112: Security, Innovation, and Leadership in American Prisons - Interview w/Pete Bludworth

What does it take to navigate the most dangerous prisons in America while maintaining both safety and humanity? Pete Bloodworth's extraordinary 35-year journey through corrections offers profound insights into this question.

From his early days as a Marine Corps sniper to becoming one of corrections' most influential tactical innovators, Bloodworth's story reveals how military discipline transformed his approach to prison management. "When you actually study the science behind it," he explains about his pioneering work with less-lethal tools, "it's not to say other methods are bad, it's to strengthen the things that are their weaknesses." This pragmatic philosophy guided his development of protocols that revolutionized how officers respond to violent situations throughout the Federal Bureau of Prisons.

Bloodworth's most compelling lessons come from his time at USP Marion, where staff still carried the emotional weight of the murders of three colleagues. There, he learned that leadership means more than tactical expertise—it requires taking responsibility for everyone's safety. "When you're handling it as an officer, you're in the now," he reflects. "When you become the supervisor, the responsibility of being the leader really starts hitting because it's your responsibility to make sure everybody goes home safe."

Throughout our conversation, Bloodworth shares pivotal moments that shaped his understanding of corrections, from managing riots at FCI Phoenix to learning that security is just "one spoke on the wheel" of effective prison management. His later work in private corrections challenges common misconceptions, revealing how these facilities often employ veteran wardens with decades of experience across multiple systems.

Whether you're a corrections professional, considering the field, or simply interested in understanding what happens behind prison walls, this episode offers rare insight into the complex world of modern corrections. Subscribe now to hear more conversations with the professionals who've shaped American corrections.

Corrections Unfiltered on YouTube:    / @correcti

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Chapters

• 0:00 Sponsor Message and Introduction
• 2:45 Early Life and Military Experience
• 9:04 Entering Corrections at FCI Phoenix
• 16:01 Disturbance Control Teams and Training
• 29:37 Facing Real Threats at USP Marion
• 37:25 Developing Less-Lethal Tactics
• 48:47 Leadership Lessons as Captain
• 59:07 The Rapid Rotation Baton Innovation
• 1:09:26 Transition to Private Corrections
• 1:16:35 Final Advice and Corrections Unfiltered

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:34

Hey guys, before I get to our first guest, I just want to take a moment today and thank Pepperball. You know they've been a sponsor of the Prison Officer Podcast for more than three years and without their sponsorship I wouldn't be able to bring this content to you. We wouldn't be able to have these great conversations with these leaders and trainers in corrections. You know I used Pepperball for more than 20 years when I was working in the institution. It was something I believed in, so it was easy for me when I got the chance to become a master instructor for Pepperball. I get to go out and train law enforcement and corrections and I get to see you guys in the field, so I really appreciate that. The great thing about Pepperball is it gives the officers the confidence to have a tool that they can use that they know is going to work. If you would reach out to Pepperball wwwpepperballcom and thank them for sponsoring the Prison Officer Podcast and, while you're there, see all the new things that are part of the Pepperball family, well hello and welcome back to the Prison Officer Podcast.

Speaker 1: 1:37

My name is Mike Cantrell. Today I've got a longtime colleague, pete Bloodworth. Him and I both worked at the Bureau of Prisons together. We didn't cross paths physically a lot, but I crossed paths with him as a mentor in training. I've crossed paths with him as disturbance control team and some of the ideas he brought that we accepted and stuff. So I've got a lot to unpack and talk to him about. But today, pete Bloodworth, he's going to walk us through. You know how he got into corrections and everything. But how many years did you have with the BOP?

Speaker 2: 2:09

I don't have a total. It was closer to 25 than it was 24.

Speaker 1: 2:13

Okay, it was 24 and 7 months and 11 days 25 years with the BOP and went from there and went into the private prisons, which I also want to talk about a little bit and just hear about that because it was fascinating. I did get to go up. What's it been? Two years ago, about two years yeah. Yeah, and got to come visit and walk through and was extremely impressed. So I always like to start at the beginning. Pete, walk me through how you grew up, where you grew up and how you got into corrections.

Speaker 2: 2:41

I started out, I grew up in Phoenix, arizona. I actually lived in a neighborhood that was like on the outskirts of Phoenix at that time. Now it's right in the middle type thing. So I grew up in a very small townish type atmosphere. We always kind of strolled to the local Circle K store to, you know, to get our candy and stuff like that. We walked to school because it was within a couple of miles. I had a really good upbringing there. You know did have some tragedies as a child. I had a brother that says some of the stuff you see on the wall back here who was killed in Vietnam. I had another brother who served in Vietnam and he came back, a different person. But my mom was very strong and even though my father had died when I was a child, she was very determined to make sure we had the best life that we possibly could and she instilled a lot of work, ethic, manners, you know, then that type of stuff as I was growing up. So even though it was a challenged environment, we did the best that we could and my mom was definitely the. She set the true north for all of us.

Speaker 2: 3:39

After graduating high school, I just grew up, stayed in the same house all the way through. I graduated high school. I didn't know what to do with myself. Even though I was very good in school, I had straight A's and that type of thing I just had. I wasn't really sure what to do and I always thought that college was for rich kids, not for kids like me. So I did what my brothers did. I joined the Marine Corps, had a fantastic upbringing in the Marine Corps. Started out I was in a sniper unit for a regimental scout sniper platoon. The S2 department Went from there into the infantry, straight into infantry, deployed overseas for the first time in 85.

Speaker 2: 4:17

Then I re-enlisted during that deployment and I was an instructor at a naval school right there on Camp Pendleton Field Medical Service School, and a lot of what led me through the Bureau and gave me a lot of advantage in the Bureau was what I received as an instructor there, did two years there, and I was trying to go to the drill instructor field and they assigned me to sea duty for an aircraft carrier, and I'm like that's not exactly what I was trying to do here, however, so I went to sea duty, which was fantastic, because you're a small unit on a great big ship, you're surrounded by sailors everybody's gonna learn to like each other. And now it was a growing experience for me, because not only did I learn a lot when I was an instructor at the naval school, I also, but there I was in charge of training the Marines and responding to the different things that we had to respond to on an aircraft carrier. My mom was really strained in the fact that she had already lost two sons in the Marine Corps. The one brother of mine died just a few years, I'm sure. So she had a long talk with me and she just said you know, I don't want to lose another one. So I went ahead and jumped out of the Marine Corps and I always wanted to be a cop. I had been testing for it as I was getting out of the Marine Corps and I was doing pretty well, except for I couldn't make the dates of the academies due to my enlistment.

Speaker 2: 5:37

Then, when I got out of my, when I got on the Marine Corps, I went home to Phoenix, arizona. They weren't testing and, uh, I went back to the same job that I was doing at a building supply and they welcomed me back and it was great. Um, one day the owner of the store came out and he kind of put his arms on my shoulder. He said hey, pete, let's take a walk. And he said hey, pete, you don't belong here, you need to go do something. You didn't go do all that stuff in the Marine Corps and you haven't had the life you've had to be here. I want you to go. So I called a buddy of mine that I was in the Marine Corps with and I said hey, rich, what are you doing? And he says, hey, I got a job in a prison. I'm like, I want to be a cop. And he goes well, I got a job in a prison and they have one north of Phoenix. He said you ought to go check it out.

Speaker 2: 6:14

Well, a later I started, uh, at fci phoenix, uh, december 16th 1990, and I thought you know what I'll do this, just long enough to start testing again for police agencies. And uh, I think you know you have to correct me, mike I believe it was a two-week academy, the institutional familiarization. It might have been three week at the time. It was a very short period of time. And then you went inside the facility and you worked, and then you, you, eventually. So I started in December, finished my institutional familiarization early January, but I didn't go to Glencoe to receive certification as a correctional officer until later on, towards the end of February, right, right. And those first days were rather formative for me because I'm thinking you're going into a system that's going to be just like the military. I'm going to walk in, they're going to see me as a sergeant from the Marine Corps. Well, I wasn't like that at all. No, yeah, so I got to work.

Speaker 2: 7:13

Luckily I was around other people who had a ton of time in the BOP or they had already transitioned there also, for example, within a few years, and so they kind of took me underneath their wing and were showing me hey do this, hey do that. I made some of the proverbial early mistakes along the way of learning as you go and all that. But then this is kind of where things started taking a change for me. During that first year there was an intention for me to go on the special operations response team because of my marine corps background and I was walking over to the camp to count one day and I saw a group of people dressed in blue and and they were um at the training area and I said, what do they do? And they said, oh, that's all right, our disturbance control team, bct. I said, well, what do they do? And they said, well, into riots and stuff. And I went, you have a lot of riots. And they said, well, we've had riots in the past and they're our primary team to go in. And I go, I want to buy that apple. I want to do that, I guess because I'd already satisfied myself, you know, with what I had done in the Marine Corps, especially on the Nimitz. That's what we did, yeah, so, anyhow.

Speaker 2: 8:21

So the captain, the, the captain at the time, craig chalmers, he called me and he's like big mistake. Big mistake, you know, if you want to have a career you need to stick in this special operational response. He said, yeah, but I think I can make a difference over there. So he goes I tell you what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna send you to instructor school and you're gonna come back and you're gonna have to prove yourself. In a nutshell.

Speaker 2: 8:37

So they sent me to DCT Instructor School right after I had a year in Right and I came back and I started kind of injecting what I had learned as an instructor at Field Medical Service School and I was pretty good at keeping documentation at the time because of my experience when I was on Marine Detachment running the training there and it just kind of started to click. So I worked there, met my wife she worked at the prison too. We had our first child and people were encouraging both of us to move because it's faster to promote if you move, to move to another facility and promote. I promoted to GS9 Lieutenant, first level Lieutenant at coleman coleman low, and my wife was.

Speaker 1: 9:22

I'm sorry, let me back you up just a minute because I want to. I want to break down a couple of things that you talked about. One was how you viewed that training that you got when you were in the marines over there in the medical unit and you were teaching and you said that was formative for you. And then the training that you got as a DCT instructor, which would have been your first major BOP training. Tell me what it was that you learned in the Marines there that you saw about training that made you want to train.

Speaker 2: 9:51

You know, the field medical service school was a situation where I came in with no combat experience but the Navy instructors had combat experience from Vietnam. So I was at the beginning of my Marine Corps career. They were towards the end of their Naval career and they were corpsmen. It was a corpsman school and they quickly got ahold of you and let you know the seriousness of the subject matters that you're talking about. They let you know there's no playing in here. We can motivate, we can encourage, we can do all those positive reinforcements and stuff. However, at the end of the day, when they graduate that school they're going to go serve in a Marine Corps unit. Some of them went off to go do other things for the Navy. A few of them even went towards a SEAL team to do that thing. But they let me know how serious that was and so I became laser focused.

Speaker 1: 10:43

They set the stage for what your training was about at that point. It wasn't just I'm here to get trained, it was. There's something at the end of this that I have to be prepared for.

Speaker 2: 10:53

Yeah, a lot of what you had was you had E1 to E9. So you had all ranks. It wasn't like you were taking everybody who just got out of boot camp of their boot camp. You were grabbing E1 to E9. And every class had E1 to E, at least E8, e7. And you really. So.

Speaker 2: 11:09

Now you have people who are higher ranked than you. You're in charge of them in a very intense instructor type environment. So you had to walk that line of environment. So you had to walk that line of I got to get my point across. I need to respect you, but you have to respect me because I've got to get this point across. That's what I mean by.

Speaker 2: 11:28

It was a formative couple of years because I had to grow a lot in a short period of time. But luckily, my fellow naval instructors Petty Officer Kim, petty Officer Delegati they were so helpful to me because we had many, many talks, you know, after class or before class or on weekends, and we did a lot of the training was out in the field and so we would just go kind of like drive up, you know, in Jeep, we will hang out on the top and we would just discuss their experiences and things and where I need to change this or where I need to change that or reconsider the way I was looking at things. So that kind of brought a very strong sense when I came into the agency and I was lucky enough to get that instructor certification. That's kind of what brought on my intensity level with that.

Speaker 1: 12:09

Right, right, Well, and that's something that's needed. I mean, we've also got to take a look at what was going on in the 90s, late 80s, 90s. Riots back then were a real threat. I don't think people think that they are at this time. I think we've kind of got to lay back, although we've had a couple of bad ones in the US, had a bunch of inmates killed in North Carolina a few years back, you know. So it still happens.

Speaker 2: 12:33

But in the 70s into the 80s and even in the early 90 90s, a riot was a real threat inside an institution and I was at phoenix and in phoenix, um, in 1992 some guns were smuggled in and I, I'm very, I'm very in depth on that because, uh, I was pulled off and put in the sis department, a special investigative supervisor's office, to assist with that investigation. So I read every piece of the letter, every mail, every piece of mail. I listened to every phone call. I went through the property, I helped them build the profile of what was going on prior to the actual incident. How did they get the guns in? Then I was there as we went through the security, they went through the security process, identifying what the failures were to allow them to get from outside the fence into their hands and in between the fence and eventually, you know, firing on the truck and our staff members, as well as the staff members in the truck inside the facility and stuff it was a, it was a tough moment, you know.

Speaker 2: 13:31

it's like, wow, this is, this is a pretty real thing, absolutely so. At phoenix, like you're talking about riots, we had a prison riot, um, you know, when they did the crack law chain Right, and we had riots all across the United States.

Speaker 2: 13:44

Yep Went on lockdown for a while, didn't we? Yeah, I was walking into the facility on a weekend day, I was the two to ten shift and people were piling out of it. What's going on? And off it went and the inmates said they took over the entire prison and the staff members had moved into the safe haven locations in the back of the housing units. When we actually had a lady who was working in our Unicor, the factory that made the electronic cables for the military. She was working that weekend with a few inmates and we weren't able to find, they weren't able to locate her. So we were all out. People are in their safe harbor areas. So we had to go back in and we had a.

Speaker 2: 14:23

We utilized small shotgun teams to go around the backs of the units. We extracted people from the, from the housing areas. Then we went to the unit core and we're able to get her and those inmates out. They they were protecting her. They were making sure that if anybody did come in they were going to be there to protect her. But we got them out and then, as that happened, they formulated the plan to go back in and take the facility back over, and then I was lucky enough to be drawn on the bus teams. You know how special that selection is to be on the buses. It's not just anybody. I was lucky, I don't know and we started transporting the inmates out of Phoenix to other locations and then grabbing their rioting inmates and moving them around. So it was, there was that riot, and of course you know there were more riots than I participated total in five different prison riots while I was in the view.

Speaker 1: 15:11

Well, that explains to me why you became such a good emergency preparedness officer later on. Let's go ahead and finish. You got promoted, you're a nine. You're going from an FCI, you go to Coleman. It's a complex.

Speaker 2: 15:24

Yeah, tell us about that. It's a complex of a medium and a low and a can't. Okay, it first started out in 1995. We promote there. My wife got her promotion to ISM manager and a systems manager and I promoted to night lieutenant at a low.

Speaker 2: 15:40

Phoenix was a pretty hot spot because there was only one penitentiary in the West Coast at the time, the Western Division, western Region. So we had a lot of classification people there that probably could have been penned but they were classified as mediums. And I get there and I remembered when we first started getting inmates because we activated, I don't know, we only had a couple hundred or so, and two they called and said hey, lieutenant, we have two inmates and they're not getting along up here. It looks like they're going to fight. Well, I was the nine and I had an 11 Lieutenant who probably had 25 or plus years at the time.

Speaker 2: 16:12

And so you know, I'm setting up the room, I'm hiding the staplers, I'm hiding the staplers, I'm hiding the two hole punch, I'm moving the trash cans in case these guys come in and something breaks out, because I'd seen that happen before, sure. And then the other way, tennis looked at me. He goes what are you doing. I said, hey, in case something happens, I'm getting ready, he goes, just sit down, watch this. And he brought him in and he talked to them and, before you know it, they both cried, they shook hands, they hug, and that's when I had to learn there's different ways to manage and handle inmate situations and stuff like that, and so, being at that low after Phoenix, I had to learn how to manage and be the person that the staff members could call and I would have the reasonable mind to manage the difficult situation.

Speaker 1: 16:58

Yeah, that's funny, I think we all go through that. When the difficult situation? Yeah, that's funny, I think we all go through that. When we make supervision yeah, so how long were you at Coleman?

Speaker 2: 17:06

There are five years, I think after 18 months or four or five years, after 18 months or so, I promoted to 11 Lieutenant shift supervisor. And the neat thing about Coleman too it was the activation is nobody wanted to have anything to do with the disturbance control team and I was a nine lieutenant. And there's a medium which was like that time the flagship, and then you had the low and then you had the camp right and I said I'll do it and they're going. Oh, you're just a nine lieutenant. I said yeah, but I'm a dct instructor. And then there was a gentleman by the name of Robert Stock.

Speaker 2: 17:43

I don't know if you ever ran into Robert Stock in your career? He stepped up and said hey, I'm a DCT instructor and I'll do it with him. And so we got together and he said hey, look, I want nothing to do with the training side of that, but I know how to order equipment and I know how to set up, you know inventories and I know how to set up training records. He goes I'll do all of that, you do the training and we'll be a team. And boy, did we hit it off. Cool, you know, because now you have.

Speaker 2: 18:09

You know, at the time I think the policy requirement was for FCIs had to have two 15 person teams. So we have two FCIs, now we have to have four. So we started out very big recruitment and then we started sizing up teams and picking our leadership and doing this training stuff. And I think the same mindset you got, the better you make the training, the better the people will feel and the more they'll stay and put into themselves, they'll invest in themselves, which is investing in the team. We really got it going on out there as far as getting that up and off.

Speaker 1: 18:42

Well, I was out there. What was it four years ago? Five years ago taught some pepper ball and they still have a great DCT team very engaged. We had a great time out there. So you set the stage.

Speaker 2: 18:57

Can I kind of go into the kind of way. I think there's a reason for that. So during that time frame I got sent to Artesia, new Mexico, which was one of our federal law enforcement training grounds. I got sent out there for a class on OC and less lethal impact munitions. It's a two-week course. So when we arrived, we were wondering what's going to take two weeks to learn this stuff. Well, the instructor, who's now a lifelong friend of mine, he comes into the class and he starts it in a way I've never seen before. And we're going through the training and what he did was he taught it to you how to utilize these things tactically. And he started with your can of OC is empty. You've sprayed it, all the effects are not taking place. So what do you do when you have an empty can in your hand? And we're like so we started out with ground fighting, right, and we're like how is this?

Speaker 2: 19:47

So he took it from the ground to standing up to spraying five feet, 10 feet, whatever your dispensers distances were, and then on the excuse me, and then on the impact munitions, he taught it to us as far as how do you tactically deploy them, and one of the things he focused on was too many times people want a munition that will go with their tactics. What you need to do is develop tactics based upon your munitions, and it was all revolutionary because at that time, oc was not present in the Bureau of Prisons and they were looking at trying to bring it more and more online. And this is going to play out later on in my career. So I make friends with this guy.

Speaker 2: 20:22

It turns out I'm in Florida, he's in Florida and he says I tell you what I'll do. His name is Dave Young and he says I tell you what I'll do, pete. He goes I always need someone who I can beat up on when I do my lot, and then, when I need to use somebody for a demonstration, I'll pull you in, but you're going to learn the things that you're asking me to teach you, but you won't have to be going through the classes. I couldn't afford the classes, so that's what I did. He'd say, hey, pete, I got this class and so if I could take the time off I'd run out there I sleep. You know, he let me go sleep in his room in the hotel, either on the couch, the floor, whatever Right. And I was his assistant instructor and I learned all these things about less lethals that weren't really widely known at the time. Now everybody knows them, you know, that's a neat thing.

Speaker 2: 21:09

Now everybody knows them Sure, and so that kind of gave me an edge. Well, do you remember when the Bureau came out with an armed DCT in the Correctional Services Manual? I'm taking all this stuff that I'm learning and nobody was really paying attention to us out there training, but I had actually six teams. I'm out there practicing this. I started developing a shotgun squad, so to speak. We utilized A-70, Remington shotguns, L-8s and shields. I'm using these techniques that I was taught and I'm trying to apply Bureau of Prisons policies. And we had a change in complex wardens. And if I'm going into way too much detail, just let me know, absolutely, I'm fascinated.

Speaker 2: 21:49

We had a change in complex wardens and Tony Stepp I don't know if he worked for Tony.

Speaker 1: 21:54

I remember the name, yeah.

Speaker 2: 21:56

Icon from the 70s, 80s, 90s, early 2000s. He happened to become the complex warden. Well, complex warden is in charge of the budget, the money, and I just knew that if I could get the right kind of equipment I could keep moving forward with my little idea out here. So I go to him and he calls me over and he says you know, what do you need? Why are we buying this and why are we buying this and why are we buying that? And I said, well, sir, I got this idea and I started explaining it to him and he sits back a little bit. He goes do you know who I am? And I'm like yes, sir, we did some work on the witsack unit when I was at phoenix.

Speaker 2: 22:28

Also, I went to the los angeles city riots and he was in charge of those. And so, okay, I was exposed to him at the los angeles city riots with rodney king and he goes. Well, I'm actually on an advisory committee or something like that, a work group, because the RMDCT is not popular because it's putting lethal rounds into a riot control team where we already have a lethal team, and I went. Well, I'm learning all this stuff about these impact munitions and he goes. Well, next time you have a training, let me see what you're up to.

Speaker 2: 23:04

So he came out to a training and he saw what we were doing and I at that time I had pretty much a mastery knowledge of of the munitions and the deployments and the tactics to utilize them for the maximum effects and things. So I was able to make it, you know, look really, really good in front of him and he, uh, he told me he said, okay, do you have this written yet? I went, nah, it's kind of like all up in here. He said, okay, he guided me. This is important because later on, with the wrap at the top, he guided me on what you have to do is you have to take the policies of your agency and take those and inject what you're trying to do into them.

Speaker 2: 23:33

We worked on that for a couple of years. We made short video clips and things I would write like I would believe would be a manual, and then he would come along and say, hey, change this, change that. I want to pull this out. I want to add that I don't like that tactic, I like this tactic, I don't like these commands, I like those commands. And so we worked really closely. However, as fate would have it, he was selected to be the warden at usp marion.

Speaker 1: 23:59

Okay, okay, and that's what starts my trajectory to go over there yeah, that was quite a jump from uh fci coleman to uh usp marion. What year is this?

Speaker 2: 24:12

that was uh 2000 okay yeah, that's uh, that's uh.

Speaker 1: 24:17

The ADX hadn't been built yet in 2000,. Right?

Speaker 2: 24:22

I think it might've been built, but we were still. We had our batch of the of that top tier yeah.

Speaker 1: 24:30

Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2: 24:32

And it was a jump, cause I'm coming from. I could just told you where they hug it out and shake it, take hands and swear they'll never talk, mean to each other again. You know, Marion, Marion is an institution where they've had they had three tragic murders of staff members and two staff members were murdered in the same day and the staff members who were there if they weren't there in 1983, when that happened, they knew they were carrying the baton for those staff members. They knew they were carrying the baton for those staff members.

Speaker 2: 24:59

And so when you got there, they didn't disrespect you, but you had to earn the respect and show that you were there for the right reasons. And only until you prove that would they embrace you with caution, because you came in as a leader and they knew that you had to believe that you were there to safeguard not only them but the BOP, because that's where the top tier of bad guys were at. Unlike the ADX, it still had the open bar concept. It still had the old locks where you had to select the doors and pull the levers. It wasn't push button and stuff like that. You didn't have sally ports at every cell to protect you from when they came out of the cell to a cuff port. It was you're right there with them. So if they didn't like you, things came flying your way.

Speaker 2: 25:46

And that was brought to me one of my first nights there. They called me down to segregation and said they had a guy who was a little upset. Can you come talk to him? I get there and I'm like what's going on? I said so he's down that way and I had like cell 17 of 18. So I walked past all these open bars to get down to the cell and there was a guy and he was. I had seen rage before, but not like this. And when he threw his radio at me and it was a good size, it was a wood box radio and that thing disintegrated and just came flying by me and he let me know that he was going to kill me. There was no doubt whatsoever in my mind. He could make that happen right there. Yeah, no-transcript.

Speaker 1: 26:26

Yeah, it's a. I talked in a class last week about this. It was some newer officers. It's one thing to get on a fight in the square Like you talked about when you were young, you know that was what I thought violence was until I walked into Missouri state, Penn or Leavenworth. And when somebody comes at you and has the desire to kill you, hurt you, maim you, whatever, that's a whole different level of violence and it's hard to process. The first time you don't. I don't think most humans are ready for that, unless you're raised up in certain environments, and I wasn't.

Speaker 2: 26:57

Yeah, you know, and I'm sure for you is the same as we move up in our career, when it when it's happening around you and you're an officer and my this is just my opinion there's other people who handle things totally differently or it's a different experience for them.

Speaker 2: 27:10

When you're handling it as an officer, it's like you're in the now and you're doing this and you're doing that. And I think when I became the supervisor at Marion, the responsibility of being the leader really started hitting, because it was your responsibility to make sure everybody went home safe. So your words mean more, your actions mean more, how you handle things mean more. You have to identify when maybe things are becoming more emotional driven than not and you have to make a lot of choices that maybe at the moment might not seem popular, but you're there to protect everybody. So your head has to stay calm. So, like you're talking about, you know, like the discombobulation of your brain when these events are taking place. Now you've got to. You have to focus on getting clear minded in those situations, because it's your responsibility to manage that.

Speaker 1: 27:58

And it's not easy. It's just not easy. It was easy for me to run in as the first person in a cell on cell use force teams that was. That took nothing and, matter of fact, we used to kind of fight each other to get that number one slot. But when you have to step back and stand outside the door and send five people in, it's a whole different world. It's no longer about whether or not I'll get hurt, it's about whether or not they'll get hurt. Have I done what I'm supposed to? Have I prepared? Have I made the phone calls? All that stuff goes through my mind and it's much tougher to lead people than it is to be the first person in line.

Speaker 2: 28:31

Yeah, and it takes a while to get used to that because, like you, I'm sure you're standing there, you're looking and you're actually doing a physical or, excuse me, an equipment check, checking them. You're this, you're that, you're checking documentation, like you said, you're making sure medical has been involved. You're dotting all those I's across, all those T's.

Speaker 1: 28:51

At the end, of safety falls on you. Yeah, yeah, absolutely so. You're at Marion, you're getting adjusted there, but are your DCT, your DCT, lead?

Speaker 2: 28:55

there. Okay, yeah. And so what happens is warden step goes there and then me and my wife show up. She promoted to a 13 ISM manager. I lateraled over as just supervisor at GS 11 Lieutenant and yeah, he was kind of like, hey, look, the reason why I need you here, one you're going to get, you're finally going to get the credibility you need to say to prove all these things that you say you can do Right.

Speaker 2: 29:18

And he said uh, but also at that facility the staff member still carried the 36, uh, excuse me, the 30 inch riot baton as standard gear, daily equipment, and he said I want to start mixing in OC. Oc is becoming more popular to use. I want to begin using OC and I want to begin using those specialty impact munitions. So those tactics and things that you're talking about on a squad level, I need you to develop that for an immediate response type, immediate response in the prison, and so you know how to get to know the infrastructure, how things work. Figure out the distances so that you know how to get to know the infrastructure, how things work. Figure out the distances so that you know what munitions would be effective. Or how do you have to change the way you deploy the munition based upon distances? I actually know.

Speaker 2: 29:59

So I spent some time studying all that, but it was a pretty active place and uh, he kind of came to me and said, hey, we need to get this going faster. So I want you to begin training your fellowship supervisors in how to deploy these things. And, uh, because you know, we actually you know, at that time we still had the 37 millimeter single launcher that had the beam batter brown. We had the multi launchers, but they really weren't used that often because the single shot seemed to be the way to go. And so we replaced the single shot beam bag and we put in the l8 and we began putting in the new, the newer versions of the specialty impact munitions. And, um, you know the way it went.

Speaker 1: 30:37

Right, I don't. And for the people who may be listening that don't understand how things work, that's not a first line, that is way down the line when you have an incident. We've already talked to this person. We've given this inmate multiple chances. We've had possibly other staff come in, do confrontation avoidance. We've done everything they can do. But, like we talked about a while ago as that leader of that team, now you're thinking staff safety and the things that you're talking about are that tactical de-escalation, verbal de-escalation didn't work, so now I'm going to use the opportunity of having less lethal to tactically de-escalate, get them to come up there and cuff up without me having to open a door and everybody get involved in the violence of person on person. I could possibly get them to back up, and especially at a place like Marion, that had to have been just. I mean, it was kind of new then, wasn't it? It was very new.

Speaker 2: 31:33

Yeah, and so we became one. We had Warden Stepp, eventually Warden Randy Davis and others, and so they really they required us. But we wanted to be a part of that group. That made it better, because if we felt if we could do that at Marion, then the rest of the agency might be able to take these tactics, develop it specific to their facilities and then they would be safer.

Speaker 2: 31:55

You know, just like you said, it was one of those things where you know it wasn't what you wanted to do and you only did it when you absolutely had to. But there were many, many steps that took place, you know, before, like you said, the de-escalation, the confrontation avoidance, the trying to get things to calm down. Hopefully their adrenaline is going to dump and they're not going to be as excited by the time that you get there. There's all those tactical things that you do off the side to deescalate that situation and then when you show up with it, you're still trying to say, please, don't do this, please, I don't want to do this, you don't want to do this, let's not to restore order, gain physical control of someone who's either harming themselves or harming others. You know, unfortunately you do have to deploy those, and the thing to do is deploy it safely and humanely.

Speaker 1: 32:36

Right, and one of my biggest struggles and I'm sure you can talk to this also was I kept running across people who would rather send five guys in a cell and get them hurt because they didn't understand the policy for less lethal. They didn't understand how we used it, they hadn't studied it to understand. Like you were talking about distances and impacts and you know we need to know the foot pounds of energy that we're expending at what distances. These are things that make the use of those safe. But I ran across in my career, supervisor after supervisor and I'm talking more administrative who were scared of using those less lethal. So that's when I started.

Speaker 1: 33:13

Running into you is why you were at Marion and I'd see your stuff come through. I saw the videos that you put out with shotgun squads and I was fascinated. I appreciate it, yeah, that we were doing that stuff, but it wasn't where I was at, you know, the Federal Medical Center for in Springfield. They were like, oh no, well, I can't use that on a. I can't use that on a guy that's got one leg. Well, show me where I can't if he's at a certain level of violence. And I'm protecting staff, you know. But it's about policy, it's about knowing your, your, your, your munitions.

Speaker 2: 33:44

Right, absolutely, and that's what it came down to. And also you know what carried me. And that's what it came down to. And also you know what carried me I learned at Marion and it carried me forward later on. For my mindset and how I manage these things was if you did it properly following policy and you didn't try to do any victory laps in front of inmates and stuff like that, they gained respect for you and many times that deescalated the situation because you would just walk up and say you know where we're going, I don't want to go there, but you're taking us there. I just assume you take us somewhere else. I just assume you know. And after a while they think about it, the adrenaline starts to calm down. It resolved many situations because of the proper use before. Many situations were resolved later on and so I'm very proud of that.

Speaker 2: 34:31

And, like all that stuff that I took there, I learned from dave young and and so I took that shotgun squad, enhanced this dct. I took that and just made it a little team and uh, so then we started gaining our traction as far as hey, maybe this enhanced dct that's the name they wanted to give it I had something else. I had alert and I I forget the acronyms now Advanced Less Lethal Emergency Response Team or something like that, but they wanted to be called that. That gave us the ability to move forward to where it was actually presented to the director and then to Glencoe and then a gentleman by the name of Doug Wambacher I'm not sure if you ever worked with Ron Doug. Didn't work with him, but I know the name. Yeah, he got involved because he was in emergency preparedness I think at the time, and he sort of paved the way for us to finish it off and get the enhanced DCT approved and a part of the Correctional Services.

Speaker 1: 35:24

Management. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Dct. It's interesting because every excuse me just a second, my computer just went. Okay, I'll cut that part out DCT has always interested me because, yes, there's some very specific times that we might use a special operations team, but DCT is is needed at every institution almost.

Speaker 1: 35:51

Whether you're using it for a five-man use of force, whether you're using it for a large disturbance, it doesn't have to be a riot large disturbance. Those tactics work there and in the Bureau of Prisons they do believe in it because everybody takes four hours of disturbance control training each year. So let me ask you a little bit about that. Being a DCT instructor Cause I got a lot of pushback when I went to uh, and I don't mind naming them Springfield. Um, when I went from Leavenworth to Springfield and started teaching disturbance control, it was like Whoa, we're supposed to go to lunch early, why are we dressing out and doing all this stuff? And when you come from an institution that's at a higher security level, you understand why everybody needs to know a little bit of this. But sometimes at the lower security levels there's some pushback. But how important is that? Four hours for everybody to know on disturbance control.

Speaker 2: 36:41

I think in that aspect the Bureau's got it right, Because what the Bureau does is they take, like I said, if the FCI is supposed to have two 15-person teams and so on, it takes that cadre of 30, 37, 38, whatever the number is going to be for those two teams, and it gives them a team that trains on a regular basis and has standards of training they have to meet. So my assessment is you're creating small groups of subject matter experts. Then they take that time in an annual refresher training to build those people to have a larger team Going back to Phoenix. Okay, it wasn't just the SORT team and just the DCT team that went in to reclaim FCI Phoenix.

Speaker 2: 37:23

It was every employee who showed up, and their basic understanding was what they had learned in that four hours. Then you tag them onto a person like you or like me who's got additional training. One, they feel better because they know that we, in their oppression, we know what we're doing. And two, they feel like they can go along with us because we're going to take care of them. And so that's why we reentered Phoenix with the way that we did. That's how we reclaimed it. We didn't reclaim it with just those two specialized groups way that we did. That's how we reclaimed it. We didn't reclaim it with just those two specialized groups, we reclaimed it with the entire facility. And that's because the Bureau of Prisons ensured that every year you had four hours of it. And if it was an effective four hours of training, then you had people that were willing to attach onto a team and go into those troubled areas if necessary.

Speaker 1: 38:03

Yeah, absolutely so you spend your time at Marion. What's your next step? So you spend your time at Marion.

Speaker 2: 38:11

What's your next step? Well, life changed in Marion. Okay. My wife was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis about 2003, and they really worked with us to try to get an understanding of where our life was headed. So in 2004, she had to make the decision and we made the decision as a family for her to retire medically so she could spend what appeared to be her last year's walking with our kids and taking them to school and spending that time with them.

Speaker 2: 38:38

I moved into a position that was newer at the Bureau, then called Emergency Preparedness Officer. I did all that kind of emergency preparedness stuff for Marion as well as Greenville. I spent three years doing that. They told me it was only for long enough for us to get our life together. And Randy Davis showed up as the warden and he pulled me in and he said and he was the one who really was pushing, trying to help support me and Karen as best that we could he pulled me in and he just said, hey, time to go. He said this wasn't a permanent thing and you're doing a great job, but you need to figure something else out. And so I was applying for different positions and I made captain the charge of the security department at USP Allenwood.

Speaker 1: 39:18

Okay, what's going on at Allenwood at that moment?

Speaker 2: 39:23

Well, you know, lewisburg is just south of that place, so it's a penitentiary town, and so when I got there two facilities, you know, they've worked very well together, uh, kind of a hand-in-hand type thing. And so lewisburg, and so that whole environment was there. The penitentiary environment, wood, was a place that was really not much on the radar but they ran it so well. And I was fortunate that when I got there, the wardens that I had, especially as a captain, you know, his name was Ricardo Martinez. He would walk me around the facility every Thursday and he would just it was just me and him Nice, and he'd say hey, captain, tell me, what do you see? And I'm like I see a couple of guys playing basketball. He goes no, no, what you see is, and he would explain to me, or he would explain to me his concepts on on lockdowns, on inmate discipline. So I really had this was a formative time for me because I really had this opportunity to spend it with somebody who just knew how to read the tea leaf and he uh took me down that trail.

Speaker 2: 40:23

It was a complex. So, you know, you're having your facility meetings, but your facility also has to be able to work with the other two facilities, a medium and a low, and then you also have your fellow facility just a few miles south of Lewisburg. And so you know, there was a lot of good communication, a lot of coordination and just fantastic staff. You know, fantastic staff. I met some of the people I still stay in touch with today. I met, you know, at Allenwood and I just they were such professionals and I learned a lot of great things. But you know, it was a troubled facility. As far as you know, it's a penitentiary and so sometimes penitentiary things happen and you know extreme types of violence and things like that. But you know, that's where that management and learning, management of the facility came so important to me.

Speaker 1: 41:07

It's interesting that you mentioned that about the warden warden to me. Yeah, it's interesting that you mentioned that about the warden. In my opinion, excuse me, that warden and captain relationship is probably the most important to any institution. If those two have to be able to work together because you got the chief of security and you got the overall administrator, which is the warden, and for you to have that kind of relationship and be able to talk that openly, that's pretty cool. That's pretty cool.

Speaker 2: 41:31

Yeah, I had some really good assistant wardens. Frank laura was one of my assistant wardens and you know he he spent a lot of time talking to me too. He was a fellow marine, so we kind of, you know, cut the cut the ice with that, uh, and he was a great. He had a lot of really great information, great ways of looking at things. He kind of taught me to grow up a little bit. I didn't have, and I regret this and I regret my first year as a captain at the facility because I was never a 12 captain. I went from 12 EPO to 13.

Speaker 1: 42:05

And that 12 step's important because you learn office management with the side issues of inmate management, which is some of the hardest things with going from a custody supervisor up to captain. You don't realize you're getting into all this administrative stuff, or I didn't.

Speaker 2: 42:21

Nobody warned me but that 12 is important because you learn it and then when you become 13, you're more managing inmate population behaviors and your side gig is the because you have a clerk and things. So I jumped into it that first year without having that first year background I didn't do the facility as well as I should have. There were some errors that came up later on with my administrative duties and I regret that, learned a lot but luckily it's a strong team. I had great lieutenants, I had a great clerk I mean just had great people around me, good leadership. So we climbed out of that and my last two years there were all about learning. You know the high level management of a facility at a complex level also.

Speaker 1: 43:03

Yeah, Allen Wood for three years. Yep, three years, and then you're going to finish up at Florence.

Speaker 2: 43:10

Yep, didn't realize I had put in for assistant warden and I got a call saying, hey, congratulations, you're an AW at USP Florence. I'm like, nope, not me. I have no ideas of going back west. I was kind of like in the east coast, that area, and they said, well, we'll see you. And I ended up.

Speaker 2: 43:26

So I went to Florence a great assignment, went to the penitentiary, had an opportunity to, you know, learn at that level. It's the sort of at that time kind of the flagship complex of the Bureau. At that time you had the ADX, you had the penitentiary, you had the medium and a camp. So the wardens and people that were there were, you know, they were at the peak of their performance. They were at the peak of their knowledge levels. So you know I'm able to be around them.

Speaker 2: 43:52

I'm at one amongst six AWs and the other five were awesome, good at their jobs. They were either been there for a while and were good at an AW or liked me learning and just, you know, eyes wide open. It was a great experience for me to be at Florence. I was at the Penn for about a year and then they asked me if I would go over to the medium. They had some issues going on with some different STG groups, some transitions were going on with the executive staff that were there hopped on over there and you know that's really the assignment that gave me required me to focus on programming.

Speaker 1: 44:29

So how was that shift?

Speaker 2: 44:30

Well, a long time ago, when I was a captain, I made some decisions and Mr Martinez this is the word Martinez decided to walk me around and explain to me why I made a bad decision. And can I? Can I say it? Sure, so we're walking one day and he says uh. He says hey, let me ask you what's going on with education. I'm like I don't know. He goes. Well, ask you what's going on with education, I'm like I don't know. He goes. Well, you should know, because they've been putting in requests for you to change some move times and things. And you said no, my answer. And he started. He had a laugh. He had a certain laugh and when he had that laugh I was like this is gonna be where I learned. He laughed and he said can I tell you something, captain? I said sure he goes. You are one spoke on my wheel. Sometimes, because you're security, you're the strongest and biggest spoke on my wheel, but there are other times when you're not and I need you to recognize when you're not. Right now, education is the biggest spoke on my wheel and you need to figure out how you can strengthen that spoke. I got another example, if you don't mind. No, absolutely. I want to hear from you.

Speaker 2: 45:34

This is that first year. This is that first year I'm talking about. First year. Captain. I go in and I wasn't getting things fixed in the facility at the pace that I wanted them to be fixed, so I got some advice. Then what you do as the captain is you pull your tool room officer Because you know in the Bureau, in order to go to lunch and stuff, they have to return their tools, account for the tools and then they clear them for lunch. Then they come back, they work and they clear them to leave for the day for the count. Well, if the tool room officer wasn't available, I guess they really didn't get to clear things. It was a a thing that I was a management tool that I was told I should use and I implemented that tool and the sally port, the back sally port, the rear gate went down and we were having to crank it with the handles and uh, so into the maintenance guy and he's a good man, and I said, hey, uh, kind of need this fixed. He said, okay, I'll get right on that. One day goes by, two days go by, I'm out there cranking the handle, everybody and I went back to see him. I'm like, hey, I really need to get that fixed. He's like, yep, yep, we're going to get on that.

Speaker 2: 46:37

Thursday comes around. I'm having lunch with Ward Martinez. He says, hey, let's go for a walk. I having to go out to the Sally port and crank on that handle. I go yeah, you know, I really wish maintenance would go out there or facilities would go out there and fix it. He goes maybe if they had a tool room officer they'd be able to take care of things for you. And that's another one he gave me those the information of remember, captain, you don't have security unless he gives it to you. So you need to go, give him what he needs so he can give you security. I went over, realized I had made a humongous mistake. I went over and talked with the maintenance guy that fixed the gate right there on the spot, you know, and lesson learned we learned a lot of the same lessons.

Speaker 1: 47:23

I did the same thing. You come up through custody, your world is security, you don't think about anybody else. I learned a little bit when I went to Springfield, because it's such a medical facility, so you had to learn how to work with psychology and you had to learn how to work with medical, but I think it was AW Diane Smith. When I left Springfield she said remember, you're everybody's captain, and I had never thought about that before. You're a lieutenant, you just have to worry about custody. Yeah, when you're a captain, everybody looks to you at some point and yeah, it's a juggle.

Speaker 2: 47:58

You have to learn how to juggle a little. You don't need to become the nemesis, yeah.

Speaker 1: 48:02

Yeah, and I did the same thing.

Speaker 2: 48:04

Yeah, and that's what I mean by that. First year was a proving ground of me growing up and realizing that had I been a 12, I probably would have got that earlier and got over it faster. But that's the way the cars were dealt when I played them and I was lucky I learned.

Speaker 1: 48:17

Yeah, the other thing I had to learn my first year, dennis Treadway was my 13. I came in Thompson as a deputy and I didn't believe in dress down days. I didn't believe in all that stuff that we do. You know, as a Lieutenant, as an officer, I'm there to work, I'm there to get that job done, keep everybody safe. And so I didn't show up for all these little, you know, different little parties or whatever they had. Dennis was the one that came by and talked to me and he said you know you're excluding yourself from everybody. He said they need you there, you need to be a part of this. And it was something else I had to learn because it just wasn't comfortable for me.

Speaker 2: 48:53

I was so security minded but yeah, yeah, growing pains, you know, but they're so important because that engagement is what gives the staff confidence to approach you when they have a problem. Yeah, you know.

Speaker 1: 49:05

I had to learn it.

Speaker 2: 49:06

I had to learn that I had to be that person that they felt they could approach.

Speaker 1: 49:10

Yeah, learn it. I had to learn that. I had to be that person that they felt they could approach. Yeah, perfect. So I know you got the shotgun squads you were doing less lethal. So when you went to florence or was it marion, because I know you got big into the right the rapid rotation baton that was a new tool that came out yeah.

Speaker 2: 49:27

So through dave young, back in 95 when I met him in artesia. I was with him for years. He introduced me to a gentleman who had invented the rapid rotation baton. And the rapid rotation baton was interesting to me because of all the different ways that you can utilize it. And then when you actually study the science behind it, it's there to. It's not to say other batons are bad, it's to say it's trying to strengthen the things that are their weaknesses, okay. And so I became a master trainer for rapid rotation baton, rrb systems and, uh, same thing. I'd take time off, I'd go run off to a class teach stuff, learn how to teach stuff. I spent a lot of time with roy bedard, dave young and we they were, we're learning how to use this thing up and downstairs, in the water, in the water all kinds of stuff, yeah, interesting stuff.

Speaker 2: 50:14

So Randy Davis was warden at Marion. Mike Nally was in as the regional director and they called me and he said hey, where's that funny little stick you got? Not at all, it's in my desk. I worked outside the facility, it's in my desk. He goes go get that thing, I want to show it to Mr Nally. So I go in there and I start whipping this thing around and showing him how you know where to, how do you wear it? Why does it warn that way? What are the techniques that you utilize to communicate? Now you have it out, how you use it close, how you use it far away, mr, analogy just goes. I like that.

Speaker 2: 50:47

Let's do a pilot program. I didn't know what that was right. Well, I learned fast. So he hooked me up with the gentleman by the name of lewis eichenlaub and he was in technology, up in corporate office, and he he had had the rapid baton for a couple years. I forget where he got it, but it was sitting in his office and I and so while he connected me to lewis eichenlaub, who then he taught me how to run a pilot program.

Speaker 2: 51:10

Ok, so Dave Young, roy Bedard, they all came to Marion and they certified a group of people as instructors and then they taught us, they made sure that we taught basic user courses to get people trained in the baton, and then, after it was approved by the director, we began putting it on specific posts within the facility and that kind of grew as it on specific posts within the facility and then that kind of grew as it was a six month pilot program. As that pilot program went on, every week I had to send in data on what posts were used on or what posts wore it, what was it ever used? If it was used, what were the techniques? What was the circumstances? Was it close contact, was it distant? What was it? Escort techniques, control techniques? And so we did it for six months.

Speaker 2: 51:51

Then they had an exec meeting and they flew me to the exec meeting. It was funny because I land, get there, you know, put your baton on, come in here, did a demonstration for Mr Lappin and all the regional directors and everybody else that was at the exec meeting. Okay, go, I walk out, mr Nally walks out. Great job, get to your airplane, got on an airplane, flew out. Then they voted to go ahead and approve its use and expand its presence in the bureau and it went to USPs. It went to ADX, marion, usps and MDCs, mdcs and MCCs. Yep.

Speaker 1: 52:29

Because it was a shorter baton. That's why they put it in the detention centers right. Because it was shorter, it was for the outside patrol.

Speaker 2: 52:37

Okay. Okay, you know how they have the officer who walks around on the outside, or at least they did. I don't know if they still do and so it was for the outside patrol officer, so that they had a baton. Because they carried a baton, it was the PR-24. So what they did was they kept the PR-24 and the RRB, the facility, could make a decision on which one they were going to utilize. So they sent me around. It was kind of neat.

Speaker 2: 52:58

I was an emergency preparedness officer, slash lieutenant, and so they would call me and say hey, they want to know if you can go teach. I went to Springfield hey, we want to know if you can go teach a class on enhanced DCT and rapid baton at Springfield. Can you go here, can you go there? So I drove around like six, eight facilities and I developed instructors and so I would teach a class, a 24 hour training course for instructors. I worked with RRB systems to certify them with the company, and then they were able to teach the basic user course at their facilities. And then you know, I mean, it's not rocket science. But then you know, how do you put them on your inventories, how do you store them? That type of stuff. You know what shadows do they go on? And so I was involved in that and it was interesting because, you know, as time went on, I mean I got this thing going around like eight facilities.

Speaker 2: 53:52

In fact, when I was at Allynwood they asked me to go down and help Lewisburg when they turned it into a SMU special management unit because they had an extreme amount of violence. So I went down and they were between captains and so I went down there and I worked with an AW who was phenomenal. Chuck Mariana and Warden Bledsoe at the time told the two of us you got to get this facility in order, there's just too much violence. And so we came up with this plan and but luckily the staff staff did it. We were there to keep him in the guardrails. The staff did it, but they had me implement the rapid rotation baton there and that was the toughest crowd. Yeah, that was the toughest crowd.

Speaker 1: 54:32

Lewisburg is a tough crowd they're tough people.

Speaker 2: 54:37

Yeah, it's a tough place, but I won them over what it was. It was realistic. You didn't, I didn't flower anything up, it was here it is. This is what it's supposed to do. Let's see if it does it. So, yeah, so after that and I move I'm I believe I'm at Florence they send me to Glencoe.

Speaker 2: 54:53

A gentleman takes over up in corporate, up in the corporate office, I'm sorry, up in the central office, central office, keep calling it corporate, you know over emergency preparedness. He was a professional services administrator and I he said you know, hey, pete, what do you want to do? I hey, pete, what do you want to do? I said we need an RRB manual for the agency because we don't have one. And so he put together me, rick Harns, another gentleman, and we went out to Glencoe and we wrote this manual and it was really neat. It was such a learning experience on how the attorneys have to get involved to make sure that you're protecting. Your language is protective, maybe learning experience.

Speaker 2: 55:36

So what happened was is, after we write the manual, they bring Roy in, the inventor, rb systems owner and me, and we teach a group of Glencoe instructors to become instructors. So I don't even remember in the, in the Bureau, you have a code like you have a lead code, then you have an instructor code and so on. Well, the baton at that time didn't have any of those codes. Okay, okay, so we teach, we teach, we create these master trainers is what they call them in the company. We they're fighting that. We create these master trainers is what they call them in the company. That means they went through 40 hours of training. So we give them the 40 hours of training, whatever week.

Speaker 2: 56:15

Two weeks later they create these codes and they say, all right, this is the guy who's in charge of the rapid baton training for the agency and this, this and this. And I'm looking around like, okay, great, you know, boy, another thing has come to fruition. Oh, and, by the way, pete, you're no longer a certified instructor for the rapid baton. And I'm like what do you mean? They said, well, you don't have the code. I went, I taught them the class right, it was me and roy. And uh, they're like well, hey, you'll have to go through the classes sometime and receive an instructor code that's the government I wasn't allowed to teach it after that, isn't that something?

Speaker 2: 56:55

yeah, it was just funny because when I went to florence and I checked in, they said hey, one of the things you have to do, just in case you ever go to the adx, you have to take this class on this baton. Okay, so you know, I show up, I got my duty rig, I put it on baton, back there, everything, and I show up for the training. They're like, hey, where'd you that? Because they're thinking I must have taken it out of their gear. Sure, no, no, I got my own. Well, how do you have your own? I went, boy, I've had one for a long, long time, great.

Speaker 2: 57:23

And I was watching how the training on this is designed for communication also. So, like, if you see me, both my hands are present. You know, I don't think there's a problem If my hand's behind my back. That's telling you, that's looking at me. This might be a problem If my hand's down low, I'm telling you. I think the problem's really coming If I bring it out. The problem's here. The baton's a communication device. The drills demonstrate that. Anyhow, I was watching their drills, I'm like they were just going right to the hitting. Let's hit them. I went hey, you're not doing those drills right, because those drills are hey, aw, just go have a seat. All you got to do is just take the class. I'm like, no, what I'm trying to tell you? Those drills are actually designed for communication. You're going to lead to hitting somebody, but they're designed for communication, and it was pretty much that. Go sit in the corner, get your certification. Be on your way, sir. Wow, yeah, man.

Speaker 1: 58:20

So that's where you finished up, Florence.

Speaker 2: 58:22

Yeah, retired out of there and you know I was just planning on living my life. My wife's disease was advancing, you know, and so we moved to Arizona just to kind of pick our stuff up, cause it's where we met, as her family was my family. And I got a phone call asking me if I wouldn't mind going and helping a facility with one of the private companies, and then that launched me into an 11 year run with the private Excellent.

Speaker 1: 58:50

So I'm with the working private corrections. I think private corrections has such a the media doesn't do its service. You know they act like it's all about money. They act like it's all just greedy people and putting inmates in cages and leaving them there. I've been to many private facilities, including one of them that you were warden at at the time, always been impressed. I've always been impressed by the staff that are there. You know, the rumor is, or the talk is, that staff don't stay. I just I talked to a guy the other day, had 23 years in, you know, with the same company.

Speaker 1: 59:23

I saw a lot of the stuff you guys were doing and I'm going to ask about one of them, because I thought it was just so amazing and the inmates were so engaged was the way you take medical equipment out there in Montana. You take that medical equipment. It all gets taken apart, nut by bolt by screw. They clean it, they put it back together. It's going back into the community. I talked to the inmates while we were out there. They were so proud of what they were doing and I can't think of a better way because I get frustrated. I get frustrated in this country that we take inmates, we incarcerate them and they don't pay back society for anything, and that's not the way it should be. They should be working inside to help pay for just pay back society for what the cost is, what they've caused the victims, that kind of stuff. And those guys were so engaged. So tell me a little bit about that working out there and what that was like it was very important and I had an opportunity to embrace it.

Speaker 2: 1:00:25

They also built sheds for people who were. There's a program and the name is eluding me right now, but it's where they built houses for underprivileged people, yeah, and so what we did was we built the sheds that they used to store their tools and their equipment while they're building those houses, and then those sheds would then stay at that house, so the homeowner had a shed to put their tools and things into nice and habitat for humanity. Yeah, so they built sheds for habitat for humanity out there, and it was like you, everything you said it was them giving back to the community because many of them they committed a crime and they were doing their time. You know they were. They committed a crime, but they weren't bad human beings. They committed crime when they were removed from society, the way the court decided, and they had a sense of wanting to give back. They wanted to feel value and worth, and that was one of the ways of doing that, as well as also dealing with the different medical equipment and stuff like that, because they're giving something back because of all the reasons that you stated.

Speaker 2: 1:01:23

You know they wanted to be a part of that community still and it also gave them, you know, established for those maybe work, ethic and pride and all the things that you want to build before you have them go back out in society.

Speaker 2: 1:01:34

So ethic and pride and all the things that you want to build before you have them go back out in society so that was a really great experience for me. Unfortunately, out there and we were climbing out of it as you came out to walk around with me COVID really put a hit on a lot of that stuff and because of that, some of the companies that we used to deal with Habitat for Humanity had to find vendors and things that were closer to the distribution point rather than come all the way up to us 34 miles south of the Canadian border to transport it a few hundred miles to get there. So we weren't able to reclaim some of those. But that gave us the energy especially the staff members' energy to reach out and see what else we could get going again, because they didn't want to feel like they were part of the society. They still wanted to feel as though they were contributing to the community.

Speaker 1: 1:02:12

I think our prison systems all of them understood better 20, 30, 40 years ago. Like you mentioned, work, ethic and pride If you can give a human being work, ethic and pride, they can go accomplish anything on their own. They sure can, and it's so important.

Speaker 2: 1:02:29

And that's where I really enjoyed working with the private industry. Well, one, you had a chance to work for different agencies because whoever was contracting you, you generally followed their inmate management policies and their programming policies Right, your human resources and your business management, the training and stuff like that, although you might be teaching their training whereas generally the company stuff. So I had a chance to learn from four different agencies how they did things. It was, it was, it got the same result at the end, but the way you went about it was a little bit different and it was intriguing. You know to do that and I also feel like there were other agencies that had a mandatory retirement, like the federal prisons did that you had to be out by 57. And, um, people were just hitting their peak. I mean, you know, think about it In the Bureau of Prisons, if you met someone who was a three-time warden, they were a season, they had steam things.

Speaker 2: 1:03:22

My first warden in the privates. I was assistant warden. 10-time warden in the state of Texas, right. My second warden 14-time warden in the state of Georgia. There's depth, yeah, yeah. And so you're learning such a higher level of corrections, if you ask me? Sure, because you're taking people who are still contributing to the profession of corrections. That's what I really love about your podcast and I'm so intrigued by what you're doing because you're taking people and you're getting the information out there that corrections isn't just a prison with a with a fence or a wall. It's a community of experts and professionals and you bring your podcast is bringing out so much attention to those. I commend you for what you did and that's kind of what's, you know, got me doing some of the things that I'm doing I appreciate that.

Speaker 1: 1:04:10

let's. Let's talk about yours. I know that. Corrections Unlimited. Tell me about that. Corrections Unfiltered yeah, unfiltered, I'm sorry, yeah it's okay.

Speaker 2: 1:04:19

Well, you know one thing I learned in the private industry if we can jump back to that real quick, and you said that you know the media doesn't really give it the proper attention or the proper respect. I remember my first time when I was working at a facility, I got yelled at and shouted down corrections for profit stuff like that. Well, they're not. I mean, yes, it's a business All businesses, unless it's a nonprofit, is for profit. But they turn their money back into the facility, into staff wages, into growth. If you figure the sites that these companies have their prisons, like where I was at when you came to visit, that's the largest employer in the area. It can employ 178 people. There's 178 lives out there that can provide for their families, put their kids through college and contribute to society. What they say the dollar spent in the community is really spent seven times. So do you want these people who are making you know, 60, 70, $80,000 a year to spend that in your community times seven?

Speaker 2: 1:05:23

What a great way to have it.

Speaker 2: 1:05:25

They actually turn the money back into expanding the company, staff resources or whatever. And the other thing about it is the collective that you get of the of the professionals. If so, I like. If you go back to the COVID timeframe, um, it hit us all right and it came on fast. Well, I'm on a telephone call as COVID that February, march, april, covid is really starting to come in in 2020.

Speaker 2: 1:05:50

I'm on a phone call with 60 professionals from a variety of different agencies and they're all talking about the way they quarantined for the mumps, quarantined for chickenpox. They had to manage the population this way. They had to separate the groups that could possibly be the most effective. We were able to develop a plan because we had the resource of all of these people with all of these years of experience, and it really helped us out. It really helped us out and then, as our facility started you know, being exposed and having having the COVID inside, we were able, as a team, to manage it so well because and I'm not saying anything bad about any agency, but we did we had more of a think tank Cause, if I'm talking to Mike Cantrell, I got to deal with Mike Cantrell and his experiences and they could be totally different from mine because he came from a different agency and it was.

Speaker 2: 1:06:41

It was wonderful. So it really bothers me when people don't give the private industry the credit that they deserve, because they're a melting pot of great correctional minds and they are. They are product driven. I was going through four to seven audits a year. Yeah, absolutely yeah.

Speaker 1: 1:06:59

We were on top of our game and you know they talk about for profit. But is it really truly for profit or is it fiscally responsibility? Or fiscal responsibility, Because I see more of that. I don't have anything bad to say about the Bureau, but when you give somebody this giant check and say this is what you get to spend, they don't necessarily spend it fiscally responsible. We spend it on whatever we think. Right now, the private industry takes more time to figure out where they're going to spend a dollar.

Speaker 2: 1:07:34

I have a great example on that. I was assistant warden at my first facility. The maintenance staff came up and they said hey, part of the fence is down. The last two times it was down is this one electronic part. We'll just order in another one and get it. We need you to sign off on the procurement and we'll get it in here. I said, okay, no problem.

Speaker 2: 1:07:54

It's a $2,500 piece of equipment. They get it in, they plug it in. It doesn't fix it. So I get a phone call from a managing director, like a regional director, wonderful man, great man and he says, hey, pete. He says, hey, I understand that you signed off on that $2,500 part. Yes, sir, he goes. Let me just give you a little advice. When something like that happens, if you contact the company, they'll send a technician out who will diagnose the problem. That's $250. I would rather you spend that $250 to tell me I don't have to spend the $2,500, or to narrow down the problem. So I know what I'm spending. I'm spending wisely, that's all I'm asking you to do.

Speaker 2: 1:08:31

That's their mindset. Like you said, they don't mind you spending the money.

Speaker 1: 1:08:35

Spend it wisely, spend it wisely, sure, and I think our tax money ought to be spent more wisely. But that's a whole nother, that's a whole, nother show.

Speaker 2: 1:08:43

Yes sir, yes sir.

Speaker 1: 1:08:58

So, if you think back on your career and you're going to talk to a new officer, what is your number one leadership advice?

Speaker 2: 1:09:02

that you would give a new person coming into this career, integrity, integrity I think everything builds off of that.

Speaker 2: 1:09:06

I say because it's okay to make a mistake if it's an honest mistake. It's not okay to make a mistake if you intentionally did something Right, right, and so I think if you intentionally did something right, right, and so I think if you do that, I mean there's a lot of people who say, oh, they should go this route or that. But really, if you establish yourself as an honest person who was willing to admit when they made a mistake because your intentions were good but things just didn't work out like you had planned or thought, there's no problem with that. It's it's and build from there. And and, if you don't mind, if I can do another one, it would be adaptability, because you're going into an environment you know.

Speaker 2: 1:09:42

Someone asked me the other day like so what's so different about corrections? Why does it take seven weeks to teach someone to be a correctional officer? I said, hey, do you use a screwdriver? Yeah, okay, where's it at? Well, it's over in the. Okay, well, ours are on a board and there's a hook that holds or things that hold it there, and there's a shadow.

Speaker 2: 1:09:59

And you start explaining the process just to get to the screwdriver just to go use it. But then the supervision it takes when the screwdriver's out and one screwdriver might be considered this or another screwdriver might be considered that, and they start looking at you and they go and you say, yeah, we have a lot to train people in, because even the set of keys that's in your pocket, we have a way that we manage those keys to make sure the keys are always in the right place and use the right way. So adaptability you have to be willing to understand you're entering into an environment that's unknown to you, just adapt. Too many times I think in the, my most recent years, people were joining asking us to adapt to them and it it's like I'm sorry, I can't let you put the cuffs in the desk drawer, the keys in the desk drawer. You know you'll turn to you. Forgot the tools on your belt. You'll bring it back tomorrow, right, we can't live like that in a prison environment.

Speaker 1: 1:10:47

Yeah, yeah, accountability, sometimes coming in, I don't think people have experienced enough accountability sometimes.

Speaker 1: 1:10:52

So, since I have you on here Sometimes coming in, I don't think people have experienced enough accountability sometimes, yeah, so since I have you on here, I'm going to follow up with another question what's your number one piece of training advice for trainers? Because I know over the years I've seen your training, I've seen your passion, I've seen the way you develop stimulating training. It wasn't just, you know, one of the last classes I took and I tell this story when I teach one of the last classes I took in the Bureau, I go up to Washington DC. They have a guy come in and he says, well, this is the third time I've taught this class. And I'm thinking, my God, dude, you've just shot everybody in the classroom. You know, nobody cares now, yeah, so what is it that was in you to have that passion, to cause you to reach out and make that training stimulating and exciting and look for new ideas you have to believe in what you're training and if you don't believe in it, step out.

Speaker 2: 1:11:47

Unless somebody who believes in it comes to the training. And two, when you teach it. You only have one opportunity to make a first impression. So true, Make it. I told you about Dave Young and I've known Dave Young since 1995. You know why? The way he started that first training class I was in, I can tell it to you word for word, step by step. Today he made that impression on me. He understood. I only have one opportunity to make a first impression with these people and I'm going to make a first impression that gives them the confidence to go all the way with me. I remember when you talked about marion hard crowd to train yeah so kind of stuck in their ways.

Speaker 2: 1:12:27

Pete shows up and I'll never forget they. They said we want you to start going out there and teaching you know. So I go out there and teach this first class and I love the people of Marion. I'm not complaining about the people of Marion. I had to learn. I had to learn respect. And as I started talking, newspapers came up. I thought I didn't approach this one correctly and I went back and asked. I said, hey, what do I need to do? And they said you start walking in and telling us what we need to do. Why don't you walk in and start asking questions upon what they do and let them tell you how they're doing things? And so I thought, okay. So the next week I went out and I changed my format from let me teach you to hey, y'all, teach me what you guys are doing and let me see how my stuff might fit into that you guys are doing, and let me see how my stuff might fit into that. And it became a lot better environment. So this.

Speaker 1: 1:13:17

Uh, I guess adaptability again. Yeah yeah, command presence. One of the companies I work for, their. Their motto is iron sharpens iron, and as an instructor, I think sometimes we forget that there's as much knowledge sitting in front of us as we think we have to give, and so I think that's something to keep in mind. I think that's what affects me the most, too, when I go to give, and so I think that's something to keep in mind.

Speaker 2: 1:13:33

I think that's what affects me the most, too. When I go to classes and people want to, they want to tell me how I'm wrong before they even know what I do, you know, and that then I just start shutting down like, okay, well, I'm gonna sit here and be lectured to versus have an interaction with these people and stuff right right yeah well, thank you so much.

Speaker 1: 1:13:52

Tell me about your podcast. I want to. Where can people find that? And uh, well, you're to blame for it.

Speaker 2: 1:13:58

Okay, yeah, because you know I'd like. You talked to me about your podcast a couple years ago and so I started watching your episodes and things and, um, you know, I I have friends that are, you know, that are out of the corrections completely, they've retired, they've done whatever, and but every time I got on a phone call with them it's like, even even though you're like, hey, how's this, how's that? The next thing you know you're right back in talking about corrections. And I got to thinking about you and I said you know that's what Mike's doing, is Mike's bringing the professionalism of corrections to the forefront of people? I got all these buddies and stuff that you know. We think we have whimsical things to say and intelligent things to say. Why don't we start documenting it and getting it out there? And maybe we can contribute the same way you're contributing.

Speaker 2: 1:14:40

I happen to have been asked to do a podcast on veterans transitioning into law enforcement, especially corrections. That lady talked to me, misty Moreno. She talked to me and she said have you ever thought about doing something like this? I told her about it. I'm like I got this guy and I said he's really bringing corrections to the forefront in a professional way, because I'm so tired of the impression being what's that? Green Mile or Shawshank Redemption and stuff like that, and you're doing that, you're bringing it, you're showing the professional side of it. It's intense, it's a chess game. It's not checkers all the time. That kind of got that going. I talked to those three guys Rick Harnes, chris McConnell, charlie Bueno. I convinced them. I said, hey, just do this one. They're like I don't really want to know if I want to do that. Chris was all in, we did that one. Now we're all pretty enthusiastic about it, so I ain't going to lie, brother.

Speaker 2: 1:15:34

I go check out your stuff and then I think about what I can do.

Speaker 1: 1:15:39

Yeah, well, I'm. I'm absolutely happy to have as many people talking about this as we can. You know I've. When I started I reached out to Anthony Ganji just corrections with William Young. You know there there's a few other podcasts out there and when you think back 10 years, nobody was talking about this stuff. So I'm excited. I don't I hope we get a 50 podcast going talking about corrections so that everybody can have a conversation.

Speaker 2: 1:16:07

So yeah, you're so good at what you do because I've been watching your most recent ones to catch up and and I tell you this the way that you let the person communicate what's going on with them and then the questions you ask, you can tell that you're involved. You've read the book, you've read the articles, you've done your research and I want to say thank you to inspiring me, inspiring the guys on Corrections, unfiltered, and yeah, let's get 50 of these things popping up. I'd love sometime, if you don't mind, join the four of us and let's talk about old times and let's talk about where you see things going, because you're still out there training. You have such an impact through your podcast. You're writing books, you are putting such a big shadow on corrections and letting people know that you're out there that I want to say thank you to you.

Speaker 1: 1:16:50

I sure appreciate that I do. I'm happy to still be able to make a difference because I care about the profession. You sure are doing it, yes, sir. So where can they find Corrections Unfiltered?

Speaker 2: 1:17:00

Go to YouTube channel it's Corrections, unfiltered the YouTube channel and just hit on that and we have different episodes. If you're on LinkedIn, I often will post things on LinkedIn. I copycatted you and, luckily, luckily, brian Antonelli reached out to us and said hey guys, I'd like to talk to you. He had worked with Chris and I think he worked around Rick Harns and stuff, and so we just did Brian Antonelli last night. Great, we just passed that one on out there, yeah, but yeah, that's the part of the best ways to find it and I was hoping that maybe offline, you and I can pick your brain and figure out how I can get better. Absolutely yes, sir.

Speaker 1: 1:17:33

In the show notes. If anybody wants it, I'll put the link to Corrections Unfiltered. I'll also put your LinkedIn. That's a good place for people to get in contact with you.

Speaker 2: 1:17:41

I have a Corrections Unfiltered LinkedIn profile. That's the best one to reach me on.

Speaker 1: 1:17:45

Yes sir, Okay, Yep we'll post those in the show notes if anybody wants to reach out and talk. I can't tell you how excited I am to have you on here. Like I said, you've been a training mentor and a person I've looked up to for years, and it's always great to talk to you. I always learn something. I appreciate you.

Speaker 2: 1:18:02

I really appreciate you and the way you do your business. Sir, Appreciate it.

Speaker 1: 1:18:05

Have a great day. Hey, before we go, I'd like to take a minute to thank one of our sponsors. Omni Real-Time Locating System is a company I've been working closely with for years. I'm proud to be a part of this innovative team that's developed the best real-time locating system on the market today for your jail or prison. Omni's PREA compliant real-time monitoring technology is the very best way to track and record your inmates' locations, their movements, their interactions, throughout every square inch of your correctional facility. Imagine getting an alarm the second an escape happens, or an alert that lets you know when an inmate's heart rate drops below a set level. To learn more about Omni, go to wwwomnirtlscom that's omnirtlscom or you can click on today's show notes to get the information guide. Omni Real-Time Locating System is a powerful tool specifically designed for the modern correctional professional. If you haven't done so, please take a moment to like my podcast or, better yet, hit the subscribe button so that you'll be notified when the next episode comes out. Thanks for listening and let's be safe out there.