Justice Champion Spotlight: Brian Koehn, Social Profit Corrections
What is Social Profit Corrections?
Social Profit Corrections is the nation's first full-service, nonprofit corrections corporation. Our vision is to operate prisons and jails as nonprofits, removing the financial or profit motive while at the same time implementing business efficiencies. We can then take the net revenue gained off of those efficiencies from government contracts and reinvest it back into impacted individuals, with the end goal of helping significantly reduce recidivism in our country.
How did you come up with the idea for social profit corrections?
My background is 28 years in corrections. I was a warden at five prisons across the U.S. and I work in private corrections, or for-profit corrections. For-profit corrections are efficiency-based – these corrections organizations manage the incarcerated population for the government for a fee, implement business efficiencies, and then they make a profit. Over the years, as a warden for private corrections, I gained a really strong understanding of the root causes of recidivism and violence within corrections in our country.
I would sit there and shake my head and be frustrated with our outcomes. Recidivism, for example: ⅔ of our people return [to prison]. The lifespan of a correctional officer is only 59 years old. I mean, how toxic does the system have to be to have a lifespan 16 years less than the general public? And with that frustration grew this idea of a nonprofit corporation running prisons for the government, where it's not motivated by profit, it is still motivated by efficiency, but instead it works to use those efficiencies to help impacted communities. That was the beginning of Social Profit Corrections.
How did you personally end up working in corrections?
Pretty much like everyone else: by accident. When you grow up as a young child, and you envision your future, you want to be an astronaut, or you want to be a police officer, or you want to be a lawyer or a doctor. Not many people grow up wanting to work inside of a prison. I served in the Marine Corps, and then was discharged and went to get my degree in Criminal Justice. I took a class on corrections, and they talked about this newer concept back then called private corrections. There was a new prison opening in Western Minnesota. I had no intention of actually working in corrections, but I was between a bachelor's and the vision of what to do for a master's degree, and so I took a summer job working in the prison just to see what it was like. And like many, once you start working in corrections, and you love people, you want to help people. I found my calling, you know, and now it's 30 years later, and it’s been an incredible career. It was one of the best choices I could have made.
Obviously, there are all sorts of elements of the criminal justice system, there are all sorts of ways to go about criminal justice reform. Why are you focused on changing the correctional system specifically?
When I hear corrections reform, I hear reducing recidivism. I see addressing the mental health challenges we have in our country, because in many cases corrections facilities are serving as the mental health hospitals of the United States. I see addressing inequality. Prisons are full of marginalized communities who don't necessarily have fair chances. I see addressing homelessness. Homelessness is reflected in corrections; whether they're homeless before they come into prison, and they make some choices that get them in trouble, or they get released from prison, and they end up homeless because they have $50 and a bus ticket, and they're not prepared for society. You look at the children of those incarcerated people – they have a 50% higher chance of going to prison than someone that doesn't have a parent that's incarcerated. So when I hear the term corrections reform, I think of social reform, because our society's challenges are all magnified in corrections. So if we help them while they're in the system, then we help society as a whole.
What does it mean to you to build a “compassionate prison”?
Our vision is to build a compassionate system, with compassionate prisons, and a compassionate incarceration culture. The United States has what's called a static culture or static security system, where it's lots of doors and gates and gas and razor wire, and when something goes bad, they just increase the static security of the facility to minimize the chances that it's going to happen again. If you look at the Scandinavian countries, they have a concept called dynamic security, where they allow the staff to actually engage in professional relationships, so that the system is a helping system. In the United States, they're punished by their restriction of freedom. The system is supposed to help them – it's called corrections – but it really doesn't. It's us versus them. It's a punishment model principle. And it's proven to be unsuccessful, especially with ⅔ of the people recidivating. So dynamic security is the right direction for our country to take into bringing humanity into the system, so it's designed to help people and not warehouse people, because warehousing has been proven ineffective throughout the entire history of the United States.
What is something most people would find surprising about the correctional system?
I would have to say the toxic culture of corrections in the U.S. The lifespan of a correctional officer, or the staff member for that matter, is 59 years old. Three correctional officers a week commit suicide, it's the highest of any law enforcement profession. How toxic does a system have to be to reduce the lifespan of a person by 16 years? How do we develop a system, a culture, a way that we encourage people to change, give them resources inside of prisons and jails, and make this a positive environment for the staff so they actually become the helpers and not just the security folks? So they're allowed to engage, to bring compassion to other human beings, to give them a chance. So that when they're released, they're good neighbors.
If you could change anything about the correctional system, what would you do first?
There's a lot involved in changing the correction system. The most impactful change, for U.S. corrections specifically, is to allow the correctional officers to become the encouragers and the helpers. As of right now, they are in many ways completely restricted and forbidden from engaging as a helper for an incarcerated person, because the system is afraid that they're gonna become compromised, bring in contraband, fall in love, do things you're not supposed to do. So the us vs. them culture has existed partly because of the fear of the staff becoming compromised and then jeopardizing security. So the first thing we need to do is allow them to have professional relationships. In our model, we're training them to be coaches, encouragers, to help the population engage in helpful conversation and encouragement so that they do programs, so they address their addiction, so they get help with their mental health, so they get an education.
We need the officers to be able to engage and to help. As human beings, we're wired to help. That's what we want to do. But in corrections, in many ways, officers are prohibited from being human. And that has to change.
How can individuals support your work and the work of Social Profit Corrections?
We’re challenging all the assumptions of U.S. corrections. Needless to say, there are people that are going to push back. They’re going to say this won't work. So how do you help us? Number one, know that we're a new concept, we're grassroots, we're challenging how the U.S. does corrections in a positive, productive way, by bringing a new solution forward. Spread the word that we're here and spread the word that we exist. Look at our website, send messages on what you like or dislike. It's that engaging conversation that is going to bring us all together to fix the many social issues that are all connected to corrections.
Right now, we are a nonprofit, and donations and financial help is needed to get us established. Once we have government contracts, it becomes a self funding nonprofit – but being grassroots, we need financial assistance to get our first proof of concept facility, to measure outcomes, to adjust in order to be effective, and to move forward.
What else is important for people to know about corrections reform?
To help our country reform our corrections system, we have to be outcomes-based. We have to measure our effectiveness. Corrections is well known for being, in essence, a secret society. We’re taking those who harm society, and we’re keeping them away. In the U.S., it’s like, manage them over there, I don’t want to be involved in this. That’s one of the root causes of the problem. What we bring to the table is we’re going to measure outcomes. We’re fluid, we can change quickly and help the government if government leaders bring a solution forward. So for example, if we measure those that are released within a year, and we’re finding that they just want a place to live but there’s no housing, we can help address that if that’s the root cause of recidivism. Or if we’re finding that they’re relapsing with their addictions, which is causing them to make poor choices and come back into the system, we can immediately adjust our programming (in this example, our addictions treatment program). We can immediately change. That’s one of the benefits of being a nonprofit, but we have to measure outcomes. That is the key to success.
When you are not working, what do you enjoy doing?
Work-life balance is important. It's important for all of us. In my free time, I'm an outdoors person. Kayaking, hiking, running, biking, swimming, anything that can get me into Mother Nature, is my release. You know, corrections is probably the most stressful occupation in the United States, as clearly as reflected by the lifespan. So it's important that those who work in the field find that release - and nothing is better for that than Mother Nature.
What is something about you that might surprise people?
I was challenged a few years back to complete the Ironman Triathlon, which is a 140.6 mile race. I couldn't swim. I mean, I could swim, but I couldn't swim distance. I took the challenge, I trained for the Ironman, I learned how to swim, I was doing three mile open-water swims before I was done. And I completed the Ironman Triathlon at 50 years old. I’m quite proud of that.