael Cantrell    00:34:40    Um, a good, well, a story I remember where we interacted, um, and I won't name his name, but there was an officer who worked the front gate for a long time at OCC. And of course I came down from Jeff City and usually went to midnights right away. And so I'm on midnights, this officer's working the front gate on midnights and, uh, shift request came out and back then you could bid on going to a different shift. And I said, well, I'd only been there six months. I said, well, I think I'm gonna put in for that. And this guy said, no, they'll never give it to you. I said, why? He said, you're on midnights. They don't like people on midnights. He said, I've been here for 10 years, they won't let me off midnights. And uh, so I just, I kind of put that in the back of my head, but I went ahead and filled it out and, you know, stuck it in. I'll see what'll happen and sure enough, six months, boom, I'm on days. And I remember asking you, I said, how come you guys won't let him off midnights? And you said he put in for it once 10 years ago. Got mad has never put in for it again. <laugh>. And that's kinda what you're talking about with having that long supervision there, uh, where you, you were a supervisor for almost the entire period of your, your tenure there. And so, and, and this is a smaller community here.  

Paul Young    00:35:56    Well, in the process of you make a lot of, lot of enemies, you know, you make a lot of friends. But, uh, it, it is funny how some folks got on call named a good friend of mine. One of 'em did. Now they wanted their son-in-law to go to work there. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, they sent him up for a job interview. Hey, the guy didn't wanna work there. <laugh>, you know, <laugh>. He, he didn't not wanna work there. He never tell this guy didn't want nothing to do with no convict. He didn't say that. Yeah. But he might as well told me that. Sure. And, uh, so I interviewed him. I said this, he's no good for this. So I didn't even let on like he was gonna try to him and he left. And of course who'd they blame, blame me,  

Michael Cantrell    00:36:42    <laugh>.  

Paul Young    00:36:42    But anyway, they have got a story about Har. Okay. I went to Jeff City to hire there's three of when they, this another thing, after 1974, we started Hiring as a team in Jeff City. There'd be two, usually two females mm-hmm. <affirmative> and a male major. And they'd, we'd holler, well, we had this guy come in from Dixon, Missouri. And, uh, he bloodshot eyes and you could tell he had a hangover and <laugh>. He said, uh, I'm, I'm gonna go to work at MSP. I said, you did? I said, I said, you ever work? Oh, yeah. He said, I worked over in B Basement. Well, I worked there too. I'd be basement death row. Great. And, uh, I said, uh, well, uh, you like it? He said, oh yeah, I, like, I said, well, was you good employee? Yeah, he was a good employee. And I said, well, he didn't know what Major Evers in the next room. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. So I, I looked at the paperwork and these gals were looking at me like, we ain't gonna hire this guy. Right. Cause things are changing. See, he said, well, I've got one little problem. Said, uh, I got a DWI pending over Dixon. I said, well, how long did you work at msp? He said, seven years. Said, I worked over there all the time in the basement. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> boy. I said, you know, I knew right then this guy's a good employee. And I said, uh, well, he said, I've got seven kids, <laugh>. And  

Paul Young    00:38:18    I, I tried. I said, well, I looked at these guys. I said, I don't, you know, this guy's got dwi. I, I said, I'm gonna go check. I just stepped around the next room and I think his major Everly. And I said, see this guy? I said, he's wanting a job, the msp. I said, you know him? Oh yes. Said good hands. Said, uh, are you? I said, well, he's got a DWI pin over Dixon. He said, well, hell, everybody over Dixon's got a DWI 

Michael Cantrell    00:38:44    <laugh>  

Paul Young    00:38:47    Back in there. And I said, your heart, I got some mean looks. Well they already got. But anyway, I guess he was, he just had a little hard luck and they really recommended him.  

Michael Cantrell    00:38:59    Yeah. Well  

Paul Young    00:39:00    That happens sometimes.  

Michael Cantrell    00:39:01    Yeah. Interesting. Yeah. Major Everly was, he was a longtime major at Missouri State Penn. Yeah. Long time. Yeah. So, um, we, we've kind of covered the, uh, some of the leadership stuff I was gonna ask. So, so I know you, you've hired a bunch of people, you've trained a bunch of rookies. Um, I think these days there's, it's almost a whole different thought process with the rookies that are coming in to prison. I don't think they look at it the same way we did as a service, as a duty. Um, what's some of the advice that you would give an officer going into corrections these days?  

Paul Young    00:39:43    Well, uh, I think you had the, the right idea. First of all, you gotta get passed. Uh, this is a bad place and I'm part of the bad. Mm. This, you know, that's the first thing. If, if you ever get past that and focus on day-to-day happenings in the prison mm-hmm. <affirmative> and be alerted at all times and you're gonna survive and you're gonna have a good job. Right. And, uh, I've made a lot more money since I retired than I didn't when I went to work. <laugh>. Right. I went to work for $260 a month, uh, six days a week. Wow. But, uh, if you stay long enough and stay with it, I, you know, I I I think it's a, a real job. And I think that, uh, a lot of people have a total misconception of what they're looking at when they look at prison job. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> and first of all, they're afraid. And if you're afraid, ooh, get out that day, first day. Yeah. Can't work there if you're  

Michael Cantrell    00:40:46    Afraid and you can't  

Paul Young    00:40:47    Hide it. Nope. And you can't hide. Yeah. And, uh, it's going to come out probably the first day you're there.  

Michael Cantrell    00:40:54    Right. <laugh>.  

Paul Young    00:40:55    Right. If you're afraid. Uh, what time the guy asked me, he said, was you ever afraid of MSP when you worked up there? No, I wasn't afraid. I was scared, literally to death. Yeah. At times, <laugh>. Yeah. And if you find someone that tells you they was never afraid up there, <laugh> found you the biggest liar that ever was. Yeah. Yeah. But, uh, no, there's gonna be days like that and uh, and you're gonna see some violence that, that, uh, don't happen anywhere else. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. But that's just part of the going through the gate. Sure. Well one of the biggest, a new employee, one of the biggest obstacles when he first goes to work is getting through the round gate is the call the round gate MSP Right. You get through the round gate, that's your big one. Right. The rest of the day's downhill,  

Michael Cantrell    00:41:46    <laugh>. Literally sometimes. Yeah. Yeah. Well that's great. So what are you doing now? How long you been retired now? 23 years. Retired. 23 years. Wow. And uh, you said you've been doing well with that. What are you doing now? Just,  

Paul Young    00:42:00    Yeah, riding horses and minding Bonnie. Yeah.  

Michael Cantrell    00:42:05    She's  

Paul Young    00:42:05    Your boss.  

Michael Cantrell    00:42:07    You still got dogs, don't you? Oh,  

Paul Young    00:42:09    Yeah, yeah. Bird dog, it's over my, I got bird dog over. It's over at my boy's house. Bad weather. I don't have no heat in my dog house. Okay. He's got a garage and he puts our dogs in the garage over there.  

Michael Cantrell    00:42:20    Well, I thank you. I appreciate it. And, uh, great interview. I know there's be a lot of people that are gonna be interested in, in hearing your stories, so thanks for coming on here, Paul. Oh,  

Paul Young    00:42:30    Your welcome anytime.