50: Corrections in the Military - Interview w/Jeffrey Fewell

In this episode, I talk to Warden Jeffery Fewell about his career and his time as a Corrections Specialist in the Military.  With terms like the Stockade or the Brig, most of us know military prison from the movies.  Today’s guest spent his first 20 years in the ARMY working in Military Corrections.  Jeffery Fewell has since retired from the military and continued a career in Law Enforcement as a deputy sheriff, a correctional consultant, a professor, and Warden.  He is currently the Warden at The Washington County Pennsylvania Correctional Facility.  You can contact Warden Fewell at jeffreyfewell@att.net

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Transcript

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Michael Cantrell   00:00:00  Welcome back to the Prison Officer Podcast. With terms like the stockade or the Brigg. Most of us know military prison from the movies. Today's guest spent the first 20 years in the army working in military corrections. Jeffrey Fuel has since retired from the military and continued a career in law enforcement as a deputy sheriff, a correctional consultant, a professor, and most recently a warden. He is currently the warden at the Washington County Pennsylvania Correctional Center. Welcome, Jeffrey.  

Jeffrey Fewell    00:01:27    Welcome then. Thank you.  

Michael Cantrell    00:01:30    Absolutely. I'm glad to have you on the podcast. Um, I want to talk to you about your whole career cuz it looks very interesting, but I don't think we've had anybody in here with as much experience in the military portion either. So maybe we'll spend some time talking about your experiences there.  

Jeffrey Fewell    00:01:46    That's awesome. Mike,  

Michael Cantrell    00:01:48    I always like to start at the beginning. So can you tell us where you grew up and what your childhood was like?  

Jeffrey Fewell    00:01:54    Yeah. I grew up in Erlinger, Kentucky, which is just south of, uh, Cincinnati, across the river. Um, uh, went to a Catholic, um, high school. Um, got out of, uh, uh, graduated in 1985 of high school and then went to Northern Kentucky University for a year and a half. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, and then joined the Army in 1987. And so at first I was a military policeman. Uh, first duty assignment was in Germany, uh, a place called North Point, uh, uh, Germany, uh, which is a nuclear physical security site. Wow. Guarded, um, eight inch, uh, and 1 55 howitzer nuclear tipped, um, ammunition. Wow. During the, yeah, during the coir. And so we had, there was about five sites at the time in NATO that, that housed and contained, um, about a hundred thousand, uh, nuclear tipped, um, ammunition. Um, one site was, uh, a chemical site and, uh, wow. I was there for, uh, two years. And then from there, I, I went to White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico, um, and I reenlisted in corrections. Go ahead.  

Michael Cantrell    00:03:17    So did you, uh, did you pick law enforcement? Did you pick to go into the military police or was that something they gave you?  

Jeffrey Fewell    00:03:24    I did. No, I did. Okay. In the Army, you get, you get a choice and, um, as a army recruiter for three years, um, you get a choice. And so I did pick mp. Um, it was a, it was a, uh, four year enlistment at the time mm-hmm. <affirmative> and, um, at, you know, I went to basic training in, uh, Fort McClellan, Alabama, which was open at the time. It's now closed mm-hmm. <affirmative>. But, um, still, I have a lot of people on Facebook that I was served with, um, at that time.  

Michael Cantrell    00:03:59    So what made you, when you're re-upped, what made you switch over to corrections?  

Jeffrey Fewell    00:04:04    Well, I was, I, I, I met my wife. I've been married 32 years, um, and I met her and, um, we are deciding between military intelligence and corrections. And so I took, for whatever reason, I I, it was a calling, I guess I, I went into corrections, um, okay. And, uh, my first duty assignment, as soon as I reenlisted was Alaska. And so we went up to, back then in the Army, it was different. Most of the major installations had their own correctional facility. It's called C C F Okay. Command Confinement Facility. And, um, so I was, uh, I went to back to Fort McLellan, uh, for training. And then, uh, that was called Corrections Non-commissioned Officer course. And, um, it was about a month long for those that, uh, right. That remember that. And then, uh, and that was in 19 90, 92. Okay. And then from there we proceeded to Alaska.  

Michael Cantrell    00:05:09    So how big a, um, what, what do you call it? You don't call it a brig, that's Navy. What do you call a Yeah,  

Jeffrey Fewell    00:05:15    It was, it was, they call it a command confinement facility. The troops called a Charlie's Chicken Farm because it was, the acronym is ccf, you know, the Army's got acronyms. And the Army acronym is a c cf, well, the troops called a Charlie's Chicken Farm. And so, which is command confinement facility, and it housed mostly, uh, pretrial, uh, prisoners. They called them back then. Okay. They called your, your first name was Prisoner. Your last name was your last name. And so we had about 30 prisoners. Um, they were waiting trial under the Uniform Code of Military Justice. And, uh, Uhhuh <affirmative>, very different. Uh, they're still in the Army. We still did pt. Uh, the, uh, the, the prisoners would cut wood, uh, for the officers fireplaces back then, and they would get, uh, yeah, they would get sore and they would get their, their hands, uh, calloused.  

Jeffrey Fewell    00:06:21    And the, the, uh, the, the pa uh, would write 'em a, a sit call slip that said, uh, they need to chop more wood <laugh>. And so a totally different environment because these guys were mostly men. They're back then. Females were not as much in the criminal justice system as they are today, but mostly men. Um, and, um, still in the army when you walked in, they had to come to parade rest. Um, yeah. When, um, they had a series of lines, mark markers in the floor, they had to come up to the floor, snap to attention, say, Sergeant prisoner fuel request permission to cross the red line, enter the red box. If they didn't say it exactly like that, you were, you were on that line for three hours. And so it, it's just a different environment. Very, very, very, very much. A lot of discipline, even at the United States, disciplinary barracks, high level of discipline back then, back in the nineties. It's changed  

Michael Cantrell    00:07:28    Sure.  

Jeffrey Fewell    00:07:29    Since then.  

Michael Cantrell    00:07:30    Yeah.  

Jeffrey Fewell    00:07:31    Yeah. Just like corrections has,  

Michael Cantrell    00:07:33    I worked at, uh, U S P Leavenworth and a lot of our officers mm-hmm. <affirmative> had put in time at the db the disciplinary barracks. Right. And then they'd come over once they retired and worked at the, the U S P. And so I think they brought a lot of that with them. There was a lot of discipline expected at Leavenworth at that time. And I think that was brought over from those guys. Yeah. They told me stuff. They had even done, um, use of forces to enforce haircut rules. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, where you'd go into cell and Oh, yeah, yeah.  

Jeffrey Fewell    00:08:04    <laugh>. Yeah. Haircut was mandatory. Uniform inspections were mandatory, uh, cleaning, um, cell cell inspections. And you still had, uh, now a lot of that's changed, but back, back in the nineties mm-hmm. <affirmative>, it was really, really big. Um, the, the inmates at Leavenworth, uh, the military, United States disciplinary Barracks built as you know. Right. U S p, Leavenworth beautiful facility. Um, Shashank redemption style, you know, which is the Pennsylvania model, which we're here I am in Pennsylvania, our old jail here in Washington. It's the Pennsylvania model, uh, the Eastern State Penitentiary in Philadelphia. I visited that, which is Shawshank Redemption.  

Michael Cantrell    00:08:55    Right, right.  

Jeffrey Fewell    00:08:56    It's, it's really cool.  

Michael Cantrell    00:08:58    That is. So when you left, um, when you left Alaska, you stayed up there how long?  

Jeffrey Fewell    00:09:05    Three years. Um, okay. I was with my wife and my daughter was born on, on the Air Force base there in El Endorf. And, um, very small jail. I think we staffed it with five per shift.  

Michael Cantrell    00:09:20    Okay. Right.  

Jeffrey Fewell    00:09:21    Um, five ceo, they call 'em corrections specialists. Back then they were, they were 95. Charlie's were, which were corrections, non-commission officers. And, um, because back then you could only be in corrections if you were a sergeant or above, they did not allow, oh, yeah. Back, back in the day, back in the nineties. In fact, it was in Alaska from 90 93 or right around 93, that the Army started allowing, um, Laura enlisted at Incorrections due to staffing levels. Um, right before that, it was only non-commissioned officers, cuz they did not want, cuz you're a visor, as we all know, in corrections. Sure. They did not want Laura enlisted supervising because they didn't have any supervisory experience. When you're a COO in a, in a housing unit, as we all know, you're a supervisor, you're running that housing unit. Well, how can you run it if you've never had any leadership experience before? That's where the army said, no, no lower enlisted. It's only, uh, mid-level and, and up. And they changed it because of staffing levels in 1993, I think it was.  

Michael Cantrell    00:10:41    Wow. Well, they had the thought correct there at the beginning, I think. I mean, well,  

Jeffrey Fewell    00:10:45    Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. In the perfect world, we would be, we would be adequate, adequately staffed at all times. And we would have a certain level of supervision, you know, uh, uh, <affirmative> a high level of supervision, professional development. And, and, you know, we would, they would have the tools and, and it would run like a, a well oiled machine. Right. Unfortunately, with high turnover rates, you know, with retention problems, recruiting problems, you know, that's, that's, that's a difficult, uh, thing to do with, with any industry nowadays.  

Michael Cantrell    00:11:20    Sure, sure. And I think corrections doesn't get the, um, it's not looked upon as a, a nice profession. It's not looked upon as a, a good job. And so we didn't always, and we still don't sometimes, uh, have the most, the best people coming forward for those jobs. Right. That doesn't mean we don't, it's not, yeah. It doesn't mean we don't find great people who come forward. But I don't think that that's the first thing in somebody's mind is that they want to go work corrections. So we miss out on,  

Jeffrey Fewell    00:11:52    That's not right. I mean, it's exactly right. It's not sexy, you know, it's not shiny. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, um, it's mundane at times. If things are mundane and boring, everything's running great. <laugh>. Yeah. <laugh>, it's, you know, it's when it's exciting that, you know, something bad just hap you know, usually when there's excitement, something bad happened. So for us, it's really challenging to find that, uh, uh, those kind of people that, that, that stay. Because, you know, corrections is misunderstood. It's not sexy, it's not shiny, it's not, you know, it, it's, it's, it's a, it's a lifestyle. It's a culture. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And it takes a certain kind of people, you know, for us corrections professionals, it's really a challenge to retain who we have. We've got to have a good schedule. Um, we've gotta have good communication. We've gotta take care of our people. Otherwise, you know, uh, the retention and the, uh, the turnover rates are gonna kill us just like they have in the past. You know, what's been decades, decades now.  

Michael Cantrell    00:13:04    Yeah. Yeah. So you next went, um, where'd you go? Korea.  

Jeffrey Fewell    00:13:10    Oh, we went to, um, from Alaska to recruiting command in Cleveland. I was in. Okay. I was an Army recruiter for three years, put in about 40 people. Cool. And then from there, I went to, then I went to Korea. Um, okay. I, I left my wife and, uh, my two kids, cuz my son was born in, in Cleveland. Left my, my wife and 2, 2, 2 kids in El Paso at Fort Bliss. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And then we, I went to Korea by myself for a year. Um, nice facility, um, services the entire peninsula. Um, at the time, I don't know, there's 20, 30,000 troops, uh, uh, United States, uh, military troops in the peninsula servicing that area. It was a nice facility. Um, we had about, mm, I'd say 20 or 30 prisoners. Okay. Um, and, um, it was in, it was in Pyon Tech, which is Camp Humphreys. Um, back at, that was in 1998. Camp Humphreys today is the hub where it used to be Seoul Wan. Um, now the troops have been moved south, uh, to, uh, to ptech. This is nice facility. And, uh, from what I've been told, they built a new one. So.  

Michael Cantrell    00:14:32    Okay. So, but  

Jeffrey Fewell    00:14:35    Same, same, same. Go ahead. Go ahead. I'm sorry. Ah,  

Michael Cantrell    00:14:38    Uh, you're fine. Uh, working as a correctional specialist is, and I'm learning more and more every day as I do this podcast about how corrections is global and we all doing the same job, whether it's Australia or whether it's the United States, was the job much different for you? Or is it kind of the same job that you do when, you know, when you, uh, retired and was working in, uh, you know, Washington County? Is this, uh,  

Jeffrey Fewell    00:15:05    I same  

Michael Cantrell    00:15:06    Job  

Jeffrey Fewell    00:15:06    Is much the same. It's the same. Okay. Uh, you, you're dealing with the same problems, uh, uh, the daily grind of, of, of maintaining a housing unit. I think that's the core of any facility. Or is the, is the general population maintaining that, that, that housing those housing units. And it's the same issues, food, medical, uh, commissary, um, Hey, hey Sarge, I I need some toilet paper. Hey, hey Sarge, I I need a pencil. Uh, my telephone doesn't work. You know, it's a barrage of problems. Ankle biters. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> little stuff. But if those aren't taken care of, that can be, and you know, if he doesn't have a a, he or she doesn't have a writing utensil, it could be a big problem when they're presenting for their criminal case. That's access to, to courts. It sure. They have serious medical issue and we're not addressing it, et cetera.  

Jeffrey Fewell    00:16:05    You know, the food's not good, you know, it, so it's, it's, it's crisis management. I think, you know, just daily, the grind to crisis management, whether you're running a 20 bed or you're downtown in Pittsburgh, Allegheny County Jail, there are 3000 bed. It's just, uh, the 20 bed has the same problems. It's just that you're gonna multiply that by, by 20, um, when you go to a big facility. But it's the same stuff. Right. Whether it's military or, um, civilian, it's the daily grind of keeping the inmates, you know, taking care of 'em. Maybe taking care of the staff too. Because the, the staff are, you know, the ratios in the military, they're one to 50. So there's one correction specialist, they call 'em correction specialists to 50 inmates out here. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, it's one to 70, you know, I, and I've been told down south that's he's, it's higher than that. It's one to a hundred. So same. Interesting. You know.  

Michael Cantrell    00:17:13    Yeah. Yeah. So you left Korea, um, went to  

Jeffrey Fewell    00:17:18    The United States disciplinary barracks. Yep.  

Michael Cantrell    00:17:21    Okay. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. So you spent several years there  

Jeffrey Fewell    00:17:23    About eight years then? Yeah. Yeah. I was a, I started out as a platoon sergeant. We had about a 25 soldier platoon that worked directly inside the walls. Um, we would, uh, back then we would work eight hour shifts and, uh, uh, it was continuous. Um, platoon sergeant, not only are we working inside the walls and performing work call and chow crawl, chow crow is really interesting when you're talking about, like, at the U s p, the mass movement. You know, whereas in local jails, we don't have that. You don't, the, the chow comes to the inmate. Sure. Like where you were at the United States Penitentiary, as we all know. And you're going to chow and it's a mass movement. You, there might be a hundred, 200 people moving at any given time. And it's pretty, pretty amazing, um, operation when, when you have a chow call at the United States Disciplinary Barracks, our cha hall, I guess held between two and 2, 250 inmates, which is about two housing units.  

Jeffrey Fewell    00:18:36    Right. And so we would call two housing units in, they would, the inmates would go through the line and they, they would hit the stopwatch at the last inmate that was served and they would, they would count 20 minutes. Right. And so you had 20 minutes from the last guy that was served. And so a after that, you know, 20 minutes is up, they're saying, okay, out, get out. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And then they call another two housing units in. And they did that until the entire general, you know, the entire population was fed. It's times to me, you know, they did that three days a week. I mean, three times a three times a day. So it was, it's pretty, pretty amazing.  

Michael Cantrell    00:19:19    Yeah. Takes up a big chunk of the day too. I mean, that's a couple hours to get everybody fed. Yeah. Each time. Right.  

Jeffrey Fewell    00:19:25    I mean, each time. Right.  

Michael Cantrell    00:19:27    So tell me a little bit, and with you being the platoon sergeant, tell me about the day in the life of a correctional specialist. Because not only do they have to go in and work a shift, they still have military obligations, so, oh, yeah. What does that look like? Yeah,  

Jeffrey Fewell    00:19:42    They, they PT every day. Uh, PT is a big part of being a soldier. Um, good soldiers are physically fit. Uh, training is another aspect of it. Uh, they have common, common tasks that they're responsible for. They get tested every year, um, inspections. Um, or a big part of that, the inspection army was, was back in the nineties. Um, uh, but then it was replaced with the wartime army with Afghanistan and Iraq and, and, and then most recently Syria. And, and so a lot of those inspections went away. Really? Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, that was back in the trade off days of the eighties. Um, and then came, came in, uh, the Army. Uh, big changes cuz it used to be big, big on inspections. Sure,  

Michael Cantrell    00:20:39    Sure.  

Jeffrey Fewell    00:20:40    Not, not so much in, not so much anymore. Cuz you can kill a unit by inspecting them to death. You know, if you're a, a constant cycle of inspection, there's no time to rest and they just burn out. But, um, yeah. Yeah. It, typical day is pt. Um, you, uh, you go to, um, guard mount and you're inspected your uniform's, inspected haircut, um, personal appearance, attitude. Um, they might even quiz you while you're in guard mount of some common, you know, some questions of common knowledge in corrections or in the Army. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And then you assume your post, you might be in a housing unit. You might,  

Michael Cantrell    00:21:26    And for those of you listening, you might notice that we had a little change. And that's because the internet kicked out on us while we were doing this interview. So I'm gonna splice these two together and, uh, we're good to go. So when we left, uh, Jeff, we were talking about, um, you know, your time at, uh, the disciplinary barracks in Leavenworth. Um, so as a platoon sergeant, what were your daily activities there? What were you in charge of The most, the  

Jeffrey Fewell    00:21:53    Daily, daily job of a platoon sergeant is to take care of the 20 some soldier platoon. You're in charge of, uh, operations for that shift. W uh, so each PATON is assigned a different part of the United States disciplinary barracks. For example, you might have housing unit, um, soldiers, uh, deployed in, in the facility. You might, they might, some might be in the kitchen, some might be in the vocational, uh, training areas, uh, manufacturing. Some might be in the clinic in the medical area. Some might be, it's a rec yard, et cetera. So you got the normal duties operations of a daily shift, which is 24 7 inside the prison. And, and so then on top of that, you're, you have training, army training that you're responsible for N pt. Um, wow. With that comes, uh, evaluations like, uh, non-commission officer, professional evaluations, awards, uh, barracks, uh, inspections, equipment. Um, so in the Army, it's not just a, a regular eight hour job. It's really,  

Michael Cantrell    00:23:09    Yeah.  

Jeffrey Fewell    00:23:10    It's really a 15 to 16 hour job. And, um, you, you're, you're, you're taking the correctional duties outside the, the prison or the jail and adding all that army stuff to it. Cause they want you to do, the Army wants you to be in the army first, but then they, they want, they want you to run that, they want you to run that prison too. So it's, it's a lot of work. <laugh>.  

Michael Cantrell    00:23:41    So when you guys had use of forces or disturbances inside, um, were you leading those use of forces? Were Oh, yeah. You involved in  

Jeffrey Fewell    00:23:50    That? Yeah. Would, there would be, um, a code called out, um, and I've forgotten what those codes are. Um, actually there's a body alarm that we had and central control would say there's an activated body alarm. Um, uh, Sergeant Mike Cantrell's last, uh, known location was, was the dining facility. And so mm-hmm. <affirmative>, everybody. And that would go out across the, uh, the radio. So everybody had to respond. I'm talking about everybody. And so, right. We would all respond. Generally, if it's a one time call, it's probably an accident, an accidental, um, body alarm activation. But if there are two or more body alarm activations in the same area with the, within that same time, it's real mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And so we're running down the hall. Um, and then if you ha if they had to activate the four cell move team, they could and they would, um, the four cell move team is, is, is designated in advance.  

Jeffrey Fewell    00:25:04    Um, they're, they're trained on it. They go to the four cell move, uh, training room, the F F F C M T room, they suit up and mm-hmm. <affirmative>, um, usually in corrections, there's some time, you know, it's not a fluid situation where you had to, you know, you have to do something right away. Usually if there's, you know, an inmate refuses to lock down the inmates in the cell mule kicking the door, if there's mm-hmm. <affirmative> assault or if there's a disturbance, there's some, sometimes there's some time to activate that team. So you don't have to go dynamic. But the one good thing about the military is their staffing levels are very high. Um, usually they'll be, you know, 400 bed facility, they'll have 50 people on a shift, uh, between 30 and 50 people on a shift. That's unheard of on the outside.  

Michael Cantrell    00:26:11    Oh, absolutely.  

Jeffrey Fewell    00:26:12    Yeah. And so, um, they, they do have a high level, um, well, and, and services too. There's 1200 staff members at the United States disciplinary barracks for 400 inmates, <laugh>. Wow. So they, it's overkill. Uh, though there's like 15 directorates for a 400 bed facility, 15 boss, 15 senior bosses. So, wow. For every, you know, your piece of the pie is very narrow there. Yeah. Whereas if you go somewhere else, you might wear two or three, four hats, you know? Yeah. Yeah. So,  

Michael Cantrell    00:26:55    So you also had another opportunity. It looks like you went overseas to Guantanamo. We did.  

Jeffrey Fewell    00:27:00    GEMO was awesome. At the time. We had about four, just about about 400 and some enemy combatants, uh mm-hmm. <affirmative>, they had high level, uh, military officers from the Iraqi and Afghanistan, uh, Afghan, Afghan, Afghan army, and, um, very, very senior folks there. And GMO was not detention. GMO is Intel. We were just so happy. We were the gatekeepers. We are keeping the, the, we are keeping 'em there. And we're housing them, feeding them, giving medical, you know, medical, you know, uh, you know, taking care of their religious needs, their visitation to security, everything that a normal corrections facility does. We were doing it however. Mm-hmm. The caveat was the primary mission was Intel. The reason why they were there was not detention, it was Intel. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And so that's where some of the people didn't quite understand, you know, the mission they were gathering, they being, uh, the many Intel services that were down there. They had navy intelligence, army intelligence, air Force intelligence, um, cia, n nsa, get everybody down there. And so, sure. So we didn't, we were not a part of that. We were separated from the Intel mission. We were the security part of it. And so the soldiers down there, you know, sometimes didn't get, get that, you know? Right. They were just involved in the, you know, being a cage kicker, you know, just the, the, the, the mundane aspect of, of corrections, uh, they were in, involved in. But there was a much bigger mission going on.  

Michael Cantrell    00:29:01    Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Alright. And this is just me from the outside, but was one of the main problems there, was it separation? Keeping those individuals separated from each other? Oh, yeah. Um, trying, while they were trying to gather the  

Jeffrey Fewell    00:29:14    Hotel. Oh, sure. Um, they had, yeah, many, I, I, I don't know how many camps. I think there was like six at the time, and there was more than that. And, you know, they would open some, close some and move some around. And because of the separation, you know, different classifications from different countries, different levels of, of intel. But going on and there being an in Intel mission, it's just like a protective custody, uh, individual. Right. You, they're, you, you've got to separate 'em. And one of the wow tools that they use, because the, uh, enemy combatants like to talk to each other, was they would play music over the intercom system. Now they thought that was torture. Okay. Um, but actually what they're trying to do was trying to keep them from speaking to one another. Um, right. Um, so they would play loud music over the intercom system.  

Jeffrey Fewell    00:30:15    Um, they would also have, um, psychological operations going on. What they would do is they would put detainee, Mike Kentrell in one bullpen. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, they'd put fuel in another bullpen, and they would have a poster up that had some sort of intel on it. Like, we think we know where the weapons are being held out in Smithtown. And then, so then they would walk away, the Theos would walk away, you and I would be sitting in the cage and we'd be talking about that poster. And it was like, they think that the posters are there, but actually what they're, they don't know. The posters are actually over there. The whole place is fucked. The entire facility was bugged. And so they got a lot of intel. And to this day, the correction facilities use the inmate health system in the same, we all know they use the same way. Oh. People talk.  

Michael Cantrell    00:31:16    They do. Even when you give 'em a big, long recording says this is recorded, they still Yes.  

Jeffrey Fewell    00:31:22    Every day. You know, he'll get on there and he'll tell grandma and says, grandma, I screwed up. I, I left know <laugh>, the knife is underneath the couch, so make sure you go get it. Okay.  

Michael Cantrell    00:31:37    Yeah. You can't  

Jeffrey Fewell    00:31:38    Fix it. No, you can't fix it. Stupid <laugh>, you  

Michael Cantrell    00:31:40    Can't. So will you get to go back to the DB to finish up your time in the  

Jeffrey Fewell    00:31:48    Military? Um, I did. I I was actually promoted selected for Sergeant Major and the Army said, oh, congratulations. They called me Department of the Army, um, uh, human resources command from Pentagon. Said you, congratulations, you're promoted to star major and you need to go stay on station in Gemo for another 10 months. Then you're going to Fort Bliss, Texas for the sergeants major academy. That's another nine or 10 months. And then, because you haven't been to the box being Afghanistan in Iraq, you're the first one over. And I said, I'm not doing it <laugh>. And they said, you don't have a choice for sergeant. And, uh, I, I checked into it and I did have a choice and I declined it. And so I retired because I was looking at three years without my family. So.  

Michael Cantrell    00:32:41    Yeah.  

Jeffrey Fewell    00:32:41    Yeah. And the Army does that a lot, you know, when they got you at the end like that, your choices are suck it up buttercup or Yeah. You know, well, that's it. You get us to embrace the suck, you know?  

Michael Cantrell    00:32:56    Yeah. And of course, yeah. About that time, your kids are at the age that you wanna be home more.  

Jeffrey Fewell    00:33:01    Well, yeah, they were teenagers, you know, and it, for me, it was, it was, it was an important time. And, and I was at the age where I could jump, and so I jumped. I, I said I, I'm declining it. And so I went back to Leavenworth retired, and here I am.  

Michael Cantrell    00:33:19    <laugh>. Well, it looks like, it looks like you jumped a little ways, but you still couldn't kick the law enforcement. No. So you,  

Jeffrey Fewell    00:33:25    You, you know, you, you, you do what you know, you know. Yeah. And once you and I, once you get in just like this podcast, you know, you're not talking about crocheting or cooking or you're not talking about cars, or you're not talking about guns, or you're talking about corrections. Why? Yeah. Because you're good at it. It's something that you're passionate about. It's something that you found out that is a part of your life for the better or worse  

Michael Cantrell    00:33:56    <laugh>. Yep.  

Jeffrey Fewell    00:33:57    And that you're immersed in it, and you find yourself, you know, that's your thing. You know, that's something that you, you found interest in because you're good at it. And it's, it's a skill that, it's a craft that, you know, uh, the, the the, as you know, Mike, the, the good people, we have awesome people and Oh yeah. Good people can do great things. And it's a beautiful thing when they do it, you know? It  

Michael Cantrell    00:34:26    Is. So, yeah. I wish, I wish we could, um, I wish going into corrections was, um, I don't know. I wish it, like we talked about earlier, I wish it had a better name. I wish it had a better, um, uh, view in the public. Cause myself, when I went into corrections, I was, you know, I was regularly put into leadership positions on, and put on teams and all this stuff. People thought I did a good job in there. But myself, I was always looking outside, how can I get out of this? This wasn't where I was gonna go. And it wasn't until, I don't know, I had several years in before I woke up one day and looked around and said, I'm good at this.  

Jeffrey Fewell    00:35:05    Yeah. I'm in <laugh>. Yeah.  

Michael Cantrell    00:35:07    You know, so, and  

Jeffrey Fewell    00:35:08    That's where we're, we're. We as corrections professionals sometimes fail because our culture, we eat our young, like a lot of professions do. We eat our young mm-hmm. <affirmative>, it's all about, you know, let's get to the business. And so we, we, we, the culture is not promoting, we don't professionally develop and educate people very well. We're not educating no public like you're doing right now, which is very rare. The public has no freaking clue of what we're doing. And sometimes Exactly. We don't care. But we, we still maintain, we still have to educate them and then our own people. We've gotta provide, you know, we've got to, to, to to, to have a culture where, uh, they're constantly learning and, and, and nurturing and promoting and, and growing. If not, yes, we have what we have. You know, it, it's, it's mundane. It's boring. And it's not for me. Well, it's because we've, we've kind of, we've kind of made that bed, you know?  

Michael Cantrell    00:36:19    Yeah.  

Jeffrey Fewell    00:36:21    And it's  

Michael Cantrell    00:36:22    Tough. Yeah. Once you can grasp it, once you can grasp it, once you can understand that you are doing good, which is one of the hardest things for correctional officers to see, you know, it's, it's the profession that you can't finish eight hours work and then look around and go, oh, I built that. You know, you have to look on your way home and see, well, there's no crime out here on the way home. That's right. You know, I helped, I helped be part of that, but it's not a visible, um, uh, it's just not plainly visible to us what we do all the time. And the public, even though they are, and I've said this before, you know, correctional officers are the least involved in having prisons. Um, the, the public's the one that, you know, voted in, the legislatures who made the laws, the judges enforced it.  

Michael Cantrell    00:37:08    The cops arrested em, and then at the end of the deal, they get given to us. Well, we had the least amount to, to do with putting that person in prison. But in order for everybody else to forget that they've got somebody locked up for 20 years, they kind of forget about us. And, um, we've gotta get around that. And corrections, like you said, has to quit being so hidden. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, we've gotta be visible when, when things happen inside, put a film on the, you know, six o'clock news that shows what that inmate did to staff. Um, we just don't ever do that. And, and you're absolutely right. That is one of the reasons why when I retired, um, I wanted to make people more aware of what goes on. That's what started this podcast. So yeah.  

Jeffrey Fewell    00:37:54    It's life, it's life changing, you know, our air, our industry is all service. We're serving each other. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, you know, you and I are taking care of each other by it, trying to educate some folks. And then we're taking care of our cos and then the cos are gonna take care of the, of the inmates, uh, the incarcerated people. And, and they're sure they're gonna come back. There are people that come back all the time and say, you changed my life. You know? Oh, yeah. You know, you always, Mike, you always get that, that inmate that says that jail was my time for it saved my life. We, we hear it all the time. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, it was a safe place. It was clean, you know, the food was okay, you know? Um, it was a time, uh, you know, I got my rest. It was a, you know, and, and we hear it all the time.  

Jeffrey Fewell    00:38:48    It's just our story is not told. You know? Um mm-hmm. <affirmative>, the public doesn't understand that. And so, and quite frankly, some of the public wants bread and water. Well, that's not what we are, you know? No, we're not, we're not haa thug stuff. I'm not promoting that we upgrade our cable TV subscription. I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not saying that <laugh>. What I'm saying is you've got, you know, these people are severely mentally ill. They're traumatized. They're, they're, they're addicted. And we can't, we have an opportunity to save their lives. And if we don't Yes. Yeah. Uh, we, you know, we, we, we, we, this is, this is a, a huge opportunity. And at the very hu the very aspect of the humane side of it, I, I, I am a supporter of, of solitary confinement. We all know without it. Mm-hmm. It's gonna be, um, it's gonna be a, a circus, you know, it's gonna be unsafe. Right. There are certain people that cannot function in general population. You know who they are, and we all have met 'em. Absolutely. They cannot function in general population. There's no way. Okay. And so you've gotta review 'em. And so these people that, that say, you know, oh, we need to get rid of solitary confinement, they've ne they've never walked, they've never walked a tear.  

Michael Cantrell    00:40:20    Right. Right. And you're, we, we have to monitor it. We have to make sure we're doing it right. Sure. But they're absolutely, there's a percentage of that population. They, the public doesn't want them around us, and they're just as dangerous inside the prison around each other Sure. And around the  

Jeffrey Fewell    00:40:38    Offices and themselves. Yeah. They're gonna hurt the Yeah.  

Michael Cantrell    00:40:41    Themselves. Yeah.  

Jeffrey Fewell    00:40:43    Sure.  

Michael Cantrell    00:40:45    Now, I'm jumping ahead a little bit here, but as I was doing a little research, uh, for this program where you're at now at Washington County, I ran across a deal where you're doing employed alternative sentences. And I worked at a work release camp where we let the guys go out and work and earn money and, and, uh, pay part of their, their restitution back at stuff. But that was a great, it, it was one of the best programs I've seen while I've been in, uh, working in corrections. Can you tell me a little bit about what you guys are doing with this, uh, alternative sentences? Well,  

Jeffrey Fewell    00:41:22    Right now we've got two aspects of it there. The Fitz program is furlough into service. We're basically, it's a selected vetted population of, of, of young, of men that based on their sentence, and they're already sentenced. These aren't pretrial. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, these are sentenced individuals and they've been vetted out. And so they're, they're were, they are selected and work for community services. So they'll go out in the community and build a bridge, a wooden bridge for, in a park. They'll go mm-hmm. <affirmative> paint a school, they'll go, um, and uh, clean up, you know, landscaping in a parks. They'll do, there's so many hundreds of projects that they're engaged in every day. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> all year long at, at no expense, uh, to the taxpayers. And they're supervised. That's the one big thing that we've looked at. This, if you mm-hmm. <affirmative>, you go straight. Work release has a high vulnerability of drug, um, addiction and, uh, falling off the horse.  

Jeffrey Fewell    00:42:44    There's not that level of, you know, there's gotta be supervision. Otherwise, it's, it's, you're gonna get, uh, it, it's a high, there's a higher rates of failure, uh, when it's not supervised, just like anything. Sure. And so we are, this, this program is supervised and it's, it's successful. And for us. Yeah. Um, I think that's the biggest thing. Just straight work release where I'm, I'm letting you out. That's gonna be problematic because, um, at that point, you're very vulnerable. In fact, the statistics now are saying that the highest, the mo the, the most people that are dying mm-hmm. <affirmative> from opioids are the ones coming out of jail because Wow. As we all know there, they're used to taking dose X and then they, they, you know, that's what they're normally doing. And then when they, they, they go to jail for six months or you know, a year and they get out and they go back to dose X, it kills them. And so there's Wow. High, high, high and high. And this is data statistics. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, the opioid deaths, overdoses are very, very high, um, after incarceration. So the point is, there's gotta be supervision there.  

Michael Cantrell    00:44:08    Right. Right. It's gotta be. Now the, the work release program I saw in the state of Missouri, um, a quarter, they, they made real wages. They made whatever everybody else made working at that company. And, but a quarter of that went to pay for their transportation and went to pay for the salary of the officer. Wow. Cause one of them was, I think the, uh, Hudson food plant, which was a Turkey place where they processed Turkey. And so we had officers that walked around inside, cuz there was like 30, 40 inmates that worked at that plant. Wow. And, uh, yeah. So, uh, but even then it, when you're in those and they're, they normally tend to be lower paying jobs and stuff, you're gonna find more incidences of just employees that have drug use. And, uh, so that was around the inmates a lot and they, they had to watch that. But I, I like your, your Fitz program that you're talking about there, because not only is that helping the community, it's kind of given those inmates what I, we were talking about with correctional officers, the ability to, uh, see accomplishment. Yeah. And, and, and the ability to accomplish something for their community. And I bet if studies sh were done that an inmate who's involved and engaged in that community and, and has built that park or built that bridge, is less likely to go commit crime there. Yeah.  

Jeffrey Fewell    00:45:30    Uh,  

Michael Cantrell    00:45:30    Be because he's, he's part of the community now. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> like never before. So that sounds like a great program.  

Jeffrey Fewell    00:45:37    Yeah. It's, it's really been successful. Everybody loves it, uh, in the community, the, the boss, our bosses, the prison board, every, you know, the elected officials, um, they're constituents. Everybody loves it. So it's a win-win, win, you know?  

Michael Cantrell    00:45:54    Yeah. Now, you touched on this just a little bit, but I want to ask you a little bit more about it. Um, the old Washington County Jail, I got to see a picture of it on the internet. Oh yeah. And, uh, built in 1896. Yeah. Uh, are you around that, is that open for tours? It's, is that part of  

Jeffrey Fewell    00:46:12    Actually, they, they, the adult probation parole and the courts refurbished it, so they're still using it for office. Okay.  

Jeffrey Fewell    00:46:24    But it is a fully functional, it's not, it's not a correctional facility anymore. It's, uh, probation parole, and so it's, it's Right. Mostly offices. But yeah, you can go in into the old jail and they've done a great job in, in re refurbishing it cuz it's really nice. Um, you know, they've got real windows instead of the, you know, and, uh, it's beautiful, uh, historic, uh, building and it's, yeah. You know, we still have cos that have worked there, um, because it, it was closed. It was, well it wasn't closed. It was, the inmates were transferred in 1996 and so, okay. It wasn't that. Well, I mean that's a long time ago, but we still have pos that worked, um, in the old place. And uh, uh, they have had the stories of, you know, the keys jingling and the heat cuz there's no air conditioning back then.  

Michael Cantrell    00:47:29    Oh no.  

Jeffrey Fewell    00:47:30    Remember you remember. Yeah. You remember there's no air conditioning that's I've unheard of nowadays. The the heat Yeah. Was the boiler in the basement, which is you could fry an egg off the floor down there, <laugh>. Um, you know, it's very, very smelly because the Yeah. You know, cuz there's no, the air didn't circulate as well as they have the systems nowadays and mm-hmm. <affirmative>, there's no air conditioning. That was it. You know, and so it was very, very smelly. Um, not as, not even not as clean it. Josh Redemption is what it was. It's the old Pennsylvania model. And, um,  

Michael Cantrell    00:48:13    I guess they, they call it the, the modern day Bastille. Yeah. Uh, like the Bastille in Paris.  

Jeffrey Fewell    00:48:19    Yep. It's a, it's linear supervision is what, what what the textbook calls it. Linear supervision means the cells are side by side in a line. Um, and then of course the, the, uh, direct supervision or the podular supervision is what we have where the cells face each other. You know, you have an officer in the middle or to the side of the housing unit, um, looking out to all four walls of cells, both upper and lower tiers. And, and that's, that's, uh, you know, in a day room space mm-hmm. <affirmative> that pod as we know it, <laugh>, which is different than, you know, Josh Redemption, we had linear, you know.  

Michael Cantrell    00:49:10    Yeah. Well, that's what I grew up with. I mean, I started at Missouri State Penitentiary, 1837 mm-hmm. <affirmative>, and then I went to Leavenworth <laugh>, you know, so that's all I knew  

Jeffrey Fewell    00:49:20    Is linear. Yeah. Keys you Nowadays we don't have as, we have a couple of keys, but really, you know, um, some of the doors are sliders, which are controlled by central control and then mm-hmm. <affirmative>, some of them are, um, are, uh, a card, you know, a a a a key access card. Uh, interesting. Yeah. Or they're popped, um, by central. Right. They're not, they're not, uh, there's no very few keys. If you go to a brand new, you go to a brand new jail, which there's a couple, there's a couple opening in Pennsylvania Bay counties, right? Mm-hmm. <affirmative> open up a new one. There's very, very little keys and interesting steel doors. Um, our doors are wooden, but um, they have steel doors with windows, um, you know, Mac security, the, the Paracentric keys. Yes. Um, but at the, the, the jail level, like us, we don't have, uh, very many paracentric keys. The old, you know, big skeleton  

Michael Cantrell    00:50:25    Mm-hmm. <affirmative>,  

Jeffrey Fewell    00:50:27    But very few keys.  

Michael Cantrell    00:50:29    Wow. Yeah. The old days you used to carry, what, six pounds of keys? Yeah.  

Jeffrey Fewell    00:50:34    Jingling, jingling, <laugh>. You can hear the CEO coming from, you know, the, all the way across the room. And the camera system was not, the camera systems nowadays are, we have it, they're amazing. Uh, right. In other states you have audio, uh, in Kansas you can, I can record you without your  

Michael Cantrell    00:50:57    Right  

Jeffrey Fewell    00:50:57    Here in Pennsylvania.  

Michael Cantrell    00:50:59    Interesting.  

Jeffrey Fewell    00:51:00    So we, okay. We do not have audio here in Pennsylvania  

Michael Cantrell    00:51:04    In, so you don't have body cams probably yet.  

Jeffrey Fewell    00:51:07    Yes. The, the, the, the only exception of that would be a body cam. And that's the only reason why I would want a body cam in a jail, uh, for the audio. Because you know, if you and I are stacked up, what's the, what are you gonna see in a body cam <laugh>? You know what's true? That's true. You're not gonna see very much.  

Michael Cantrell    00:51:27    No.  

Jeffrey Fewell    00:51:28    And, and where we were in Kansas, we always use the facility cameras. The facility cameras are better than body cams and plus they have a bird's eye view. They could see the whole bite versus if you're, if you're, you and I are stacked up, we're not you, you're gonna see my elbow, I'm gonna see, you know, and so body cams, but they have audio.  

Michael Cantrell    00:51:51    Absolutely. Well, that, that was a great conversation. I appreciate you coming on here today.  

Jeffrey Fewell    00:51:58    Thank you, Mike. Um, always excited, uh, you know, corrections, you know, for those people that are in it, we're in it, um, for the, for, for our hearts in, in the right place. We're in it for to to serve others and to, to hope that, you know, that other people get the, uh, fulfillment and, and the, uh, the job satisfaction that you and I have. Yeah. Yeah. It's a great  

Michael Cantrell    00:52:27    Career. Yeah. People don't realize that. But  

Jeffrey Fewell    00:52:28    Yeah, it's huge. It's, it's a, it's a wonderful career. Um, it's, it's a diamond in a rough, um, and it's a very welcoming industry for those people that are good at it. Corrections will, will, uh, it's a family.  

Michael Cantrell    00:52:43    Oh yeah. Yeah. I still, I mean, that's how I managed to reach out to so many people. Yeah. Um, no matter who I talked to, as soon as they find out you worked in corrections somewhere else, we all understand a lot about the other person. Yeah. And, uh, so yeah, it's great. Yeah. Hey, if, if somebody wanted to contact you, uh, where can they reach you at?  

Jeffrey Fewell    00:53:03    Uh, my email is my first name, last name. So it's j e f f r e y f e w e l l@t.net. Um, okay. You can also get me on LinkedIn at Jeffrey Fuel. Um, there's an email address there and you can also go to the Washington County Pennsylvania website and there's an email there.  

Michael Cantrell    00:53:31    Okay. Well thank you so much for being here on the Prison Officer Podcast today. Um, and I look forward to maybe getting the chance and meeting you in the  

Jeffrey Fewell    00:53:39    Future. Yeah, come see us.  

Michael Cantrell    00:53:40    Oh, I'll give that a shot. Hey, you have a great day. You too. Take care brother.