Restore valuable WA prison programs

In recent years, Washington Department of Corrections officials have made trips to Norway, ostensibly to implement aspects of that country’s progressive prison model back home. The visits have spawned news releases about rehabilitation, empathy and humane treatment of prisoners. But, to the people locked up inside Washington prisons, the lived reality could not be more different.

One of the few rehabilitative aspects of Washington’s prison system is programming, groups that offer educational, therapeutic, religious and social support. Any prison system truly committed to a progressive model of incarceration would prioritize making programming as widely available as possible. Instead, DOC has shut down some of the programs most beneficial to the incarcerated. 

In 2019, former Washington Department of Corrections Secretary Steve Sinclair declared the state would start to move away from punitive, warehousing models of incarceration, and into a new era inspired by Norway. He was replaced in 2021 by former Department of Social and Health Service Secretary Cheryl Strange, to carry out Sinclair’s reforms.

But despite Strange’s public statements, under her leadership the department has actively blocked, rather than encouraged, rehabilitation. The two DOC employees Strange promoted to oversee programs — Director of Correctional Services Lisa Flynn and Family Services Program Manager Dawn Taylor — are undermining public safety by hindering the rehabilitation efforts of prisoners.  

Since at least 2008, DOC has supported and promoted peer-to-peer programs, which are popular and have a record of success. People with similar experiences and struggles have an easier time learning from and supporting one another. This is what makes programs like Alcoholics Anonymous successful. 

As COVID-19 restrictions eased, prisoners were eager to resume peer-to-peer programming. But in March, the prisoner-led programs Building Blocks and Peer 2 Peer were abruptly halted at Washington Corrections Center. At the same time, the prison shuttered The Concerned Lifers Organization, a social support group I am a member of, which has been doing rehabilitative work for 50 years.

A prison administrator who requested anonymity out of fear of retaliation said those programs ended because “headquarters” no longer supported peer-to-peer programs.

Yet DOC media relations manager Tobby Hatley said in an email in late March the department still supports peer-to-peer programs. As evidence, Hatley provided a link to a two-year old DOC news release about a peer tutoring program. He also provided a list of DOC’s current programming but Concerned Lifers, Building Block and Peer 2 Peer were noticeably absent from the list. Asked about CLO, Hatley said, “DOC is unfamiliar with this organization.”

Just a week later, WCC Associate Superintendent of Programs William Swain directly contradicted Hatley’s claim. DOC’s “new policy does not allow for peer led programs,” Swain told a prisoner in an April 7 letter denying the prisoner’s proposed peer-led study group. 

Cultural groups have also come under increasing attack, as incarcerated writer Felix Sitthivong reported in the International Examiner in March. In May, prisoners were told that minor children would not be allowed to attend WCC’s “family friendly” Juneteenth event, a holiday commemorating the emancipation of enslaved people in the U.S. Weeks later, WCC’s Black Prisoners Caucus was told they could not have a Juneteenth celebration at all unless they paid the holiday wages of guards who worked the event. 

Steven Marshall, treasurer of the caucus, was “disgusted” by this announcement. As a Black man incarcerated in the same system that enslaved his ancestors hundreds of years ago, he found it offensive that he would have to pay guards to “oversee” a holiday meant to celebrate Black liberation.

The crackdown on prisoners who are pursuing rehabilitation puts the community at risk. After all, most of us will, eventually, be released. It is unclear if Strange is achieving her vision for Washington prisons, or having that vision undermined. Strange should avoid promoting leadership from within if she truly wants to achieve different outcomes. Flynn and Taylor might be the best DOC has to offer, but if that was good enough for the citizens of this great state, why are we looking to Norway for answers anyway?