January 27, 2025 • 65 mins
Ever wondered what it takes to manage a county jail? Join me, Michael Cantrell, as I sit down with Justin Hall, the elected jailer from Nelson County, Kentucky, who has spent nearly two decades in the corrections field. We'll uncover how he navigated his way from the Hardin County Detention Center to overseeing operations in his hometown. Learn about innovative technologies like biometric sensors that help monitor inmate health and the relentless battle against contraband. Justin and I also examine Kentucky's unique law enforcement structure, where jailers and sheriffs operate independently, a system rooted in history to prevent corruption.
Justin reveals the distinctive hurdles jails face compared to prisons, especially when welcoming inmates under the influence, and how he's using his local roots to effect change. We'll also discuss opportunities for inmate employment and rehabilitation programs designed to reduce recidivism, helping inmates transition back into society.
Nelson County Kentucky Jail
Nelson County Jailer Justin Hall - jhall0125@gmail.com
Justin Hall on LinkedIn
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
In more than 28 years of corrections, I have used or
supervised Pepperball hundredsof times.
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(00:23):
direct impact with thenon-lethal PAVA projectiles.
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To learn more about Pepperball,go to wwwpepperballcom or click
(00:45):
the show notes below.
Pepperball is the safer optionfirst.
Hey everybody, welcome back tothe Prison Officer Podcast.
My name is Mike Cantrell.
Today I have the elected jailerfrom Nelson County, kentucky,
justin Hall.
He began his career in 2006 atthe Hardin County Detention
(01:05):
Center, which is the fifthlargest jail in Kentucky.
Over the years, he's worked hisway up through the ranks to
lieutenant, gaining invaluableexperience along the way.
In 2022, he was elected as theJailer of Nelson County,
officially took office in 2023,and this marks his 18th year in
the field of corrections.
In 2023, and this marks his18th year in the field of
(01:27):
corrections, the way I firstfound Justin and we haven't
talked, so this is going to bean open conversation.
But I was on LinkedIn and I gotto notice in these posts from
somebody who was just verypassionate, who was showing a
lot of the leadership things Iteach in classes and you can
just tell he loves his job andhe loves the people he works
with and I just wanted to talkto him and find out more and see
(01:50):
if I can learn something fromhim.
So welcome to the PrisonOfficer Podcast, justin.
Speaker 2 (01:54):
Well, thank you, michael, I appreciate it and,
like I was telling you earlier,I'm sure I can learn something
from you too, with all yourexperience that you have as well
.
I appreciate it.
Like I say, it's an honor to beon air, especially when it
comes to corrections, a lot ofofficers and whatnot.
You know everything that we dois behind a door.
(02:15):
It's behind, you know, thegeneral public don't get to see
it as much because if there's abig arrest on somebody that
makes the news headlines and thepolice department oh look who
we caught, you know, and whatnot, but a lot of people don't
realize that person has to go tojail and prison.
So there's a whole other groupof people that's having to make
sure their constitutional needsare met, that they get to court,
(02:36):
that they have their you knowtheir day in court and whatnot.
So a lot of correctionalofficers and, of course, in our
line of work, deputy jailers.
We a lot of times, you know, wefeel like, or can't say we feel
like it, but a lot of us feellike that.
You know it's kind of like wedo and we do a really important
job.
Speaker 1 (02:56):
That doesn't get seen by a lot of people, it's true,
it's absolutely true and I thinkjails and you know we all work
in corrections and we know thatbut from the outside I think
people have these totallydifferent viewpoints of what
going to jail is and what goingto prison is.
But a lot of the jobs that wedo inside are the same.
(03:17):
Now I spent my time in 30 yearsplus working in prison and I've
been learning a lot about jailsin the last few years.
But it is a different job.
You're handling people thathaven't been vetted as much.
A lot of them are coming in,they're still high, they're
still drunk and so you guys havea really rough job.
Tell me a little bit aboutNelson County Jail.
Speaker 2 (03:37):
Well, nelson County, I'll tell you, of course.
I started out at Hartman CountyJail, which was the fifth
largest jail and it has 648 beds, and so I worked my way up to
third in command when I wasthere.
And then my hometown is NelsonCounty and I always worked in
Hardin County, so that way Iwouldn't deal with the people I
went to school with.
So after about 12 years I cameto Nelson County to work and
(04:00):
then decided to run for office.
So now I get to run into peoplethat I know.
You know, unfortunately, whenthey get arrested, but we have a
population of almost 50,000people in Nelson County.
As a matter of fact, 90% of theworld's bourbon is made here in
Nelson County.
Your.
Speaker 1 (04:18):
Jim Beam, your.
Speaker 2 (04:19):
Baker's Mark, all that stuff.
There's distilleries.
As a matter of fact, there's adistillery walking distance from
the jail where I'm at right nowand we are a small jail.
We have 102 beds here.
We're looking at expanding to400 to 700 here coming up.
But because unfortunately thelast 20 or 30 years the jail has
(04:41):
been kind of an oversight, whenI took over as jailer it was in
a state of disrepair.
I mean there was mold, therewas, I mean, the living
conditions.
And I always look at it thisway.
Regardless, if somebody comesinto jail with a cold check or
they're charged with rape orthey're charged with murder, I'm
going to treat that offenderthe same, no matter what, and I
(05:02):
make my staff do the same thing.
Treat that offender the same,no matter what, and I make my
staff do the same thing.
But if my family member or mydaughter was to get arrested,
there's a certain level of careand a certain condition that I
want them to be housed in and itdid not meet my standard.
And so we have completely wentthrough this facility.
We have painted, we have redoneshowers, we have redone, redone
(05:23):
.
I mean it actually made it, um,you know, through our state
jail inspection by inspector.
When he first walked in myfirst, uh, first inspection, he
first thing he said was it don'tstink in here anymore.
I was like yeah.
Speaker 1 (05:37):
I was like, yeah, we actually clean it now yeah, well
, that one of those posts wasthe first thing that caught my
eye, because when you say we, Ithink you picked up a paintbrush
.
Speaker 2 (05:49):
You did some of the paint scraping.
Speaker 1 (05:52):
I mean it wasn't you telling other people what to do.
It was you leading a team ofjailers to get this up to par.
Speaker 2 (06:00):
Absolutely.
I mean, I got many times youcan roll back our video where
I'm sweeping and mopping ourfront lobby.
You know, I mean yesterday, asa matter of fact, we had the ice
storm.
I went over the road department, got our county skid steer and
I was cleaning out our front.
I was cleaning out our frontparking lot with it.
So you know, I never want to askstaff to do something that I
(06:23):
would not do.
And even my daughters at home,you know we had this ice storm
and stuff and they said oh,daddy, it's a snow day, stay
home.
You know?
No, I got to go to work andthey're like oh, you got people
at work and I had to explain toher she's young, she's real
young.
I was like I will not ask myemployees to come into work and
(06:44):
battle a slick road if I'm notwilling to do the same.
And that's the way I explain itto them.
I'm a facilitator here, the wayI look at it, and my job is to
help mentor somebody.
I'm not going to be aroundforever.
My job is to help grow theemployees I got here and so that
(07:07):
way, when I decide to hang itup, there's somebody that can
take the reins over and can runthis place.
You know, I mean that's whatthe goal is.
I try.
I always got aggravated in mycareer and I saw it happen many
times where a supervisor wouldteach somebody just many times
where a supervisor would teachsomebody just enough to do their
(07:29):
job, but not enough to wherethey could jump up to the next
level.
And if you do that, you're not.
It's not only not fair to theemployee and some employees take
offense to it, because ifyou're training somebody that's
only done this one job for thelast 10 years and you're saying,
all right, I'm gonna bringdeputy a and b in to learn your
job, oh god, he's getting readyto fire me, so I did something
(07:50):
wrong.
Well, no, if you have a medicalleave or you need to take off
or whatever, the jail still gotto operate.
So I want people cross-trained.
There's nothing personal, sure.
(08:16):
Especially in a small jail, youdon't have 100 people to choose
from.
I also have biometric sensorsin our single cells that use
radar.
Now to where they actuallymonitor respiration and heart
rate.
So if somebody goes into adetox or a heart attack
situation, we get an audiblealarm in our booking area.
Speaker 1 (08:38):
So I know a little bit about some of these, but so
is that on their wrist or on thewall?
Speaker 2 (08:42):
No, it's actually in the ceiling.
Matter of fact, I got one uphere I'll show it to you real
quick.
Hold on, Okay, this is my sparein case it goes down.
This is actually in aprotective housing, because you
don't get inmates in a singlecell where they wouldn't destroy
it, but inside of it.
There's an actual radar chip inhere, right?
So this is mounted on theceiling of the cell and inside.
(09:03):
So this is mounted on theceiling of the cell and inside.
It actually monitors the chestgoing up and down and it
actually can sense the pulse ofthe inmate.
No kidding, yes.
And so in my control room andinside my booking area I have a
screen and it's green for if theinmate's good, and it's red, if
the inmate's bad, and if itgoes orange, that means that,
(09:26):
hey, we lost a pulse, we lost aheart rate.
Speaker 1 (09:28):
And so and the reason I did that you mentioned
earlier.
Speaker 2 (09:33):
We get people that come in all the time on all
different kinds of drugs.
You know, when I installed thebody scanner, everybody was like
, oh, you're never going to getcontraband in that jail.
Now you got a body scanner.
I'm like no, I was likeeverything that we have is a
tool they've been gettingcontraband in jails since the
(09:53):
1500s, you know, and um, and thebody scanner is not going to
stop it.
It's a tool and we have, we'vehad non-felony indictments out
of the body scanner, which hasbeen a great tool.
But if we have somebody thathas some fentanyl a very small
amount and it doesn't have thedensity for that body scanner to
pick it up, and if they'restrip searchable, if we go do a
(10:15):
strip search on the personbecause Kentucky is one of the
only three states that you can'tstrip search everybody that
walks inside the jail, believeit or not there's actually a
criteria we have to follow.
So if they're strip searchable,um, and we don't find it,
that's in a body cavity, it'snow in the institution.
So and um, and luckily you knowwe've saved some people's lives
(10:36):
that you know that's happened.
But we also um, several monthsago we had a lady in a body
cavity that had 40fentanyl-laced pills.
It was enough to kill sevenpeople that we intercepted
before it made it inside thejail because of the body scan.
So it was a blessing.
It was a blessing because thelast thing, a lot of us, you
(10:59):
know, there's never headlines ina jail or prison that says look
what the jail did.
Today there was three peoplethat you know got their GED
today.
You know that never makes youknow late breaking news, but if
somebody dies that's going to beall over the news and the last
thing any of us want in thisbusiness is for somebody to die.
(11:22):
I don't know a single personthat's been in correction that I
mean.
There's some of them that giveyou a hard day, you know a hard
time or a hard day, but at theend of the day I want them to go
home to their family and getthe help that they need.
Speaker 1 (11:36):
You know I mean.
Speaker 2 (11:38):
and so you know that's what's a little bit
different with the prisons thatwe get people that come in on
drugs and we got to protect themfrom themselves the other
population and we gotco-defendants.
You may have five or six peoplethat's arrested in a drug
charge or a violent charge andwe have to keep separate so they
can't interfere with the case.
You know, and a lot of timesonce they go to prison and the
(12:00):
case is adjudicated, then youknow that's not really too big
of an issue because you've gotdifferent prisons you can go to,
but they're stuck with me untiltheir case is done.
Yeah, yeah, so when got you?
Speaker 1 (12:11):
started.
In corrections I saw that youwent to college for IT.
Speaker 2 (12:18):
Yeah, and it's kind of a funny story.
That's what my college is in isactually in IT, network
security, and that'sunfortunately it's a curse too,
because I'm also the IT guy forthe county too, so I'm a jailer
class IT person.
I don't make any extra off ofit, but you know, hey, there you
go.
But I got into IT and I'm sureyou can tell I'm kind of a
(12:43):
talkaholic, so computers don'treally talk back to you very
much.
And after I got out of doingcollege I was like I'm not going
to stand in front of a screeneight, nine, ten hours a day,
and I always wanted to get inlaw enforcement.
A lot of people use correctionsas a stepping stone to be a
police officer and stuff likethat.
Well, I had this big dream thatafter I got out of college I
(13:04):
was going to go get incorrections.
I was going to, you know, getin top flight shape and I was
going to go to the state policeor sheriff's department and all
that stuff, you know.
And then the job just took ahold of me.
It just took a hold of me, itbecame a passion.
I realized that I could doeverything that I wanted to do
(13:28):
inside of a jail without havingto deal with the other stuff.
And I progressed.
You know the old saying hardwork pays off.
When I started Hardin CountyJail, I knew no one.
I didn't know the jailer aheadof time, I didn't know any of
the command staff, did not knowa single employee that worked
there.
And so when they say hard workpays off, in 12 years I was
(13:51):
third in command at thatfacility because of hard work
and anybody that follows yourpolicy and procedure do what
you're supposed to do.
And hey, I made plenty ofmistakes.
I'm not saying that I'm, youknow, the perfect and oh, I did
all this great stuff throughoutmy career and never made a
mistake.
I made my mistake, but thething about it is you don't make
(14:14):
it twice, right, yeah, yeah,and so it's been a very
rewarding career.
Now, I've had, I've witnessed,my fair share of bad things.
I've had, I've witnessed myfair share of bad things, I mean
, especially in jail.
You know we've had somesuicides, you know, and stuff
like that.
Unfortunately it happened.
I will say the suicides that wehad in the past, all of them
(14:35):
had a heartbeat, you know itwasn't, they wasn't, you know,
in there for an extended periodof time.
Everybody did their job but,and you know, and it showed that
we did what we were supposed todo.
But that's stuff that a lot ofpeople don't realize, that I
still remember every one of them.
I still remember every one oftheir faces and that never goes
away.
And a lot of people don'trealize that that's the stuff
(14:58):
that, over a career that you'regoing to take with you, that's
going to always be on yourshoulders.
You may not think about it allthat often, but they're always
with you.
Speaker 1 (15:14):
That's always something you take with your
career.
I know as you got intocorrections tell me about.
I always like to hear aboutthis.
What was that like when youfirst walked in?
Did you know people in jail?
Did you you know family members?
Speaker 2 (15:28):
I had.
No, I had nobody.
I got what.
Everybody has a one cousin oruncle that you know goes to jail
, hit and miss and stuff likethat.
We all had those.
Nobody was in jail.
But I remember my first daylike it was yesterday.
Of course it's before they giveyou a uniform, before you go
through your training, your FTOperiod and everything else, and
(15:49):
I remember walking through thedoors and it was during court
day.
So Arden County Jail has thisbig long metal bench.
You know I'm 21 years old, justturned 21, and I remember
walking in through those two bigmetal doors and slamming behind
me and there's this big row oforange.
You know inmates, you know onthere and not going to lie.
(16:11):
You know you're a littleintimidated when that happens
you know, and I was thinkingthere for a little bit, I was
like I may have just screwed up.
I was like I may have justscrewed up, but once you go
through your training and thenyou realize that it's just the
color of the uniform, there'sactually a human being still
(16:31):
inside of that and it's a peoplebusiness.
Now there's sometimes in thisline of work it's not always
rainbows and butterflies.
I'll try to help somebody, butI will be the first one.
My inmates know how I operate.
They know I'm fair, firm andconsistent.
But if you cross over the rules,you know I'll be the first one
to get into them, and so that isa line that you know.
(16:56):
That's a learned skill.
And I will say, the first weekthere I was on pins and needles
whenever I walked in that door,every single time and and the
first time you know actually hada, you know, physical use of
force, the first time when you,the first time when you're doing
a self search and you findcontraband, the first time that
(17:17):
you're doing a pat-down, firsttime you have a medical
emergency, all these littlethings or whatever, slowly start
building your experience insideof everything.
But they also but they alsoreprogram you a little bit to
where you know, to where youactually have to realize that
you're dealing with people andyour job is to not only protect
(17:40):
the community that you'rekeeping them away from.
You actually got to take careof them too.
Speaker 1 (17:44):
Yeah, yeah, there are charges Absolutely.
Yeah, absolutely, yeah, thereare charges Absolutely.
Yeah absolutely so.
Now I think, before I go to thenext question, I need you to
explain something to a lot ofpeople, because I didn't know
this until a few years ago.
In most places, when you sayI'm a jailer, that means that
you work in a jail In Kentucky.
(18:06):
That's the jail administrator.
It's an elected position.
It's an elected position.
So explain to me why Kentucky'sdifferent.
If you know, and what it takesto become the jailer.
Speaker 2 (18:18):
Yeah, and basically what happened was, of course,
indiana and a lot of the onesthat border us.
Their sheriff's department runsa jail.
And what happened, and Ibelieve it was the third
constitution of Kentucky.
They made the office of jailerand they made the office of
sheriff, and the reason theysplit both of them is because
(18:41):
back in those times Kentucky wasriddled with corruption, so the
people doing the catch-em wasalso the same people doing the
holding.
So, we were friends with theperson and money was passed
under the table and all thatstuff.
So the mindset was at the timewas we're going to split both
(19:01):
offices.
We're going to have a separateperson that's elected to run
this jail, a separate personthat's here to be a sheriff, be
the law enforcement in thecounty and so there's two
elected positions the sheriff'sdepartment and the jail.
We are completely separate.
They're different budgets.
We both have the sameconstitutional arrest power.
(19:21):
If I want, I stay in my lane,but if I wanted to go ride a
speeding ticket, I could.
Speaker 1 (19:26):
I don't do it.
You know, if I wanted to goserve a ticket, I could, I don't
do it Interesting.
Speaker 2 (19:29):
If I wanted to go serve a warrant, I could, I
don't so can you be oppositeparties?
Speaker 1 (19:36):
Yes, can you be Republican.
Speaker 2 (19:39):
Well, matter of fact, I'm a Republican and my
friend's a sheriff and he's aDemocrat Interesting, but yeah,
so it's separate.
I mean, I'm real good friendswith our sheriff here in nelson
county and uh and um, and we'renot running against each other.
It's basically a different.
The office of jailers aseparate box on there, you know
(20:00):
for, and there's a and there's118 elected jailers in the state
of kentucky.
That is just so interesting.
Yeah, it is, and I'll tell youan interesting fact If you ever
get to look at the history ofjailers and also lynchings that
took place in Kentucky, if youget into some of the history,
there's an interesting storyabout a jailer that was in
(20:22):
Owensboro, davies County, ifanybody wants to look that up.
And what happened was?
I just want to paint a picturefor you.
Sure, okay, this is rightduring the middle of right,
during the middle of, you know,peak of racism, the peak of you
know, really, african Americans,everything they went through.
(20:42):
And there was an AfricanAmerican man that was charged
with, I believe it was rape ormurder, and he was held in
Davies County Jail.
The jailer at the time used tobe a Confederate soldier.
Okay, used to be, but he wasn'tanymore.
He got elected as jailer.
Well, the town mob came to thejail to get this man out because
(21:02):
they was going to lynch him inthe street.
The jailer, who was a white man, them held off the town as much
as he could.
They actually shot and killedthe jailer, ran into the jail to
get the guy and and did whatthey did to him.
And unfortunately I mean youjust look at, think about this a
confederate, an ex-confederate,okay, gave his life to protect
(21:25):
an african-american that he wasduly sworn to protect until he
had his day in court.
But unfortunately, whathappened?
But that's actually aninteresting story.
If you look at some of thehistory of the jailers in
Kentucky, there's a very robusthistory with all of them.
Speaker 1 (21:44):
That's just so fascinating.
I mean I can think of some wayswhy that would be so good.
And then I could see well, I'veseen jail administrators and
sheriffs.
The jail administrators arepointed and they still bump
heads.
Speaker 2 (21:58):
Yeah right.
Speaker 1 (22:00):
Sheriffs often don't even like dealing.
I won't say don't like it, butdealing with the jail is the
part of their job that theynormally dislike the most right
and that's um.
Speaker 2 (22:11):
And there has been talks um over the years, you
know, because it has beenobvious.
You know everyone's like you'llget a legislator.
Somebody said why don't we justall the other states just merge
them together?
But the sheriffs, you know theygot their own stuff.
They said, you know, if it'snot broke, don't don fix it.
You know, and so you know everylaw enforcement agency you're
(22:31):
going to have some disagreementsand stuff.
I'm very blessed we have areally good relationship with
ours, you know, and whatnot.
But none of the sheriffs wantthe headache, you know, because
honestly, as a sheriff you know,hats off to the sheriffs that
run the patrol and the jails,Because I mean they got a jail
(22:54):
administrator but at the end ofthe day, whenever something goes
wrong with that jail, theirname goes on the bottom of that
lawsuit and they're not eventhere to deal with it.
Right?
And another thing is that I'mhere every day.
So the people in Nelson Countyif they got a family member
locked up or something at thejail, Matter of fact, I'm one of
the few elected officials thatI publicly post my phone number.
(23:18):
Everybody in the county can callme directly at any time and
sometimes they take very goodadvantage of that.
But me and the sheriff, Ibelieve, are one of the few
elected officials and weactually leave our cell phones
public Anybody that's a citizen.
We work for them.
(23:38):
So if they need to get hold ofsomebody that they hired at the
election box, I think it's onlyfair.
Speaker 1 (23:46):
Interesting.
So let me pick your brain again, because there's something else
I saw on your posts that Ididn't recognize or haven't
dealt with before, and that isthis fiscal court.
Fiscal court, yes, and I haveseen where you have taken checks
and you're sending them backthere.
What is?
Speaker 2 (24:06):
that all about.
So and this is what I alwaysfind quite interesting, because
I always ask somebody and I mayask you what you all do in
Missouri, because every state isso different on how they do
things.
In Kentucky every jail has acontract with the phone service
(24:29):
provider Because the way thestate law is written is that all
the phone calls are collected,part of the contract of allowing
a certain carrier into the jail, whatever their profit is, they
get part of the profit back tothe fiscal court to help offset
the cost of the jail.
(24:49):
Basically, the best way to lookat a fiscal court it's
basically the county's citycouncil.
That's the best way I candescribe it.
So you have a judge executivewhich is technically the mayor
of the county, and you havemagistrates which are elected,
which are basically the citycouncil members of the county,
and basically they hold thecheckbook.
I present a budget, theyapprove my budget and you know
(25:15):
budgets in jails is just it'sjust educated guesswork, because
I don't know if I'm going tohave an inmate with a major
medical expense or somethinglike that.
But also the state statute alsoallows us to charge um a per
diem rate, you know, whensomebody's house a booking fee
when they're housed, and um alsoallows us to take a percentage
(25:37):
of deposits when they put moneyon their canteen.
So that money that you see methat I'm writing checks for.
Uh, let's say somebody's beenin here 10 days and their
parents put a hundred dollars ontheir books for them to buy,
commissary, the jail would take$10 of that, that $10 at the end
of the month, depending on howmuch is taken and what book it
fees.
(25:57):
Those are the checks that I cutback to fiscal court that in
turn help operate the jail.
Okay.
Speaker 1 (26:04):
Okay.
So, it is coming back around.
Speaker 2 (26:06):
Yeah, it is coming back around.
Speaker 1 (26:08):
Yes, it's not set aside just for you.
If this month the road crewneeds more money than the jail
does, they could use that moneyover there.
Speaker 2 (26:17):
They could use it over there.
Yeah, it's shown as an incomeline item on the budget but
ultimately it ends up in thegeneral fund Interesting and on
our commissary account and Iknow several jails have
commissary accounts and whatnotthe profits from it.
You know we have a work program.
You know inmates get to go outand paint and you know pick up
(26:39):
garbage and different tradeitems.
I'm getting ready to start HVACand plumbing.
We had welding last year.
But the deputies that I have goout I pay their salaries out of
the profits from the canteenaccount, so it don't cost the
taxpayers any money for them.
The body scanner that we got.
I can spend that money oninmate work programs, something
(27:01):
that benefits the inmates orsomething that benefits the
security of the jail.
It's all I can use it for.
I can't use it to go anything.
That's Buy pizza for the stafffor sure.
Yeah, I can't buy pizza for thestaff or throw a Christmas
party with it.
Right, like I said, we haveabout four inmate crews that go
(27:23):
out during the week.
As a matter of fact, I got fiveout today.
That's helping salt some of thesidewalks and stuff from our
ice storm that we had.
They all like it.
They're in their own work dorm.
When they go out to work.
I have them a reallyhigh-calorie lunch that they go
out with them.
They probably get an extrathousand calories of what we
(27:47):
serve inside here at the jail.
We actually exceed the staterequirement by about 600
calories just for our regularinmates.
So, yeah, but, like I say, thetechnology has been the biggest
thing, and I'll tell you, as faras you're talking about when I
walked in this jail, about howin dire repair it was, I'll tell
(28:09):
you, my first day I walked inthe jail, we had a person on
suicide watch and it was shiftchange, and so I'm just using
this as an example.
So setting the clock rollingaround and I see an employee
over here doing this is a lawright Person on suicide watch,
and I see this Forging a law,and not only is that illegal.
(28:36):
That showed me that they're notdoing their job.
And we basically had a big, hugetraining with all the staff on
what to expect and I switchedeverything to electronic logging
.
There's RFID tags on the celldoor with all the staff on what
to expect, and I switchedeverything to electronic logging
.
There's RFID tags on the celldoor.
(28:57):
I got a grant for all newcameras with audio, and so they
have to physically RFID scan andopen the cell door and count a
respiration of an inmate thatthey're sleeping to mark them
during their check.
And under state law in Kentuckyon our regular dorms it's one
check an hour.
If somebody's on a suicidewatch, it's every 20 minutes, or
a medical watch, it's every 20minutes.
(29:17):
So now they can't.
There's no way for them toforge a law if it's all
electronic, and that was verytroubling to me, taking over as
a jailer, to see that, becauseif that's been happening, then
guess what it's been happeningfor a long time.
Speaker 1 (29:30):
Unfortunately, there is a portion of our staff that
do stuff like that.
Speaker 2 (29:35):
Right, exactly.
Speaker 1 (29:36):
When I made lieutenant I got access to the
camera systems and at the time Iworked, the camera systems
would show if there was movementon the camera.
You could see this little deal.
So the other lieutenant'steaching me how to use this and
we pull up a housing unit andit's flatlined for six hours and
(29:57):
I'm like, well, what causedthat?
And so we go back through thecameras and up until that point
because I'd never done it myself, never seen anybody do it.
Right, you couldn't tell methat there were people who
skipped counts.
Yeah, I didn't know that.
And, uh, it just blew away.
It broke my heart.
It's what it did.
Speaker 2 (30:11):
It's a hit and a miss .
Until you remember thosesuicides and stuff I was telling
you about before, or anyincident that you have in this
field.
If you stay in it long enough,you're eventually going to have
to do a deposition in your time.
I've done several.
(30:32):
They're never pleasant, anduntil you actually are getting
drilled by an attorney for aboutthree hours on what you did and
didn't do and one of the caseswhen you wasn't even there and
you're getting drilled aboutwhat your staff does until
you're in that seat.
Sometimes the importance and theseverity of somebody's actions
(30:53):
does not register with them andI can tell it to them a thousand
times.
We've had meetings with staffwhere I'm like you know your
boss documentation and yourchecks and your follow-ups and
everything and and the way youtreat inmates and stuff.
Like you know, when you firststart out in this field, you
know you get some officers thatare really cocky and you know
(31:14):
and whatnot and you try to tonethem down a little bit because
nine times out of ten I can walkand talk to somebody and it may
take five minutes but withoutme even laying a finger I can
get what we need accomplisheddone.
Sometimes we can't.
I mean sometimes you have to goto that next level and I tell
my staff if we have to go tothat next level, our policy
(31:36):
allows that and we do it.
But if I can talk somebody downand save a page and a half on
the incident report, I'm all forit.
You know, absolutely.
Can you talk a to me aboutstaff.
Speaker 1 (31:52):
And another thing that I see.
You know I've got several ofthese posts where you highlight
your staff.
You talk about the good thingsthey're doing.
It's not just you know.
The only coverage we normallyget is when something goes wrong
.
Right, exactly.
You can keep 1,000 inmatesinside the walls.
(32:12):
One gets out and all of asudden it's in the media.
Yeah, right.
You can save a dozen inmatesfrom suicide, but if one dies,
it's in the media.
So it's so important and I lovewhat you do.
So talk to me about how youbuild up staff and how your
leadership style.
Speaker 2 (32:31):
Well, my leadership style is number one is that I
have an open door.
Speaker 1 (32:36):
I tell all staff.
Speaker 2 (32:38):
All staff can come and they don't have to.
If they, I encourage them touse their chain of command, but
they know that they can sidestepit if they need to come talk to
me over something.
Now, sometimes, if they come inand it's something that needs
to go through the chain ofcommand, I will redirect them
where they need to go.
But I think the leadershipstyle is that I've told them, if
(33:00):
you follow the policy andprocedure and do what you're
trained to do or whatever, Ithink they see that I have their
back on things.
You know.
I think number one is yourstaff has to have trust in you.
Now I've had to let people go,but every person that I've let
go have known what they've donewrong and I'm not a person to
(33:22):
just walk in one day and say, ohwell, you're five minutes late,
you're gone, I don't need youanymore.
You know, I try to bring themin, I try to coach people, try
to correct it and, plus gettingtraining.
This year we actually the jailnever had this.
We actually did a Deputy of theYear Award, a Rookie of the
(33:42):
Year Award, a Lifesaving Award,and we did a Christmas party for
all the staff with food andeverything else and some
giveaways and whatnot.
The jail never really hadanything.
I think it had a few thingslike that in the past.
You know, at Christmas time Itry to give them extra stuff.
And another thing I did toowhen I took over as jailer.
(34:04):
You're going to find this iscrazy, because I thought it was
crazy too.
How many days a week do youthink the full-time work before
they had a day off?
I'm going to see if you canguess their normal schedule.
Let's say I hired you asfull-time at Nelson County
Correctional Center, how manydays would you expect to work
before you had a day off?
(34:24):
Five, seven.
They were working seven on, twooff every other weekend and I
was like, how can you?
I mean, that's just, that'sjust.
So we switched to a 10 hourshift.
They now have three days off,you know, and so they have more
(34:45):
time home with their family.
You know that was one thing thatwe did and I let them put an
input.
I say I may not take every word, but I think people having the
confidence where they canbecause here's the thing,
complacency is evil okay, I'mguilty of it myself.
I may have been doing somethingthe last 18 years.
Somebody may come along and saywhy are you doing it this way?
(35:05):
And make a suggestion, and I'mlike that's a good idea.
I never thought about that.
And having that gear open andnever acting like you're better
than somebody else.
I tell you I treat our inmatesand our staff like they're human
beings.
You know I compliment, and oneof my good friends who's also a
(35:29):
trainer as well.
You may know him, jeff Carter.
Speaker 1 (35:32):
I know him.
Speaker 2 (35:33):
I know him, Jeff Carter.
He does a lot of training inKentucky, and one thing that he
said that's always resonated meon leadership is that a good
leader, you're going to know, ifyour staff member's married,
what their kids' names are, whattheir wife's name is.
(35:54):
It doesn't mean you have toknow every personal detail about
them, but if you don't know thepeople that's in your facility
on a level like that or whatever, then you really don't know who
you're working for.
I really think a respect thinggoes a long way.
I really feel like they'regetting more invested into them.
(36:20):
Like you know, when I took overas jailer, there wasn't a
single deputy firearm circle.
Okay, yeah, so we're all swornpeace officers, and I'll just
tell you how I figured this outIf you want another funny story
to add to the podcast.
I'm at my first month in right.
(36:41):
So I have a person that'scharged with attempted murder on
a police officer and thisindividual decided to um pour
tylenol and decided to take abunch of them.
That he was cheating, you know,and and he was able to get
passed on on that, and so heended up taking a bunch of them.
So he had to get sent to thehospital to get his stomach
(37:02):
pumped, right.
So I'm at home when thishappens, so they call me, so I
start heading up to the hospital, you know, and I'm saying, all
right, be sure, there's an armeddeputy that's firearm certified
.
And then my staff's like what'sthat?
Nobody here is certified with afirearm.
I was like Nobody here iscertified with a firearm.
So we're taking somebody to thehospital that's charged with
attempted murder on a policeofficer and the jailer is the
(37:23):
only one that's firearmcertified.
So the training has been a bigthing.
We've firearms, firearms, useof force, you know, restraint,
pair and stuff.
They never had any trainingwith it.
They did the bare state minimumtraining here.
But we are now doing trainingall the time and I feel like
when staff gets involved theyfeel like they're being invested
(37:44):
in you know.
They feel like that.
You know, all right, theyactually care about me, that
they're wanting me to succeed,and I pay trainers to come in
from all over the state ofKentucky to sit down with the
staff to do it and I reallythink if you show that effort
with your staff it really goes along way, because the training
that they had before was alittle online training.
(38:04):
You know they could have beendoing their dishes and not even
listening to what it says, butif you have a, you have a person
sitting in a seat that'slistening to somebody talk.
You know that they're gettingthe material and that's the way.
Speaker 1 (38:17):
I look at it.
So what I'm hearing here is acombination of many things, and
I'll get to one deal One.
You're listening to your staff,you're letting them have input,
you're making them moresuccessful and giving them
skills so that they can succeedin whatever they decide to do.
This is a staff member that'sgoing to stay around, and where
I'm going with this is.
(38:38):
I saw, I saw where you'd postedthe circuit court, the jailer's
report, and I got to looking atthat and you are 100% staffed.
Speaker 2 (38:48):
Yes, 100% staffed.
Speaker 1 (38:51):
That right there says a lot, and now that I'm talking
to you, now that I'm hearingsome of this stuff you're
talking about, I understand whyyou're 100% staffed, because
they can tell that you careright and and they know, and
they know, at the end of the day, I still have to be their boss.
Speaker 2 (39:11):
But they know, at the end of the day, whatever
happens, they're going to get afair shake right.
And I always tell them I'm notperfect.
You know what I mean.
I mean I've had to suspendemployees, I've had to let
people go, but it's never afirst time ordeal.
It's always.
I bring them in here and I tryto talk to them.
I'm like you know, I was like,just be, you know.
I tried to explain to them.
I was like, if you want to gowork down at the factory down
(39:31):
the road, they're still notgoing to allow you to be late
for work.
You know, I think you know I'mlike regarding, I was like you
know there has to be, uh, and Iguess the best way I it was hard
the first six months becausethe tail was wagging the dog
here, unfortunately.
Yeah, staff was coming inwhenever they wanted to leave
and whenever they wanted towrite.
(39:52):
I mean, incident reports arenot getting done.
There was a culture, yeah, andit was a culture and so it's
been a.
It's been a lot of work, a lotof sleepless nights.
I'm not going to lie, but I'm areligious person, you know, and
part of it to me is that youknow God always says to help
(40:15):
your most vulnerable, and stufflike that.
So I think it's a veryhonorable profession that we do.
It's because most of the peoplethat's in jail are ones that
society has cast out, andthere's some people inside this
jail that do not need to get outof it.
I have about 20 or 25 of them.
They need to go to prison forthe rest of their life and as
soon as they get out, they'regoing to hurt somebody.
(40:36):
They don't need to get out.
But I also have a lot of otherpeople that are in here for
drugs and have a substance abuseproblem, that need treatment,
that are actually good peopleonce they get sobered up.
And those are the people that Itry to reach with these
programs.
The ones that are violentoffenders and stuff like that I
can't change either.
(40:56):
I can't.
You know, I can't change evil.
The ones that have rapedsomebody and done stuff like
that, I can't.
And even statistics have shownyou can't change that behavior.
Right, you know their chancesof reoffending is very high.
But if I got somebody that is areal good person, a hard worker
, and they want to go throughsome of the programs that we
have here, I will try to to getthem a job.
(41:18):
When they get down, I will tryto get them housing.
Uh, we had a guy that wentthrough our program, was a state
inmate here, because we holdstate prisoners here too.
I doesn't want to go out andwork, so we hold state and
county and uh, he, his family,was up in cincinnati that's
where he was from and he endedup being down here and so he had
no way of getting home.
So remember the commissaryaccount I was telling you about,
(41:41):
you can use it for the benefitof the inmate.
So guess what?
I bought him a bus ticket anddrove him all the way to
Louisville so that way he couldget on a bus and get to his
family in Cincinnati for NewYear's.
But it's little stuff.
You do like that to people.
Speaker 1 (41:56):
That's not little stuff.
When're in internet, sitting inprison and you see that kind of
stuff, that's huge.
They may have never had anybodytake the time when when they're
sitting in jail and they seestaff taking time to to get the
mold out of the shower and putfresh paint on there, because
that's where they have to take ashower every day right, they
(42:17):
see you guys.
I saw dorm two, I think, whereyou guys are doing a bunch of,
you know, cleaning up the bedsand the walls and all that stuff
.
That's huge to those inmatesand jail as well as prison.
People talk about it in prisonbut jail runs on respect also
Absolutely and I know that justfrom what I see.
They feel the respect there.
Speaker 2 (42:40):
Yeah, and know that just from what I see they feel
the respect there I'm probablyone of the few jails too.
It used to be, and you probablyremember this, I know you do,
and several jails probably stilldo this.
I'm sure whoever watches thiswill know the paper it may
request agreements, right, ofcourse.
All of ours are electronic nowyou never have to worry about.
(43:01):
Well, he wrote a green with anomega.
It didn't make it to the box,right, so you?
don't have to worry about that,which that builds confidence
with inmates too, but they alsohave a box on there where they
can select jail, and it goesstraight to my laptop in here,
and if they have a legitimateconcern that the grievance
(43:24):
process is not addressed andthey make request process is not
addressed, they can write medirectly yeah, they can they can
bypass the staff completely andwrite me directly now.
sometimes I'm really good atchecking email, so sometimes
I'll be like, hey, when's mynext court date?
And I'll be like, use a regularrequest and be patient.
I'm not going to do that, butyou would be surprised on how
(43:50):
much that cuts down onlitigation, because I can catch
something before it turns into acivil rights issue.
I can catch something before itturns into maybe an inmate and
deputy conflict, an inmate oninmate conflict and having that
open door and having that flowof communication.
(44:12):
My jail inspector, I think,said it, and again I'm not
trying to brag there's a lot ofjails and a lot of prisons that
do probably a better job than Ido.
I'm not saying that we're likea gold standard by any means and
.
I hope nobody takes it as thatway.
But one thing that my jailinspector I never really paid
attention to it as much.
(44:33):
When he comes down, we have twojail inspections a year and one
of them is planned and one ofthem is a pop he just randomly
shows up like hey, we're goingto do a jail inspection.
But one thing he brought upthat I never really thought
about was after we were donedoing the rounds.
We go inside every single dorm.
He asked every inmate hey, areyou being treated fairly?
(44:56):
Is anything going on?
And stuff like that.
And I tell the inmates too, too,because I'm with you.
I'm like guys, this is a nojudgment zone, something's wrong
in here.
I want you to tell them.
Tell him straight up what'swrong.
I tell every inmate do notpretend like, pretend like I'm
not here, I want you to buckle.
And he said, uh, after he gotdone he's like, out of all those
(45:16):
inmates we only had onecomplaint, he like.
But a lot of times, whenever Iget walked around, the inmates
will huddle around the jailerasking a thousand questions
because they've never seen andthey'll want to know questions
about when they're going to work.
And he said none of the inmatesdid that to you when you walked
around and I was like that'sbecause I'm available.
Speaker 1 (45:36):
You know, and so that helps out a lot.
It's such a good lesson.
You know, if you go back in the70s and 80s, the big riots that
happened across the country, oh, absolutely, absolutely the end
of the day, it was about notfeeling heard.
They couldn't get theirgrievances heard, nobody was
(45:57):
listening.
And you're absolutely right tothe point.
I've seen this so much in mycareer, especially, and I'll say
, in prisons.
Sometimes we're overstaffed uptop.
Okay.
Speaker 2 (46:09):
Oh yeah, right, right , yeah.
Speaker 1 (46:10):
No, I mean more, more at the bottom, fewer at the top
Right, but you would.
You see these people who makethat.
One hour after their lunch onWednesday.
They walk through the housingunit.
You know the deputy or thewarden or whoever it is could be
the captain or a psychologist,and they don't ever stop.
They just walk through so thatthey can be seen on camera.
(46:30):
And you're right, when they getthe chance, those inmates are
just blah because they haven'ttalked to them in forever.
Right, you do see that ifyou're into security and you
walk around an institution, youwill see the inmates who feel
like they're hurt, who haveaccess to staff.
Speaker 2 (46:51):
This thing is following up.
I always tell staff don't bescared to say no.
But also, if you say you'regoing to do something by the end
of your shift, if you sayyou're going to do X, y and Z, x
, y and Z better be done,because the only thing you've
got your word and respect inhere and once you lose it, it's
done, it's done.
(47:11):
And it's very, very hard to getback and it's a two-way road.
Inmates got to give it toreceive it as well.
I mean, it's a two-way road.
But I've had people, you know,on both sides of the spectrum.
You know, some people have wentand said, you know where I'm
trying to offer programs andstuff and they're like, well,
you're too soft on them, feedthem bread and water Heck, you
know, chain them to a wall.
(47:32):
You know, do whatever.
You know.
You know why don't they canethem like they do in Singapore
and stuff?
And my thing is there's severaldifferent answers to that.
Number one treat others the wayyou want to be treated.
I'm not a judge.
I'm not a judge nor a jury.
My job is to.
(47:53):
My job by statute is to makesure that our constitutional
rights are met and that they getfair access to the court.
I'm not allowed to judge them,but just by my law I'm not
allowed to judge them at all.
That's number one.
Number two why would I not tryto help somebody if I'm in a
(48:13):
position to help somebody?
Number three is that it's notalways rainbows and butterflies.
I do post a lot of positivestuff or whatever, but there's
times when I'm sure you'll seeme if I'm in the back and
somebody's yelling or whatever.
I'll jump right in the mix andset them straight too.
So I mean it's.
It's not always like that.
I mean there's times when youhave to jump in and be and take
(48:37):
over a situation, but a littlekindness never really hurt
anybody.
Speaker 1 (48:42):
No, it doesn't, and I've been around long enough and
in enough places that I've seenthe inmates who were treated
like that, who were treated theway you're talking about.
Some of those people wanted andone thing that people don't
understand when it comes tosecurity if you've got an inmate
that has nothing, he also hasnothing to lose, absolutely, and
(49:04):
they're unmanageable, right.
So it's so much easier andpeople don't like this sometimes
, but you've heard me talk aboutit on the podcast before it is
so much easier to lead inmatesas a leader, to have influence
with them, than it is to walk inthere and try to.
You're not.
You're once you get them downand they have nothing.
You can't do anything with that.
Speaker 2 (49:25):
Yeah and just a regular officer and deputy.
You know I'll ask them orwhatever.
Uh, I ask them most time twoquestions.
I'm like number one um, as soonas we walk into the jail, are
we using force on the inmatesthat's in here?
And they're like, no, we, no,we're all right here.
I was like, yes, you are,you're keeping them in here.
That's a use of force, keepingthem inside this building.
I was like number two I tellthem, whenever you're actually
(49:51):
interacting and dealing withthese inmates that we're talking
with, don't ever think thatyou've got cameras above you and
everything else.
Always pretend like thesecameras in these ceilings are
broadcasting out to CNN and FoxNews at all times.
And I was like, if you havethat mindset, then you are going
(50:12):
to do what you're supposed todo.
And because the cameras arethere to protect you just as
much as they are anybody elsethose cameras have saved, I
don't know.
I remember when we first putcameras in at Hardin County Jail
, the deputies were like, oh man, cameras everywhere.
But guess what?
You don't know how many timesan inmate wrote a grievance and
said well, such and such did X,y and Z at this time and pulling
(50:35):
up on camera.
It never happened and it saved.
I remember when we used to havea fight or altercation before
we had cameras inside the dormwe'd have to put in inmate
statements and you know there'sonly two toilets in there, but
all 15 of them would say it wasin the restroom when it happened
, you know.
They didn't see nothing right,so you know, but it's
(50:57):
technology's helped out incorrections big time as well.
Speaker 1 (51:00):
Yeah.
So what made you want to becomejailer?
How did you take that step fromhey, I'm a correctional officer
, now I'm a lieutenant to.
I want to take over the.
I want to be in charge of thewhole jail.
Speaker 2 (51:12):
Well, to tell you the truth, I had ambitions on doing
it back when I first started.
I've always been kind ofgoal-driven.
Once I decided it was kind ofone of my goals.
I was always like you know, I'mgoing to run for jailer one day
.
Well, then my kids were bornand my priorities changed and it
(51:33):
just so happened that one of myfriends who was jailer for one
term here before I took over hetalked to me and he said you
know, I'm probably not going torun again.
He's like I know how youoperate and stuff and I really
think that you would do the jailsome good if you ran.
And I was a hard no at first Iwas like do I want to put my
(51:56):
family through all the politicalstuff that comes along with it?
And you know, as soon as youfile, if you've got an R beside
your name, then the D'sautomatically hate you.
If you've got a D, then the R'sautomatically hate you.
And so I was like, do I reallywant to put my family through
this?
So I prayed a lot, talked to mywife a lot, talked to my kids a
(52:18):
lot.
I was a no, had more peopletalk to me.
I guess once other people waskind of figuring out who was
going to run.
And finally I looked at it andI was like, well, I've had
enough people in the county askme to run.
Maybe it's a sign, let's dothis.
(52:39):
And if the people decide thatthey want me in this position,
I'll do it, you know, because Ido have the experience to do it.
And if they decide that I don'tneed to be in it, then I'll
just go on doing what I do.
And so I had a contested primaryand a contested general
election and I ended up getting70% of the voting vote.
(53:01):
So it was very uh.
It was uh, very emotional forme because it was a goal.
It was a goal that I honestlyput on a shelf.
Well, once you get your kidsand stuff like that, it was a
goal that, yeah, back before Igot married and stuff, I was
like you know, I'm going to dothis, this and this, and then,
once your kids and your familyand everything start coming into
(53:23):
play, you kind of be like, well, I need to be a dad, I need to
do Do.
I want to put them throughelections and politics and
people saying bad stuff abouttheir dad on the Internet?
and all this other stuff thatcomes with you know, every time.
I'm just went on Facebook todayand there was a person dogging
me on there today.
(53:45):
It was a Facebook account, butI mean, it's just, you can't get
, you can't get away from it.
You know, one thing you can dois laugh and smile and go on.
Yeah, I mean, I mean it's, itis what it is.
But I mean, at the end of theday, though, I'm blessed I
believe it's where god put me tobe at um I get to help people.
(54:06):
I know I've changed severalpeople's lives.
Um there's some people there'ssome people I can't help, um,
but uh, I really think that I.
I really think I'm where I needto be in until god tells me
that I need to do something else.
Hopefully, you don't tell me Ineed to sit in front of a
computer screen the rest of mylife because I like talking to
(54:28):
people.
I like talking and working withpeople.
I'm very blessed.
A lot of people look at this asa job.
This is a career.
Anybody that puts on a uniform,this can be a career that can
benefit you.
But you have to look out foryour family life at home.
(54:50):
I still bring stuff home withme that I couldn't.
It's an ongoing thing that youhave to work on.
It doesn't just go awayovernight.
There's traumatic stuff thatyou see that stays with you and
stuff like that.
And an ongoing thing that youhave to deal with is you have to
learn how to separate it andleave it at work.
And I've gotten better with it.
(55:10):
I've gotten better with it overthe years.
I really have gotten betterwith it, but far from perfect.
I will say we all are.
Yeah, I know we all are.
Yeah, I know we all are.
But somebody has to do this job, and I would much rather
somebody do this job, becausehere's the thing All of us have
(55:33):
done something in our life thatcould have got us on the other
end of the spectrum or at leastlocked up overnight, at least
once other end of the spectrum,or at least locked up overnight,
at least once.
All of us has or there's alwaysthat one friend we could have
hung out with more.
That would have took us down adifferent path.
We are really- Lots of thosefriends, oh I think there will
be, but the thing about it is isthat all of us have always been
(55:58):
one decision away from notbeing where we're at right now.
And some people get into thisline of work because I was, I
did do part of my job as being alieutenant over at Hardin
County was.
I did internal affairs too, andI had three employees that we
arrested for solicitation forbasically telling an inmate's
(56:22):
girlfriend I'll get him out ofjail if you take me to your
apartment and I'll just let yourimagination go there.
And the other two werecontraband related.
And so, unfortunately, there'speople that can't say no and
cross that line, and it's sadwhen that happens, because all
of us, if you're in this line ofwork, if you're not, if you're
(56:45):
not comfortable saying the wordno, then uh, um, as soon as you
say yes, it could be justbringing this ink pen, and this
ink pen can turn into a cellphone it can turn into marijuana
, it can turn into drugs.
I mean, um, and unfortunatelythere's people that once they
got you hooked and you got afamily to feed and you got a
(57:07):
paycheck that you rely on, oncethey get you on the contraband
hook or anything, it's best ifyou just brought in the ink pen
and realized that you messed up.
Don't tell your supervisorright now.
You can stop what you're doingup.
Don't tell your supervisorright now you can stop what
you're doing.
If it gets to a point whereyou're going to bring in a knife
or hand grenade, then you havedefinitely went too far.
Speaker 1 (57:28):
Definitely went too far, absolutely.
So you said you'regoal-oriented.
What's some of the goals comingup for?
What are you trying to get done?
Speaker 2 (57:40):
Any big projects you want.
Yeah, right now.
I just submitted an applicationwith the US Marshals to start
doing some federal housing,trying to get federal inmates
inside the jail, and then afterthat we're working with the
(58:01):
fiscal court right now tohopefully build us a new
facility.
Our facility was built in 1987,and it was originally built for
20-something beds and it nowhas 102 beds and it was added on
to in 1991.
It hasn't been touched since.
(58:21):
It was added onto in 1991.
It hasn't been touched since.
So my goal is, if I hadeverything the way I kind of
want it, my goal would be tohave a new, updated facility
where I can do programs that thestate's got.
It's called like a SOAR program, where I can actually contract
with the factories and people goout and work during the day.
They send the paychecks to thejail.
(58:42):
We take part of that money togo towards child support or
restitution and then part of itgoes in the savings account with
them and everything else.
And my goal is to try to keepthe bad people away from the
people in Nelson County.
But the people that I can tryto change and try to get them a
job housing, away from whatthey're doing.
And here's the deal, thesuccess rate on this is three or
(59:05):
four out of 10.
I'm not, I'm not sugarcoatinganybody by saying, oh, I'm going
to change the world because Ican't.
But guess what?
That's three or four differentpeople, that that we don't have
to worry about reoffending, thatyou know, maybe get a chance to
be with their kids and stuff.
So I mean, how awesome is that?
Speaker 1 (59:25):
I worked around a similar program.
It's the one thing in all myyears that I thought truly
changed some inmates and changedtheir lives.
Because for them to be able togo to work just like a normal
person, we sent them out.
They went to work, they workedwith everybody else and they
saved up money.
And I've seen so many guysleave prison with 200 bucks.
(59:45):
You can't do nothing with 200bucks.
Those guys left prison withmaybe as much as $10,000.
They could pay first in thelast month's rent, they could
pay their water deposit, theycould buy a small car and a lot
of them.
On Monday morning they got outof jail on Friday On Monday
morning.
If that place thought they werea good worker, they hired them
(01:00:07):
back.
Yeah, and those were the guyswho were changed forever.
Speaker 2 (01:00:11):
Yeah, and we've also had on our county road
department and our city roaddepartment the guys that go out
and help with like leaf pickupand stuff like that.
We've had the city hire aninmate.
You know, once he was releasedthe county's actually hired some
of the four too.
(01:00:31):
So I mean, if they show thatthey work I mean our city and
county government, like for ourroad departments and stuff
they're not scared to give thema chance, which I think is great
.
It is Because it used to be the.
Of course, you know you alwaysrun background checks on people
and a background check doespaint a picture to a certain
extent.
Don't get me wrong.
But you know I've seen peoplechange.
(01:00:55):
People can change, I mean,sometimes they don't.
But the fact of the matter is,is that I say give somebody a
chance until they prove youotherwise?
You know, I mean and, and youknow what that person may be so
thankful that you give them anopportunity.
They may be one of the bestemployees you ever hire.
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:01:16):
This is not enjoyable .
In here.
Speaker 2 (01:01:17):
A lot of people think that, oh well, they keep on
coming back.
It's enjoyable.
It's like no, because let metell you, if you're addicted to
a substance or whatever, youwill burn down a church to get
hold of.
If it meant you got your nextfix of drugs.
I mean, that's just how bad ofa hold that these drugs have on
people.
Speaker 1 (01:01:39):
Well, you know it sounds like you're doing great
stuff.
I'm going to keep watching yourLinkedIn and maybe we'll get
you back on here in a few monthsor a year and see what you've
got to do and where everything'sgoing.
Speaker 2 (01:01:53):
Well, michael, I would greatly enjoy that and I
appreciate the videos that youall are doing and, like I say,
you show a field that not verymany people get to see and
actually hear about.
So I think it's very importantthat even people that don't work
in corrections just actuallylisten to what goes on.
I mean, your tax dollars paidfor it.
(01:02:14):
You might as well know about it, you know, right, yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:02:18):
So in the show notes is there some contact
information I can put on there,like the website for the jail.
Speaker 2 (01:02:25):
You can put the website.
You can even put my cell numberon there if you want.
Speaker 1 (01:02:29):
Okay, we'll put it on .
Maybe you'll get an employee,if you ever get an opening.
Speaker 2 (01:02:35):
Yeah, yeah, you can put my email, my phone number,
the whole nine yards.
Speaker 1 (01:02:39):
Okay, that'll be in the show notes.
Thank you for stopping by today, justin.
I really appreciate it and I'mlooking forward to talking to
you some more.
Speaker 2 (01:02:47):
Well, thank you very much, Michael, and I greatly
appreciate you having me today,absolutely.
Speaker 1 (01:02:52):
I would like to take a minute to thank one of our
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That's wwwomnirtlscom.
In more than 28 years of corrections, I have used or
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(00:23):
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the show notes below.
Pepperball is the safer optionfirst.
Hey everybody, welcome back tothe Prison Officer Podcast.
My name is Mike Cantrell.
Today I have the elected jailerfrom Nelson County, kentucky,
justin Hall.
He began his career in 2006 atthe Hardin County Detention
(01:05):
Center, which is the fifthlargest jail in Kentucky.
Over the years, he's worked hisway up through the ranks to
lieutenant, gaining invaluableexperience along the way.
In 2022, he was elected as theJailer of Nelson County,
officially took office in 2023,and this marks his 18th year in
the field of corrections.
In 2023, and this marks his18th year in the field of
(01:27):
corrections, the way I firstfound Justin and we haven't
talked, so this is going to bean open conversation.
But I was on LinkedIn and I gotto notice in these posts from
somebody who was just verypassionate, who was showing a
lot of the leadership things Iteach in classes and you can
just tell he loves his job andhe loves the people he works
with and I just wanted to talkto him and find out more and see
(01:50):
if I can learn something fromhim.
So welcome to the PrisonOfficer Podcast, justin.
Speaker 2 (01:54):
Well, thank you, michael, I appreciate it and,
like I was telling you earlier,I'm sure I can learn something
from you too, with all yourexperience that you have as well
.
I appreciate it.
Like I say, it's an honor to beon air, especially when it
comes to corrections, a lot ofofficers and whatnot.
You know everything that we dois behind a door.
(02:15):
It's behind, you know, thegeneral public don't get to see
it as much because if there's abig arrest on somebody that
makes the news headlines and thepolice department oh look who
we caught, you know, and whatnot, but a lot of people don't
realize that person has to go tojail and prison.
So there's a whole other groupof people that's having to make
sure their constitutional needsare met, that they get to court,
(02:36):
that they have their you knowtheir day in court and whatnot.
So a lot of correctionalofficers and, of course, in our
line of work, deputy jailers.
We a lot of times, you know, wefeel like, or can't say we feel
like it, but a lot of us feellike that.
You know it's kind of like wedo and we do a really important
job.
Speaker 1 (02:56):
That doesn't get seen by a lot of people, it's true,
it's absolutely true and I thinkjails and you know we all work
in corrections and we know thatbut from the outside I think
people have these totallydifferent viewpoints of what
going to jail is and what goingto prison is.
But a lot of the jobs that wedo inside are the same.
(03:17):
Now I spent my time in 30 yearsplus working in prison and I've
been learning a lot about jailsin the last few years.
But it is a different job.
You're handling people thathaven't been vetted as much.
A lot of them are coming in,they're still high, they're
still drunk and so you guys havea really rough job.
Tell me a little bit aboutNelson County Jail.
Speaker 2 (03:37):
Well, nelson County, I'll tell you, of course.
I started out at Hartman CountyJail, which was the fifth
largest jail and it has 648 beds, and so I worked my way up to
third in command when I wasthere.
And then my hometown is NelsonCounty and I always worked in
Hardin County, so that way Iwouldn't deal with the people I
went to school with.
So after about 12 years I cameto Nelson County to work and
(04:00):
then decided to run for office.
So now I get to run into peoplethat I know.
You know, unfortunately, whenthey get arrested, but we have a
population of almost 50,000people in Nelson County.
As a matter of fact, 90% of theworld's bourbon is made here in
Nelson County.
Your.
Speaker 1 (04:18):
Jim Beam, your.
Speaker 2 (04:19):
Baker's Mark, all that stuff.
There's distilleries.
As a matter of fact, there's adistillery walking distance from
the jail where I'm at right nowand we are a small jail.
We have 102 beds here.
We're looking at expanding to400 to 700 here coming up.
But because unfortunately thelast 20 or 30 years the jail has
(04:41):
been kind of an oversight, whenI took over as jailer it was in
a state of disrepair.
I mean there was mold, therewas, I mean, the living
conditions.
And I always look at it thisway.
Regardless, if somebody comesinto jail with a cold check or
they're charged with rape orthey're charged with murder, I'm
going to treat that offenderthe same, no matter what, and I
(05:02):
make my staff do the same thing.
Treat that offender the same,no matter what, and I make my
staff do the same thing.
But if my family member or mydaughter was to get arrested,
there's a certain level of careand a certain condition that I
want them to be housed in and itdid not meet my standard.
And so we have completely wentthrough this facility.
We have painted, we have redoneshowers, we have redone, redone
(05:23):
.
I mean it actually made it, um,you know, through our state
jail inspection by inspector.
When he first walked in myfirst, uh, first inspection, he
first thing he said was it don'tstink in here anymore.
I was like yeah.
Speaker 1 (05:37):
I was like, yeah, we actually clean it now yeah, well
, that one of those posts wasthe first thing that caught my
eye, because when you say we, Ithink you picked up a paintbrush
.
Speaker 2 (05:49):
You did some of the paint scraping.
Speaker 1 (05:52):
I mean it wasn't you telling other people what to do.
It was you leading a team ofjailers to get this up to par.
Speaker 2 (06:00):
Absolutely.
I mean, I got many times youcan roll back our video where
I'm sweeping and mopping ourfront lobby.
You know, I mean yesterday, asa matter of fact, we had the ice
storm.
I went over the road department, got our county skid steer and
I was cleaning out our front.
I was cleaning out our frontparking lot with it.
So you know, I never want to askstaff to do something that I
(06:23):
would not do.
And even my daughters at home,you know we had this ice storm
and stuff and they said oh,daddy, it's a snow day, stay
home.
You know?
No, I got to go to work andthey're like oh, you got people
at work and I had to explain toher she's young, she's real
young.
I was like I will not ask myemployees to come into work and
(06:44):
battle a slick road if I'm notwilling to do the same.
And that's the way I explain itto them.
I'm a facilitator here, the wayI look at it, and my job is to
help mentor somebody.
I'm not going to be aroundforever.
My job is to help grow theemployees I got here and so that
(07:07):
way, when I decide to hang itup, there's somebody that can
take the reins over and can runthis place.
You know, I mean that's whatthe goal is.
I try.
I always got aggravated in mycareer and I saw it happen many
times where a supervisor wouldteach somebody just many times
where a supervisor would teachsomebody just enough to do their
(07:29):
job, but not enough to wherethey could jump up to the next
level.
And if you do that, you're not.
It's not only not fair to theemployee and some employees take
offense to it, because ifyou're training somebody that's
only done this one job for thelast 10 years and you're saying,
all right, I'm gonna bringdeputy a and b in to learn your
job, oh god, he's getting readyto fire me, so I did something
(07:50):
wrong.
Well, no, if you have a medicalleave or you need to take off
or whatever, the jail still gotto operate.
So I want people cross-trained.
There's nothing personal, sure.
(08:16):
Especially in a small jail, youdon't have 100 people to choose
from.
I also have biometric sensorsin our single cells that use
radar.
Now to where they actuallymonitor respiration and heart
rate.
So if somebody goes into adetox or a heart attack
situation, we get an audiblealarm in our booking area.
Speaker 1 (08:38):
So I know a little bit about some of these, but so
is that on their wrist or on thewall?
Speaker 2 (08:42):
No, it's actually in the ceiling.
Matter of fact, I got one uphere I'll show it to you real
quick.
Hold on, Okay, this is my sparein case it goes down.
This is actually in aprotective housing, because you
don't get inmates in a singlecell where they wouldn't destroy
it, but inside of it.
There's an actual radar chip inhere, right?
So this is mounted on theceiling of the cell and inside.
(09:03):
So this is mounted on theceiling of the cell and inside.
It actually monitors the chestgoing up and down and it
actually can sense the pulse ofthe inmate.
No kidding, yes.
And so in my control room andinside my booking area I have a
screen and it's green for if theinmate's good, and it's red, if
the inmate's bad, and if itgoes orange, that means that,
(09:26):
hey, we lost a pulse, we lost aheart rate.
Speaker 1 (09:28):
And so and the reason I did that you mentioned
earlier.
Speaker 2 (09:33):
We get people that come in all the time on all
different kinds of drugs.
You know, when I installed thebody scanner, everybody was like
, oh, you're never going to getcontraband in that jail.
Now you got a body scanner.
I'm like no, I was likeeverything that we have is a
tool they've been gettingcontraband in jails since the
(09:53):
1500s, you know, and um, and thebody scanner is not going to
stop it.
It's a tool and we have, we'vehad non-felony indictments out
of the body scanner, which hasbeen a great tool.
But if we have somebody thathas some fentanyl a very small
amount and it doesn't have thedensity for that body scanner to
pick it up, and if they'restrip searchable, if we go do a
(10:15):
strip search on the personbecause Kentucky is one of the
only three states that you can'tstrip search everybody that
walks inside the jail, believeit or not there's actually a
criteria we have to follow.
So if they're strip searchable,um, and we don't find it,
that's in a body cavity, it'snow in the institution.
So and um, and luckily you knowwe've saved some people's lives
(10:36):
that you know that's happened.
But we also um, several monthsago we had a lady in a body
cavity that had 40fentanyl-laced pills.
It was enough to kill sevenpeople that we intercepted
before it made it inside thejail because of the body scan.
So it was a blessing.
It was a blessing because thelast thing, a lot of us, you
(10:59):
know, there's never headlines ina jail or prison that says look
what the jail did.
Today there was three peoplethat you know got their GED
today.
You know that never makes youknow late breaking news, but if
somebody dies that's going to beall over the news and the last
thing any of us want in thisbusiness is for somebody to die.
(11:22):
I don't know a single personthat's been in correction that I
mean.
There's some of them that giveyou a hard day, you know a hard
time or a hard day, but at theend of the day I want them to go
home to their family and getthe help that they need.
Speaker 1 (11:36):
You know I mean.
Speaker 2 (11:38):
and so you know that's what's a little bit
different with the prisons thatwe get people that come in on
drugs and we got to protect themfrom themselves the other
population and we gotco-defendants.
You may have five or six peoplethat's arrested in a drug
charge or a violent charge andwe have to keep separate so they
can't interfere with the case.
You know, and a lot of timesonce they go to prison and the
(12:00):
case is adjudicated, then youknow that's not really too big
of an issue because you've gotdifferent prisons you can go to,
but they're stuck with me untiltheir case is done.
Yeah, yeah, so when got you?
Speaker 1 (12:11):
started.
In corrections I saw that youwent to college for IT.
Speaker 2 (12:18):
Yeah, and it's kind of a funny story.
That's what my college is in isactually in IT, network
security, and that'sunfortunately it's a curse too,
because I'm also the IT guy forthe county too, so I'm a jailer
class IT person.
I don't make any extra off ofit, but you know, hey, there you
go.
But I got into IT and I'm sureyou can tell I'm kind of a
(12:43):
talkaholic, so computers don'treally talk back to you very
much.
And after I got out of doingcollege I was like I'm not going
to stand in front of a screeneight, nine, ten hours a day,
and I always wanted to get inlaw enforcement.
A lot of people use correctionsas a stepping stone to be a
police officer and stuff likethat.
Well, I had this big dream thatafter I got out of college I
(13:04):
was going to go get incorrections.
I was going to, you know, getin top flight shape and I was
going to go to the state policeor sheriff's department and all
that stuff, you know.
And then the job just took ahold of me.
It just took a hold of me, itbecame a passion.
I realized that I could doeverything that I wanted to do
(13:28):
inside of a jail without havingto deal with the other stuff.
And I progressed.
You know the old saying hardwork pays off.
When I started Hardin CountyJail, I knew no one.
I didn't know the jailer aheadof time, I didn't know any of
the command staff, did not knowa single employee that worked
there.
And so when they say hard workpays off, in 12 years I was
(13:51):
third in command at thatfacility because of hard work
and anybody that follows yourpolicy and procedure do what
you're supposed to do.
And hey, I made plenty ofmistakes.
I'm not saying that I'm, youknow, the perfect and oh, I did
all this great stuff throughoutmy career and never made a
mistake.
I made my mistake, but thething about it is you don't make
(14:14):
it twice, right, yeah, yeah,and so it's been a very
rewarding career.
Now, I've had, I've witnessed,my fair share of bad things.
I've had, I've witnessed myfair share of bad things, I mean
, especially in jail.
You know we've had somesuicides, you know, and stuff
like that.
Unfortunately it happened.
I will say the suicides that wehad in the past, all of them
(14:35):
had a heartbeat, you know itwasn't, they wasn't, you know,
in there for an extended periodof time.
Everybody did their job but,and you know, and it showed that
we did what we were supposed todo.
But that's stuff that a lot ofpeople don't realize, that I
still remember every one of them.
I still remember every one oftheir faces and that never goes
away.
And a lot of people don'trealize that that's the stuff
(14:58):
that, over a career that you'regoing to take with you, that's
going to always be on yourshoulders.
You may not think about it allthat often, but they're always
with you.
Speaker 1 (15:14):
That's always something you take with your
career.
I know as you got intocorrections tell me about.
I always like to hear aboutthis.
What was that like when youfirst walked in?
Did you know people in jail?
Did you you know family members?
Speaker 2 (15:28):
I had.
No, I had nobody.
I got what.
Everybody has a one cousin oruncle that you know goes to jail
, hit and miss and stuff likethat.
We all had those.
Nobody was in jail.
But I remember my first daylike it was yesterday.
Of course it's before they giveyou a uniform, before you go
through your training, your FTOperiod and everything else, and
(15:49):
I remember walking through thedoors and it was during court
day.
So Arden County Jail has thisbig long metal bench.
You know I'm 21 years old, justturned 21, and I remember
walking in through those two bigmetal doors and slamming behind
me and there's this big row oforange.
You know inmates, you know onthere and not going to lie.
(16:11):
You know you're a littleintimidated when that happens
you know, and I was thinkingthere for a little bit, I was
like I may have just screwed up.
I was like I may have justscrewed up, but once you go
through your training and thenyou realize that it's just the
color of the uniform, there'sactually a human being still
(16:31):
inside of that and it's a peoplebusiness.
Now there's sometimes in thisline of work it's not always
rainbows and butterflies.
I'll try to help somebody, butI will be the first one.
My inmates know how I operate.
They know I'm fair, firm andconsistent.
But if you cross over the rules,you know I'll be the first one
to get into them, and so that isa line that you know.
(16:56):
That's a learned skill.
And I will say, the first weekthere I was on pins and needles
whenever I walked in that door,every single time and and the
first time you know actually hada, you know, physical use of
force, the first time when you,the first time when you're doing
a self search and you findcontraband, the first time that
(17:17):
you're doing a pat-down, firsttime you have a medical
emergency, all these littlethings or whatever, slowly start
building your experience insideof everything.
But they also but they alsoreprogram you a little bit to
where you know, to where youactually have to realize that
you're dealing with people andyour job is to not only protect
(17:40):
the community that you'rekeeping them away from.
You actually got to take careof them too.
Speaker 1 (17:44):
Yeah, yeah, there are charges Absolutely.
Yeah, absolutely, yeah, thereare charges Absolutely.
Yeah absolutely so.
Now I think, before I go to thenext question, I need you to
explain something to a lot ofpeople, because I didn't know
this until a few years ago.
In most places, when you sayI'm a jailer, that means that
you work in a jail In Kentucky.
(18:06):
That's the jail administrator.
It's an elected position.
It's an elected position.
So explain to me why Kentucky'sdifferent.
If you know, and what it takesto become the jailer.
Speaker 2 (18:18):
Yeah, and basically what happened was, of course,
indiana and a lot of the onesthat border us.
Their sheriff's department runsa jail.
And what happened, and Ibelieve it was the third
constitution of Kentucky.
They made the office of jailerand they made the office of
sheriff, and the reason theysplit both of them is because
(18:41):
back in those times Kentucky wasriddled with corruption, so the
people doing the catch-em wasalso the same people doing the
holding.
So, we were friends with theperson and money was passed
under the table and all thatstuff.
So the mindset was at the timewas we're going to split both
(19:01):
offices.
We're going to have a separateperson that's elected to run
this jail, a separate personthat's here to be a sheriff, be
the law enforcement in thecounty and so there's two
elected positions the sheriff'sdepartment and the jail.
We are completely separate.
They're different budgets.
We both have the sameconstitutional arrest power.
(19:21):
If I want, I stay in my lane,but if I wanted to go ride a
speeding ticket, I could.
Speaker 1 (19:26):
I don't do it.
You know, if I wanted to goserve a ticket, I could, I don't
do it Interesting.
Speaker 2 (19:29):
If I wanted to go serve a warrant, I could, I
don't so can you be oppositeparties?
Speaker 1 (19:36):
Yes, can you be Republican.
Speaker 2 (19:39):
Well, matter of fact, I'm a Republican and my
friend's a sheriff and he's aDemocrat Interesting, but yeah,
so it's separate.
I mean, I'm real good friendswith our sheriff here in nelson
county and uh and um, and we'renot running against each other.
It's basically a different.
The office of jailers aseparate box on there, you know
(20:00):
for, and there's a and there's118 elected jailers in the state
of kentucky.
That is just so interesting.
Yeah, it is, and I'll tell youan interesting fact If you ever
get to look at the history ofjailers and also lynchings that
took place in Kentucky, if youget into some of the history,
there's an interesting storyabout a jailer that was in
(20:22):
Owensboro, davies County, ifanybody wants to look that up.
And what happened was?
I just want to paint a picturefor you.
Sure, okay, this is rightduring the middle of right,
during the middle of, you know,peak of racism, the peak of you
know, really, african Americans,everything they went through.
(20:42):
And there was an AfricanAmerican man that was charged
with, I believe it was rape ormurder, and he was held in
Davies County Jail.
The jailer at the time used tobe a Confederate soldier.
Okay, used to be, but he wasn'tanymore.
He got elected as jailer.
Well, the town mob came to thejail to get this man out because
(21:02):
they was going to lynch him inthe street.
The jailer, who was a white man, them held off the town as much
as he could.
They actually shot and killedthe jailer, ran into the jail to
get the guy and and did whatthey did to him.
And unfortunately I mean youjust look at, think about this a
confederate, an ex-confederate,okay, gave his life to protect
(21:25):
an african-american that he wasduly sworn to protect until he
had his day in court.
But unfortunately, whathappened?
But that's actually aninteresting story.
If you look at some of thehistory of the jailers in
Kentucky, there's a very robusthistory with all of them.
Speaker 1 (21:44):
That's just so fascinating.
I mean I can think of some wayswhy that would be so good.
And then I could see well, I'veseen jail administrators and
sheriffs.
The jail administrators arepointed and they still bump
heads.
Speaker 2 (21:58):
Yeah right.
Speaker 1 (22:00):
Sheriffs often don't even like dealing.
I won't say don't like it, butdealing with the jail is the
part of their job that theynormally dislike the most right
and that's um.
Speaker 2 (22:11):
And there has been talks um over the years, you
know, because it has beenobvious.
You know everyone's like you'llget a legislator.
Somebody said why don't we justall the other states just merge
them together?
But the sheriffs, you know theygot their own stuff.
They said, you know, if it'snot broke, don't don fix it.
You know, and so you know everylaw enforcement agency you're
(22:31):
going to have some disagreementsand stuff.
I'm very blessed we have areally good relationship with
ours, you know, and whatnot.
But none of the sheriffs wantthe headache, you know, because
honestly, as a sheriff you know,hats off to the sheriffs that
run the patrol and the jails,Because I mean they got a jail
(22:54):
administrator but at the end ofthe day, whenever something goes
wrong with that jail, theirname goes on the bottom of that
lawsuit and they're not eventhere to deal with it.
Right?
And another thing is that I'mhere every day.
So the people in Nelson Countyif they got a family member
locked up or something at thejail, Matter of fact, I'm one of
the few elected officials thatI publicly post my phone number.
(23:18):
Everybody in the county can callme directly at any time and
sometimes they take very goodadvantage of that.
But me and the sheriff, Ibelieve, are one of the few
elected officials and weactually leave our cell phones
public Anybody that's a citizen.
We work for them.
(23:38):
So if they need to get hold ofsomebody that they hired at the
election box, I think it's onlyfair.
Speaker 1 (23:46):
Interesting.
So let me pick your brain again, because there's something else
I saw on your posts that Ididn't recognize or haven't
dealt with before, and that isthis fiscal court.
Fiscal court, yes, and I haveseen where you have taken checks
and you're sending them backthere.
What is?
Speaker 2 (24:06):
that all about.
So and this is what I alwaysfind quite interesting, because
I always ask somebody and I mayask you what you all do in
Missouri, because every state isso different on how they do
things.
In Kentucky every jail has acontract with the phone service
(24:29):
provider Because the way thestate law is written is that all
the phone calls are collected,part of the contract of allowing
a certain carrier into the jail, whatever their profit is, they
get part of the profit back tothe fiscal court to help offset
the cost of the jail.
(24:49):
Basically, the best way to lookat a fiscal court it's
basically the county's citycouncil.
That's the best way I candescribe it.
So you have a judge executivewhich is technically the mayor
of the county, and you havemagistrates which are elected,
which are basically the citycouncil members of the county,
and basically they hold thecheckbook.
I present a budget, theyapprove my budget and you know
(25:15):
budgets in jails is just it'sjust educated guesswork, because
I don't know if I'm going tohave an inmate with a major
medical expense or somethinglike that.
But also the state statute alsoallows us to charge um a per
diem rate, you know, whensomebody's house a booking fee
when they're housed, and um alsoallows us to take a percentage
(25:37):
of deposits when they put moneyon their canteen.
So that money that you see methat I'm writing checks for.
Uh, let's say somebody's beenin here 10 days and their
parents put a hundred dollars ontheir books for them to buy,
commissary, the jail would take$10 of that, that $10 at the end
of the month, depending on howmuch is taken and what book it
fees.
(25:57):
Those are the checks that I cutback to fiscal court that in
turn help operate the jail.
Okay.
Speaker 1 (26:04):
Okay.
So, it is coming back around.
Speaker 2 (26:06):
Yeah, it is coming back around.
Speaker 1 (26:08):
Yes, it's not set aside just for you.
If this month the road crewneeds more money than the jail
does, they could use that moneyover there.
Speaker 2 (26:17):
They could use it over there.
Yeah, it's shown as an incomeline item on the budget but
ultimately it ends up in thegeneral fund Interesting and on
our commissary account and Iknow several jails have
commissary accounts and whatnotthe profits from it.
You know we have a work program.
You know inmates get to go outand paint and you know pick up
(26:39):
garbage and different tradeitems.
I'm getting ready to start HVACand plumbing.
We had welding last year.
But the deputies that I have goout I pay their salaries out of
the profits from the canteenaccount, so it don't cost the
taxpayers any money for them.
The body scanner that we got.
I can spend that money oninmate work programs, something
(27:01):
that benefits the inmates orsomething that benefits the
security of the jail.
It's all I can use it for.
I can't use it to go anything.
That's Buy pizza for the stafffor sure.
Yeah, I can't buy pizza for thestaff or throw a Christmas
party with it.
Right, like I said, we haveabout four inmate crews that go
(27:23):
out during the week.
As a matter of fact, I got fiveout today.
That's helping salt some of thesidewalks and stuff from our
ice storm that we had.
They all like it.
They're in their own work dorm.
When they go out to work.
I have them a reallyhigh-calorie lunch that they go
out with them.
They probably get an extrathousand calories of what we
(27:47):
serve inside here at the jail.
We actually exceed the staterequirement by about 600
calories just for our regularinmates.
So, yeah, but, like I say, thetechnology has been the biggest
thing, and I'll tell you, as faras you're talking about when I
walked in this jail, about howin dire repair it was, I'll tell
(28:09):
you, my first day I walked inthe jail, we had a person on
suicide watch and it was shiftchange, and so I'm just using
this as an example.
So setting the clock rollingaround and I see an employee
over here doing this is a lawright Person on suicide watch,
and I see this Forging a law,and not only is that illegal.
(28:36):
That showed me that they're notdoing their job.
And we basically had a big, hugetraining with all the staff on
what to expect and I switchedeverything to electronic logging
.
There's RFID tags on the celldoor with all the staff on what
to expect, and I switchedeverything to electronic logging
.
There's RFID tags on the celldoor.
(28:57):
I got a grant for all newcameras with audio, and so they
have to physically RFID scan andopen the cell door and count a
respiration of an inmate thatthey're sleeping to mark them
during their check.
And under state law in Kentuckyon our regular dorms it's one
check an hour.
If somebody's on a suicidewatch, it's every 20 minutes, or
a medical watch, it's every 20minutes.
(29:17):
So now they can't.
There's no way for them toforge a law if it's all
electronic, and that was verytroubling to me, taking over as
a jailer, to see that, becauseif that's been happening, then
guess what it's been happeningfor a long time.
Speaker 1 (29:30):
Unfortunately, there is a portion of our staff that
do stuff like that.
Speaker 2 (29:35):
Right, exactly.
Speaker 1 (29:36):
When I made lieutenant I got access to the
camera systems and at the time Iworked, the camera systems
would show if there was movementon the camera.
You could see this little deal.
So the other lieutenant'steaching me how to use this and
we pull up a housing unit andit's flatlined for six hours and
(29:57):
I'm like, well, what causedthat?
And so we go back through thecameras and up until that point
because I'd never done it myself, never seen anybody do it.
Right, you couldn't tell methat there were people who
skipped counts.
Yeah, I didn't know that.
And, uh, it just blew away.
It broke my heart.
It's what it did.
Speaker 2 (30:11):
It's a hit and a miss .
Until you remember thosesuicides and stuff I was telling
you about before, or anyincident that you have in this
field.
If you stay in it long enough,you're eventually going to have
to do a deposition in your time.
I've done several.
(30:32):
They're never pleasant, anduntil you actually are getting
drilled by an attorney for aboutthree hours on what you did and
didn't do and one of the caseswhen you wasn't even there and
you're getting drilled aboutwhat your staff does until
you're in that seat.
Sometimes the importance and theseverity of somebody's actions
(30:53):
does not register with them andI can tell it to them a thousand
times.
We've had meetings with staffwhere I'm like you know your
boss documentation and yourchecks and your follow-ups and
everything and and the way youtreat inmates and stuff.
Like you know, when you firststart out in this field, you
know you get some officers thatare really cocky and you know
(31:14):
and whatnot and you try to tonethem down a little bit because
nine times out of ten I can walkand talk to somebody and it may
take five minutes but withoutme even laying a finger I can
get what we need accomplisheddone.
Sometimes we can't.
I mean sometimes you have to goto that next level and I tell
my staff if we have to go tothat next level, our policy
(31:36):
allows that and we do it.
But if I can talk somebody downand save a page and a half on
the incident report, I'm all forit.
You know, absolutely.
Can you talk a to me aboutstaff.
Speaker 1 (31:52):
And another thing that I see.
You know I've got several ofthese posts where you highlight
your staff.
You talk about the good thingsthey're doing.
It's not just you know.
The only coverage we normallyget is when something goes wrong
.
Right, exactly.
You can keep 1,000 inmatesinside the walls.
(32:12):
One gets out and all of asudden it's in the media.
Yeah, right.
You can save a dozen inmatesfrom suicide, but if one dies,
it's in the media.
So it's so important and I lovewhat you do.
So talk to me about how youbuild up staff and how your
leadership style.
Speaker 2 (32:31):
Well, my leadership style is number one is that I
have an open door.
Speaker 1 (32:36):
I tell all staff.
Speaker 2 (32:38):
All staff can come and they don't have to.
If they, I encourage them touse their chain of command, but
they know that they can sidestepit if they need to come talk to
me over something.
Now, sometimes, if they come inand it's something that needs
to go through the chain ofcommand, I will redirect them
where they need to go.
But I think the leadershipstyle is that I've told them, if
(33:00):
you follow the policy andprocedure and do what you're
trained to do or whatever, Ithink they see that I have their
back on things.
You know.
I think number one is yourstaff has to have trust in you.
Now I've had to let people go,but every person that I've let
go have known what they've donewrong and I'm not a person to
(33:22):
just walk in one day and say, ohwell, you're five minutes late,
you're gone, I don't need youanymore.
You know, I try to bring themin, I try to coach people, try
to correct it and, plus gettingtraining.
This year we actually the jailnever had this.
We actually did a Deputy of theYear Award, a Rookie of the
(33:42):
Year Award, a Lifesaving Award,and we did a Christmas party for
all the staff with food andeverything else and some
giveaways and whatnot.
The jail never really hadanything.
I think it had a few thingslike that in the past.
You know, at Christmas time Itry to give them extra stuff.
And another thing I did toowhen I took over as jailer.
(34:04):
You're going to find this iscrazy, because I thought it was
crazy too.
How many days a week do youthink the full-time work before
they had a day off?
I'm going to see if you canguess their normal schedule.
Let's say I hired you asfull-time at Nelson County
Correctional Center, how manydays would you expect to work
before you had a day off?
(34:24):
Five, seven.
They were working seven on, twooff every other weekend and I
was like, how can you?
I mean, that's just, that'sjust.
So we switched to a 10 hourshift.
They now have three days off,you know, and so they have more
(34:45):
time home with their family.
You know that was one thing thatwe did and I let them put an
input.
I say I may not take every word, but I think people having the
confidence where they canbecause here's the thing,
complacency is evil okay, I'mguilty of it myself.
I may have been doing somethingthe last 18 years.
Somebody may come along and saywhy are you doing it this way?
(35:05):
And make a suggestion, and I'mlike that's a good idea.
I never thought about that.
And having that gear open andnever acting like you're better
than somebody else.
I tell you I treat our inmatesand our staff like they're human
beings.
You know I compliment, and oneof my good friends who's also a
(35:29):
trainer as well.
You may know him, jeff Carter.
Speaker 1 (35:32):
I know him.
Speaker 2 (35:33):
I know him, Jeff Carter.
He does a lot of training inKentucky, and one thing that he
said that's always resonated meon leadership is that a good
leader, you're going to know, ifyour staff member's married,
what their kids' names are, whattheir wife's name is.
(35:54):
It doesn't mean you have toknow every personal detail about
them, but if you don't know thepeople that's in your facility
on a level like that or whatever, then you really don't know who
you're working for.
I really think a respect thinggoes a long way.
I really feel like they'regetting more invested into them.
(36:20):
Like you know, when I took overas jailer, there wasn't a
single deputy firearm circle.
Okay, yeah, so we're all swornpeace officers, and I'll just
tell you how I figured this outIf you want another funny story
to add to the podcast.
I'm at my first month in right.
(36:41):
So I have a person that'scharged with attempted murder on
a police officer and thisindividual decided to um pour
tylenol and decided to take abunch of them.
That he was cheating, you know,and and he was able to get
passed on on that, and so heended up taking a bunch of them.
So he had to get sent to thehospital to get his stomach
(37:02):
pumped, right.
So I'm at home when thishappens, so they call me, so I
start heading up to the hospital, you know, and I'm saying, all
right, be sure, there's an armeddeputy that's firearm certified
.
And then my staff's like what'sthat?
Nobody here is certified with afirearm.
I was like Nobody here iscertified with a firearm.
So we're taking somebody to thehospital that's charged with
attempted murder on a policeofficer and the jailer is the
(37:23):
only one that's firearmcertified.
So the training has been a bigthing.
We've firearms, firearms, useof force, you know, restraint,
pair and stuff.
They never had any trainingwith it.
They did the bare state minimumtraining here.
But we are now doing trainingall the time and I feel like
when staff gets involved theyfeel like they're being invested
(37:44):
in you know.
They feel like that.
You know, all right, theyactually care about me, that
they're wanting me to succeed,and I pay trainers to come in
from all over the state ofKentucky to sit down with the
staff to do it and I reallythink if you show that effort
with your staff it really goes along way, because the training
that they had before was alittle online training.
(38:04):
You know they could have beendoing their dishes and not even
listening to what it says, butif you have a, you have a person
sitting in a seat that'slistening to somebody talk.
You know that they're gettingthe material and that's the way.
Speaker 1 (38:17):
I look at it.
So what I'm hearing here is acombination of many things, and
I'll get to one deal One.
You're listening to your staff,you're letting them have input,
you're making them moresuccessful and giving them
skills so that they can succeedin whatever they decide to do.
This is a staff member that'sgoing to stay around, and where
I'm going with this is.
(38:38):
I saw, I saw where you'd postedthe circuit court, the jailer's
report, and I got to looking atthat and you are 100% staffed.
Speaker 2 (38:48):
Yes, 100% staffed.
Speaker 1 (38:51):
That right there says a lot, and now that I'm talking
to you, now that I'm hearingsome of this stuff you're
talking about, I understand whyyou're 100% staffed, because
they can tell that you careright and and they know, and
they know, at the end of the day, I still have to be their boss.
Speaker 2 (39:11):
But they know, at the end of the day, whatever
happens, they're going to get afair shake right.
And I always tell them I'm notperfect.
You know what I mean.
I mean I've had to suspendemployees, I've had to let
people go, but it's never afirst time ordeal.
It's always.
I bring them in here and I tryto talk to them.
I'm like you know, I was like,just be, you know.
I tried to explain to them.
I was like, if you want to gowork down at the factory down
(39:31):
the road, they're still notgoing to allow you to be late
for work.
You know, I think you know I'mlike regarding, I was like you
know there has to be, uh, and Iguess the best way I it was hard
the first six months becausethe tail was wagging the dog
here, unfortunately.
Yeah, staff was coming inwhenever they wanted to leave
and whenever they wanted towrite.
(39:52):
I mean, incident reports arenot getting done.
There was a culture, yeah, andit was a culture and so it's
been a.
It's been a lot of work, a lotof sleepless nights.
I'm not going to lie, but I'm areligious person, you know, and
part of it to me is that youknow God always says to help
(40:15):
your most vulnerable, and stufflike that.
So I think it's a veryhonorable profession that we do.
It's because most of the peoplethat's in jail are ones that
society has cast out, andthere's some people inside this
jail that do not need to get outof it.
I have about 20 or 25 of them.
They need to go to prison forthe rest of their life and as
soon as they get out, they'regoing to hurt somebody.
(40:36):
They don't need to get out.
But I also have a lot of otherpeople that are in here for
drugs and have a substance abuseproblem, that need treatment,
that are actually good peopleonce they get sobered up.
And those are the people that Itry to reach with these
programs.
The ones that are violentoffenders and stuff like that I
can't change either.
(40:56):
I can't.
You know, I can't change evil.
The ones that have rapedsomebody and done stuff like
that, I can't.
And even statistics have shownyou can't change that behavior.
Right, you know their chancesof reoffending is very high.
But if I got somebody that is areal good person, a hard worker
, and they want to go throughsome of the programs that we
have here, I will try to to getthem a job.
(41:18):
When they get down, I will tryto get them housing.
Uh, we had a guy that wentthrough our program, was a state
inmate here, because we holdstate prisoners here too.
I doesn't want to go out andwork, so we hold state and
county and uh, he, his family,was up in cincinnati that's
where he was from and he endedup being down here and so he had
no way of getting home.
So remember the commissaryaccount I was telling you about,
(41:41):
you can use it for the benefitof the inmate.
So guess what?
I bought him a bus ticket anddrove him all the way to
Louisville so that way he couldget on a bus and get to his
family in Cincinnati for NewYear's.
But it's little stuff.
You do like that to people.
Speaker 1 (41:56):
That's not little stuff.
When're in internet, sitting inprison and you see that kind of
stuff, that's huge.
They may have never had anybodytake the time when when they're
sitting in jail and they seestaff taking time to to get the
mold out of the shower and putfresh paint on there, because
that's where they have to take ashower every day right, they
(42:17):
see you guys.
I saw dorm two, I think, whereyou guys are doing a bunch of,
you know, cleaning up the bedsand the walls and all that stuff
.
That's huge to those inmatesand jail as well as prison.
People talk about it in prisonbut jail runs on respect also
Absolutely and I know that justfrom what I see.
They feel the respect there.
Speaker 2 (42:40):
Yeah, and know that just from what I see they feel
the respect there I'm probablyone of the few jails too.
It used to be, and you probablyremember this, I know you do,
and several jails probably stilldo this.
I'm sure whoever watches thiswill know the paper it may
request agreements, right, ofcourse.
All of ours are electronic nowyou never have to worry about.
(43:01):
Well, he wrote a green with anomega.
It didn't make it to the box,right, so you?
don't have to worry about that,which that builds confidence
with inmates too, but they alsohave a box on there where they
can select jail, and it goesstraight to my laptop in here,
and if they have a legitimateconcern that the grievance
(43:24):
process is not addressed andthey make request process is not
addressed, they can write medirectly yeah, they can they can
bypass the staff completely andwrite me directly now.
sometimes I'm really good atchecking email, so sometimes
I'll be like, hey, when's mynext court date?
And I'll be like, use a regularrequest and be patient.
I'm not going to do that, butyou would be surprised on how
(43:50):
much that cuts down onlitigation, because I can catch
something before it turns into acivil rights issue.
I can catch something before itturns into maybe an inmate and
deputy conflict, an inmate oninmate conflict and having that
open door and having that flowof communication.
(44:12):
My jail inspector, I think,said it, and again I'm not
trying to brag there's a lot ofjails and a lot of prisons that
do probably a better job than Ido.
I'm not saying that we're likea gold standard by any means and
.
I hope nobody takes it as thatway.
But one thing that my jailinspector I never really paid
attention to it as much.
(44:33):
When he comes down, we have twojail inspections a year and one
of them is planned and one ofthem is a pop he just randomly
shows up like hey, we're goingto do a jail inspection.
But one thing he brought upthat I never really thought
about was after we were donedoing the rounds.
We go inside every single dorm.
He asked every inmate hey, areyou being treated fairly?
(44:56):
Is anything going on?
And stuff like that.
And I tell the inmates too, too,because I'm with you.
I'm like guys, this is a nojudgment zone, something's wrong
in here.
I want you to tell them.
Tell him straight up what'swrong.
I tell every inmate do notpretend like, pretend like I'm
not here, I want you to buckle.
And he said, uh, after he gotdone he's like, out of all those
(45:16):
inmates we only had onecomplaint, he like.
But a lot of times, whenever Iget walked around, the inmates
will huddle around the jailerasking a thousand questions
because they've never seen andthey'll want to know questions
about when they're going to work.
And he said none of the inmatesdid that to you when you walked
around and I was like that'sbecause I'm available.
Speaker 1 (45:36):
You know, and so that helps out a lot.
It's such a good lesson.
You know, if you go back in the70s and 80s, the big riots that
happened across the country, oh, absolutely, absolutely the end
of the day, it was about notfeeling heard.
They couldn't get theirgrievances heard, nobody was
(45:57):
listening.
And you're absolutely right tothe point.
I've seen this so much in mycareer, especially, and I'll say
, in prisons.
Sometimes we're overstaffed uptop.
Okay.
Speaker 2 (46:09):
Oh yeah, right, right , yeah.
Speaker 1 (46:10):
No, I mean more, more at the bottom, fewer at the top
Right, but you would.
You see these people who makethat.
One hour after their lunch onWednesday.
They walk through the housingunit.
You know the deputy or thewarden or whoever it is could be
the captain or a psychologist,and they don't ever stop.
They just walk through so thatthey can be seen on camera.
(46:30):
And you're right, when they getthe chance, those inmates are
just blah because they haven'ttalked to them in forever.
Right, you do see that ifyou're into security and you
walk around an institution, youwill see the inmates who feel
like they're hurt, who haveaccess to staff.
Speaker 2 (46:51):
This thing is following up.
I always tell staff don't bescared to say no.
But also, if you say you'regoing to do something by the end
of your shift, if you sayyou're going to do X, y and Z, x
, y and Z better be done,because the only thing you've
got your word and respect inhere and once you lose it, it's
done, it's done.
(47:11):
And it's very, very hard to getback and it's a two-way road.
Inmates got to give it toreceive it as well.
I mean, it's a two-way road.
But I've had people, you know,on both sides of the spectrum.
You know, some people have wentand said, you know where I'm
trying to offer programs andstuff and they're like, well,
you're too soft on them, feedthem bread and water Heck, you
know, chain them to a wall.
(47:32):
You know, do whatever.
You know.
You know why don't they canethem like they do in Singapore
and stuff?
And my thing is there's severaldifferent answers to that.
Number one treat others the wayyou want to be treated.
I'm not a judge.
I'm not a judge nor a jury.
My job is to.
(47:53):
My job by statute is to makesure that our constitutional
rights are met and that they getfair access to the court.
I'm not allowed to judge them,but just by my law I'm not
allowed to judge them at all.
That's number one.
Number two why would I not tryto help somebody if I'm in a
(48:13):
position to help somebody?
Number three is that it's notalways rainbows and butterflies.
I do post a lot of positivestuff or whatever, but there's
times when I'm sure you'll seeme if I'm in the back and
somebody's yelling or whatever.
I'll jump right in the mix andset them straight too.
So I mean it's.
It's not always like that.
I mean there's times when youhave to jump in and be and take
(48:37):
over a situation, but a littlekindness never really hurt
anybody.
Speaker 1 (48:42):
No, it doesn't, and I've been around long enough and
in enough places that I've seenthe inmates who were treated
like that, who were treated theway you're talking about.
Some of those people wanted andone thing that people don't
understand when it comes tosecurity if you've got an inmate
that has nothing, he also hasnothing to lose, absolutely, and
(49:04):
they're unmanageable, right.
So it's so much easier andpeople don't like this sometimes
, but you've heard me talk aboutit on the podcast before it is
so much easier to lead inmatesas a leader, to have influence
with them, than it is to walk inthere and try to.
You're not.
You're once you get them downand they have nothing.
You can't do anything with that.
Speaker 2 (49:25):
Yeah and just a regular officer and deputy.
You know I'll ask them orwhatever.
Uh, I ask them most time twoquestions.
I'm like number one um, as soonas we walk into the jail, are
we using force on the inmatesthat's in here?
And they're like, no, we, no,we're all right here.
I was like, yes, you are,you're keeping them in here.
That's a use of force, keepingthem inside this building.
I was like number two I tellthem, whenever you're actually
(49:51):
interacting and dealing withthese inmates that we're talking
with, don't ever think thatyou've got cameras above you and
everything else.
Always pretend like thesecameras in these ceilings are
broadcasting out to CNN and FoxNews at all times.
And I was like, if you havethat mindset, then you are going
(50:12):
to do what you're supposed todo.
And because the cameras arethere to protect you just as
much as they are anybody elsethose cameras have saved, I
don't know.
I remember when we first putcameras in at Hardin County Jail
, the deputies were like, oh man, cameras everywhere.
But guess what?
You don't know how many timesan inmate wrote a grievance and
said well, such and such did X,y and Z at this time and pulling
(50:35):
up on camera.
It never happened and it saved.
I remember when we used to havea fight or altercation before
we had cameras inside the dormwe'd have to put in inmate
statements and you know there'sonly two toilets in there, but
all 15 of them would say it wasin the restroom when it happened
, you know.
They didn't see nothing right,so you know, but it's
(50:57):
technology's helped out incorrections big time as well.
Speaker 1 (51:00):
Yeah.
So what made you want to becomejailer?
How did you take that step fromhey, I'm a correctional officer
, now I'm a lieutenant to.
I want to take over the.
I want to be in charge of thewhole jail.
Speaker 2 (51:12):
Well, to tell you the truth, I had ambitions on doing
it back when I first started.
I've always been kind ofgoal-driven.
Once I decided it was kind ofone of my goals.
I was always like you know, I'mgoing to run for jailer one day
.
Well, then my kids were bornand my priorities changed and it
(51:33):
just so happened that one of myfriends who was jailer for one
term here before I took over hetalked to me and he said you
know, I'm probably not going torun again.
He's like I know how youoperate and stuff and I really
think that you would do the jailsome good if you ran.
And I was a hard no at first Iwas like do I want to put my
(51:56):
family through all the politicalstuff that comes along with it?
And you know, as soon as youfile, if you've got an R beside
your name, then the D'sautomatically hate you.
If you've got a D, then the R'sautomatically hate you.
And so I was like, do I reallywant to put my family through
this?
So I prayed a lot, talked to mywife a lot, talked to my kids a
(52:18):
lot.
I was a no, had more peopletalk to me.
I guess once other people waskind of figuring out who was
going to run.
And finally I looked at it andI was like, well, I've had
enough people in the county askme to run.
Maybe it's a sign, let's dothis.
(52:39):
And if the people decide thatthey want me in this position,
I'll do it, you know, because Ido have the experience to do it.
And if they decide that I don'tneed to be in it, then I'll
just go on doing what I do.
And so I had a contested primaryand a contested general
election and I ended up getting70% of the voting vote.
(53:01):
So it was very uh.
It was uh, very emotional forme because it was a goal.
It was a goal that I honestlyput on a shelf.
Well, once you get your kidsand stuff like that, it was a
goal that, yeah, back before Igot married and stuff, I was
like you know, I'm going to dothis, this and this, and then,
once your kids and your familyand everything start coming into
(53:23):
play, you kind of be like, well, I need to be a dad, I need to
do Do.
I want to put them throughelections and politics and
people saying bad stuff abouttheir dad on the Internet?
and all this other stuff thatcomes with you know, every time.
I'm just went on Facebook todayand there was a person dogging
me on there today.
(53:45):
It was a Facebook account, butI mean, it's just, you can't get
, you can't get away from it.
You know, one thing you can dois laugh and smile and go on.
Yeah, I mean, I mean it's, itis what it is.
But I mean, at the end of theday, though, I'm blessed I
believe it's where god put me tobe at um I get to help people.
(54:06):
I know I've changed severalpeople's lives.
Um there's some people there'ssome people I can't help, um,
but uh, I really think that I.
I really think I'm where I needto be in until god tells me
that I need to do something else.
Hopefully, you don't tell me Ineed to sit in front of a
computer screen the rest of mylife because I like talking to
(54:28):
people.
I like talking and working withpeople.
I'm very blessed.
A lot of people look at this asa job.
This is a career.
Anybody that puts on a uniform,this can be a career that can
benefit you.
But you have to look out foryour family life at home.
(54:50):
I still bring stuff home withme that I couldn't.
It's an ongoing thing that youhave to work on.
It doesn't just go awayovernight.
There's traumatic stuff thatyou see that stays with you and
stuff like that.
And an ongoing thing that youhave to deal with is you have to
learn how to separate it andleave it at work.
And I've gotten better with it.
(55:10):
I've gotten better with it overthe years.
I really have gotten betterwith it, but far from perfect.
I will say we all are.
Yeah, I know we all are.
Yeah, I know we all are.
But somebody has to do this job, and I would much rather
somebody do this job, becausehere's the thing All of us have
(55:33):
done something in our life thatcould have got us on the other
end of the spectrum or at leastlocked up overnight, at least
once other end of the spectrum,or at least locked up overnight,
at least once.
All of us has or there's alwaysthat one friend we could have
hung out with more.
That would have took us down adifferent path.
We are really- Lots of thosefriends, oh I think there will
be, but the thing about it is isthat all of us have always been
(55:58):
one decision away from notbeing where we're at right now.
And some people get into thisline of work because I was, I
did do part of my job as being alieutenant over at Hardin
County was.
I did internal affairs too, andI had three employees that we
arrested for solicitation forbasically telling an inmate's
(56:22):
girlfriend I'll get him out ofjail if you take me to your
apartment and I'll just let yourimagination go there.
And the other two werecontraband related.
And so, unfortunately, there'speople that can't say no and
cross that line, and it's sadwhen that happens, because all
of us, if you're in this line ofwork, if you're not, if you're
(56:45):
not comfortable saying the wordno, then uh, um, as soon as you
say yes, it could be justbringing this ink pen, and this
ink pen can turn into a cellphone it can turn into marijuana
, it can turn into drugs.
I mean, um, and unfortunatelythere's people that once they
got you hooked and you got afamily to feed and you got a
(57:07):
paycheck that you rely on, oncethey get you on the contraband
hook or anything, it's best ifyou just brought in the ink pen
and realized that you messed up.
Don't tell your supervisorright now.
You can stop what you're doingup.
Don't tell your supervisorright now you can stop what
you're doing.
If it gets to a point whereyou're going to bring in a knife
or hand grenade, then you havedefinitely went too far.
Speaker 1 (57:28):
Definitely went too far, absolutely.
So you said you'regoal-oriented.
What's some of the goals comingup for?
What are you trying to get done?
Speaker 2 (57:40):
Any big projects you want.
Yeah, right now.
I just submitted an applicationwith the US Marshals to start
doing some federal housing,trying to get federal inmates
inside the jail, and then afterthat we're working with the
(58:01):
fiscal court right now tohopefully build us a new
facility.
Our facility was built in 1987,and it was originally built for
20-something beds and it nowhas 102 beds and it was added on
to in 1991.
It hasn't been touched since.
(58:21):
It was added onto in 1991.
It hasn't been touched since.
So my goal is, if I hadeverything the way I kind of
want it, my goal would be tohave a new, updated facility
where I can do programs that thestate's got.
It's called like a SOAR program, where I can actually contract
with the factories and people goout and work during the day.
They send the paychecks to thejail.
(58:42):
We take part of that money togo towards child support or
restitution and then part of itgoes in the savings account with
them and everything else.
And my goal is to try to keepthe bad people away from the
people in Nelson County.
But the people that I can tryto change and try to get them a
job housing, away from whatthey're doing.
And here's the deal, thesuccess rate on this is three or
(59:05):
four out of 10.
I'm not, I'm not sugarcoatinganybody by saying, oh, I'm going
to change the world because Ican't.
But guess what?
That's three or four differentpeople, that that we don't have
to worry about reoffending, thatyou know, maybe get a chance to
be with their kids and stuff.
So I mean, how awesome is that?
Speaker 1 (59:25):
I worked around a similar program.
It's the one thing in all myyears that I thought truly
changed some inmates and changedtheir lives.
Because for them to be able togo to work just like a normal
person, we sent them out.
They went to work, they workedwith everybody else and they
saved up money.
And I've seen so many guysleave prison with 200 bucks.
(59:45):
You can't do nothing with 200bucks.
Those guys left prison withmaybe as much as $10,000.
They could pay first in thelast month's rent, they could
pay their water deposit, theycould buy a small car and a lot
of them.
On Monday morning they got outof jail on Friday On Monday
morning.
If that place thought they werea good worker, they hired them
(01:00:07):
back.
Yeah, and those were the guyswho were changed forever.
Speaker 2 (01:00:11):
Yeah, and we've also had on our county road
department and our city roaddepartment the guys that go out
and help with like leaf pickupand stuff like that.
We've had the city hire aninmate.
You know, once he was releasedthe county's actually hired some
of the four too.
(01:00:31):
So I mean, if they show thatthey work I mean our city and
county government, like for ourroad departments and stuff
they're not scared to give thema chance, which I think is great
.
It is Because it used to be the.
Of course, you know you alwaysrun background checks on people
and a background check doespaint a picture to a certain
extent.
Don't get me wrong.
But you know I've seen peoplechange.
(01:00:55):
People can change, I mean,sometimes they don't.
But the fact of the matter is,is that I say give somebody a
chance until they prove youotherwise?
You know, I mean and, and youknow what that person may be so
thankful that you give them anopportunity.
They may be one of the bestemployees you ever hire.
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:01:16):
This is not enjoyable .
In here.
Speaker 2 (01:01:17):
A lot of people think that, oh well, they keep on
coming back.
It's enjoyable.
It's like no, because let metell you, if you're addicted to
a substance or whatever, youwill burn down a church to get
hold of.
If it meant you got your nextfix of drugs.
I mean, that's just how bad ofa hold that these drugs have on
people.
Speaker 1 (01:01:39):
Well, you know it sounds like you're doing great
stuff.
I'm going to keep watching yourLinkedIn and maybe we'll get
you back on here in a few monthsor a year and see what you've
got to do and where everything'sgoing.
Speaker 2 (01:01:53):
Well, michael, I would greatly enjoy that and I
appreciate the videos that youall are doing and, like I say,
you show a field that not verymany people get to see and
actually hear about.
So I think it's very importantthat even people that don't work
in corrections just actuallylisten to what goes on.
I mean, your tax dollars paidfor it.
(01:02:14):
You might as well know about it, you know, right, yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:02:18):
So in the show notes is there some contact
information I can put on there,like the website for the jail.
Speaker 2 (01:02:25):
You can put the website.
You can even put my cell numberon there if you want.
Speaker 1 (01:02:29):
Okay, we'll put it on .
Maybe you'll get an employee,if you ever get an opening.
Speaker 2 (01:02:35):
Yeah, yeah, you can put my email, my phone number,
the whole nine yards.
Speaker 1 (01:02:39):
Okay, that'll be in the show notes.
Thank you for stopping by today, justin.
I really appreciate it and I'mlooking forward to talking to
you some more.
Speaker 2 (01:02:47):
Well, thank you very much, Michael, and I greatly
appreciate you having me today,absolutely.
Speaker 1 (01:02:52):
I would like to take a minute to thank one of our
sponsors that make the PrisonOfficer Podcast possible.
Omni RTLS is a company thatI've been working with for the
last year.
I am proud to be part of thisteam of correctional
professionals who have developedthe best real-time locating
system on the market today.
With Omni's real-time locationtechnology, you automatically
(01:03:13):
know the accurate locations andinteractions of all inmates,
staff and assets anywhere inyour correctional facility, and
you have this information inreal time.
Omni is cutting-edge softwarefor today's jails and prisons.
It is the only way to monitorevery square inch of your
facility while still being PREAcompliant.
Go to wwwomnirtlscom for moreinformation and to make your
(01:03:37):
facility safer today.
That's wwwomnirtlscom.
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