Locked In with Ian Bick - I Spent 30 Years Inside Federal Prisons — As The Associate Warden | DJ Whitmore

Episode Date: July 15, 2025

DJ Whitmore spent 30 years inside the walls of federal prisons — not as an inmate, but as an associate warden. From serving in the Gulf War to working his way up through the ranks of the Bureau of Prisons, DJ has seen every side of the justice system. In this powerful interview, he shares what really goes on behind bars, from low-security camps to high-security penitentiaries. If you’ve ever wondered what prison is like from the other side — this episode pulls back the curtain. #FederalPrison #BureauOfPrisons #PrisonWardenStories #InsidePrisonWalls #PrisonLifeUncovered #VeteranToWarden #TrueCrimePodcast #LifeBehindBars Hosted, Executive Produced & Edited By Ian Bick: https://www.instagram.com/ian_bick/?hl=en https://ianbick.com/ Presented by Tyson 2.0 & Wooooo Energy: https://tyson20.com/ https://woooooenergy.com/ Buy Merch: http://www.ianbick.com/shop Timestamps: 00:00:00 Life Inside Federal Prisons: Insights from Associate Warden DJ Whitmore 00:06:58 Career Path in Corrections: From Military to Federal Bureau 00:14:05 Climbing the Professional Ladder in Corrections 00:21:24 Challenges of Inmate Punishments and Privileges 00:28:40 Navigating Prison Rules: Finding Balance 00:35:40 Tragic Consequences: Violence Over Minor Disputes 00:42:43 The Role of Paperwork in Prison Safety 00:49:35 Unbelievable Contraband Story: Inmate's Desperate Measures 00:56:38 Inmate Labor Dynamics and Facility Management 01:03:34 Challenges of Substitute Teaching in Prisons 01:10:32 Importance of Mental Health Support 01:17:48 Leadership in Bureau of Prisons 01:24:54 High Incidents in the Special Management Unit 01:32:03 Accountability in Correctional Facilities 01:39:21 Challenges in the U.S. Prison System 01:46:23 Media Bias in Union vs. Administration Story Powered by: Just Media House : https://www.justmediahouse.com/ Creative direction, design, assets, support by FWRD: https://www.fwrd.co Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Hurry into your local dealer for the Jeep Declaration of Deals. Jeep has won more awards over its lifetime than any other SUV branch. Even the Jeep Grill or registered trademarks of X-A-U-S-L-L-C. When you found out that you're not good to walk on a yard, they're going to come to you and tell you, get off the yard, or we're going to take you out. So you either go to lieutenant's office and check in and ask for protective custody, or if you risk going back out, they're probably either going to beat you down severely or they're going to kill you. DJ Whitmore spent 30 years behind prison walls, not as an inmate, but as a leader, from the streets of Buffalo to the battlefield in the Gulf War and eventually rising through the ranks of the Bureau of Prisons to become an association. Warden. DJ has seen it all.

He's worked in every type of federal facility from low to high security. And today, he's revealing the untold stories of what really goes on inside. DJ, welcome to Lockton. Our very first official associate warden from the federal prison system, any type of warden on the federal side. We've never had. We've had county jails. We've had state. Never had the feds because they don't really like sitting down with former inmates.

Yeah, thank you, Ian, for having me. It's my pleasure. And I don't think that there's any harm in this whatsoever. It's just telling a story and letting the truth be known, you know. And I don't have any qualms or problems with coming on to these shows and tell my story. Because I guess the way I feel is that if you do the right thing, you don't have to, you never second-guessing yourself. You're not looking over your shoulder, you know. I'm wondering if someone's going to tell something different about you. You know what? I did my career the right way and I feel good about telling my story. Yeah, we've been talking about doing this for like a year now, I think. We've been going back and forth texting. We've had calls and you were on my friend Chad Marks's channel.

Yeah, I was on Chad's. That gave me some experience doing this. You know, I did read the comments. So it's neat reading the comments because, you know, you get a lot of positive, but there's some negative. and you know, you don't always know where the negative's coming from. So, you know, maybe that's some blind spots that you can work on and as your personality and or, you know, like explaining your career a little bit better so that people understand.

Yeah, I always tell people you need the negative comments because it helps boost engagement and it's a different perspective. You don't want everyone to agree with you. Right. And it kind of sets the bar, right? Like if everybody agreed with you, where would the bar be? Be very, very low, correct? So now that you have some negativity,

it can help you think outside the box to how you might handle those situations or those questions in a way that would help other people to understand what you went through. Where did you grow up? Where are you from? I grew up south of Buffalo, a little town called Little Valley, New York. Was there my whole life and then went in the military and got a little bit of exposure to the world and came back and was fortunate enough to get a job at my county job. jail in Cateragos County. I worked there for one year and then I was fortunate enough to get a job

with the Federal Bureau of Prisons. Were your parents in law enforcement, the military, any type of background like that? No. Mom was an LPN nurse and dad was a logger. His whole life basically ran a timber business. He had a lumber mill and just hardworking folks that raised me the right way. Good work ethic. Any siblings or other family members in law enforcement or anything? No, no. Brother and sister, I'm middle child, so I suffer for middle child syndrome. And no, brother and sister had different paths.

They went to different round. I was the only one in law enforcement, and the only one out of my immediate family was military. What interested you in the military? Well, I guess mostly because my parents said, if you don't know what you want to do, don't go waste our money at college. You know, we don't want to see you go be a job. drunk at school and fail out, you know, if you're not sure, you know, figure it out. So the military had always, like, you know, I was always interested in it and I always thought

it might be something that I was wanting to do. And checked with the Army, the Marines, Air Force, Navy, and I settled on the Air Force. Security Police just seemed like it was going to be a better fit for me. And it was. I loved it. I look back and the only, I don't have regrets, but I wish I would have took more advantage of my military time. Four years I was in. And when you're a kid, it's like you think four years is an awful amount of time. But it's a blink in the eye as you get older, you know. You bat your eye and heck, four years has gone by.

And I wish I would have took advantage of my time. I did serve in the Gulf War, the first Gulf War. I was over in a country called Oman. And so I got that experience. And the military has helped me in so many ways. It helped me get a job with the federal government. It has helped me in so many ways of my life as far as discipline, organization, open doors for jobs and promotions and things like that. So I'm so thankful that I did do it.

And then I got my associate's degree while I was in. They paid for my associate's degree. Got my associate's degree while I was in. And then when I got out, I got my bachelor's degree through the GI Bill. What was the degree in? Community and Human Services. with a concentration in criminal justice. Did what you learned in schooling help you or help prepare you for when you would become a warden down the line?

Yeah. Originally, I wanted to be a phys ed teacher, but a lot of the alumnus were coming back to school and saying, there's no jobs. So, you know, to me, it was 23 years old. Things were a lot different back then. And, you know, we have, I think, a generational gap between us. So, you know, jobs were advertised on newspapers or you went down to, you know, like your, I don't know what you'd call them, you know, like a community center and look for, you know, like the, people would advertise and see, you know, what jobs. And social workers seemed to be a job that was plentiful. It didn't pay a lot.

So I thought, you know what? I'm going to trend in that direction. I like people. I like to try to help people. So I was going to, and I was in between schools, between Cortland and, excuse me, Buff State. And I went to Jamestown Community College just in the interim of not getting into Buff State right away. And the correction officer academy and decided to go to that. But ultimately, you're right.

As I raised, you know, went up the ranks. I do think that my college and that experience helped me greatly. Well, it helped me for promotional purposes, too. Do you think that differs you from the individuals that go into corrections without the degree? Because there are a good amount, too, that don't have a degree and get into corrections. I wouldn't necessarily say that. I would say that it can make you more of a well-rounded. You know, I had a military experience.

I had a year in law enforcement working with, well, I was security police, so I was four years of law enforcement while I was in the military. And then I had the law enforcement experience with working at the county jail. and then I transitioned to the feds. So I had a degree. I had prior law enforcement. I had prior military. So then I scored really well on, you know, the interview and the testing that they do. It's not really a test, but they, you know, put you through a battery of different things that they want you to do.

It's different today. I think you take like a psychology test. You take all these different tests just to see if your personality is a fit to work in corrections. Back then, they didn't have that technology. But no, I think so. I think that it helped me be more well-rounded. When you joined the military, did you see a career in law enforcement after that? Did you see your career in the military the whole time?

Or were you not even thinking about it? No, I was, like I said, very anxious to get out. I wanted to get out and get my degree. And I had settled on. I wanted to be a phys ed teacher. But I can tell you, one of the things that did come true, obviously I had a 30-year career in the Federal Bureau of Prisons, but about 13 years of that was as a recreational specialist.

and you know being a formerly incarcerated individual that rec specs, recreational specialists, they're basically gym teachers within the federal prison system. So, you know what, that was a win-win for me. I ended up getting the job that I had always dreamed of and also was working federal prison. So it was a win-win. Why only a year in law enforcement when you did that county jail stint? Did you want to expand your career there? or the potential to grow wasn't as great as with the Federal Bureau of prisons.

Federal Bureau of Prisons is a large, you know, agency within the Department of Justice and the potential for promotion and also to grow my career was was greater with the feds. And I eventually wanted to move on to either a state or federal facility. County jails are just kind of a dead end job. Did working in the county jail turn you off at all from correct? No, not at all. But it shows you county jails are very controlled, very isolated atmosphere. Like you, you know, you hardly come off your block. You know, you go to wreck for like an hour. It's very controlled. And then the difference is when you go to a prison or, you know, in some cases like a camp that has no fences that the inmates can do, you know, have 10 minute moves, can kind of come and go as they please on a camp environment. So it changes a lot. It's almost like a shoe in a county jail of like the feds compared to when you get to a yard.

And it's open. And I think a lot of people have that misconception because they're so used to movies and TV shows where it's always in confinement, you know, always the cell is locked or you're on a cell block where you never come off. It's not that way, especially while our penitentiaries even are not that way. Like there's movements. You get to go from assignment to assignment. So it's not like that in the federal prison. That was the first misconception I experienced because I thought it was like 60 days in or those. A lot of TV shows don't portray the federal system. They portray state systems where a lot of it's locked down or county jails. But it's not like the feds at all. No, it's not. And I would say the states also have, you know, time for movement. You go to your educational program. You go to the hospital to go to medical. You go to the chapel. You know, you walk to food service, you sit and eat in the dining hall, and then you go to, you know, after that's work call, you go back to your job or whatever. So it's way different than a county jail.

County jail, you're fed and your pod, you know, it's like a shoe. I mean, it's a glorified shoe, basically. Did you think about applying to the state before you applied to the feds while you were working at that county jail or you went right to the feds? Now, we had one of the, I think he was an executive assistant come over and teach one of our classes when I was in the, the Correction Officer Academy from the Federal Bureau of Prisons. And just his presentation got me really excited about going over the feds. The Fed's prison system seemed more like a community, not community atmosphere. I shouldn't say that, but it's a microcosmum of what we deal with in society, right?

Like you've got, we don't have a fire department. We have a medical response team. We have a gym, you know, so if you want to go to the gym, we have an education department. We had a factory. We had the chapel, you know, just it's just a small community as far as the staff go. And you can promote to different departments. So you're always going to be a correction officer. You can promote to different departments.

You can promote to the maintenance department. You can promote to education. You can promote to recreation, medical, mail room. There's a ton of different jobs. Now, when you first started, it was just straight as a correctional officer baseline. Yeah. I started in 1994 as a correctional officer. at SCI McKean. It's a federal prison right on the New York State, Pennsylvania border,

just into the Pennsylvania border. It's Bradford, Pennsylvania, where zip old lighters are made. If anybody's familiar with zippo lighters, they were kind of made legendary in World War II because a lot of troops were saved because they would carry their zippo lighter in their front pocket right over their heart. So when sometimes would protect them from getting shot, it would be the saving grace that saved their life. So started, there. Started off as a correction officer, did that for about two and a half years, then promoted into recreation, became a recreational specialist. Did that for 13 and a half years and then promoted to a GED teacher and did that for five years. And then at McKean, I got supervisor of education

and did that for five years at McKean. So I'd spent a total of 25 years at FCI McKean, the bulk of my career. Now, is that common for someone to work their way up and stay in that one facility for that long? Yeah, that is doable. Definitely, you can stay at that one facility, but then you're going to kind of get where the promotional potential is gone, because GS-12 is, at a medium, is kind of the cutoff. And then you'll have to move around if you want to promote above the GS-12 level, meaning your 13, 14, and 15, 15 being your wardens. Then there's also SES, senior executive staff level, which is above a GS-15. But because at the medium facility, there's only one GS-13, and that's the executive assistant. Is it hard to get promoted alongside your peers as you guys started on the same

level? And then, you know, over time, especially over all these years, you're becoming now their supervisor? Yeah. Sometimes they'll promote from not from within. They'll go from other institutions, just depending on who's the better candidate to fill the position. But you're right. I did in-house. I didn't in-house my first time being the supervisor of education. They actually picked a supervisor from North Carolina. And in hindsight, I was thankful for that. Because I don't know if I was ready for to be supervisor of education. At the time, I think I only had three years as a teacher. There was a lot more than I need to learn in that department. And him coming in and having some new ideas, some things that he wanted to do differently,

really helped me grow because I was under the same supervisor for like, I don't know, close to 17 years. I had the same supervisor. He was my supervisor in recreation. Then he promoted to education. So I had him for recreation and then I had him for education. So I only knew one leadership style as far as. the Bureau of Prisons go and ideas and things like that.

So it was neat to get a different perspective with somebody promoting in. Tell us about those first couple of years as just a plain correctional officer. You're your first time ever in the federal system. Yeah. Kind of eye-opening. Very open compound. Back then we had an open compound where we didn't even lock our doors in the cell doors at night. They were open because smoking was still allowed back then, cigarettes.

Obviously, when you were in, tobacco was banned and was contraband then. But when I first started smoking was allowed, and I think it was until the late 90s, maybe like 98, 99, before they finally totally outlawed it. But it was, we had wooden doors at a medium facility. We had wooden doors with like a house lock. It was, you know, the key was the size of a house lock. and not your big Foldger Adams keys, which locked the doors now. It, and we left the doors open. The AWs had an open door policy with the compound.

Amates could knock and see the secretary at the AW's office and make an appointment to go in and see them. It was way different. And then it changed drastically. So that was my first year in. And then the crack riots happened. I'm not, don't know if you're familiar with that or not. Okay. So there was a disparity in sentencing for basically a lot of white Caucasians were using cocaine and not crack.

And the feds considered the process of turning cocaine into crack something much more debilitating or they criminalized it more than they did for powder cocaine. And it was a disparity in sentences, you know, if a guy got caught. with an ounce of, I'm just being, like, I'm just making a hypothetical here, say, say somebody got caught with an ounce of cocaine or eight ounces of cocaine versus some eight ounces of crack. Their sentences would be different. And at the time, it was predominantly African Americans that were getting the crack charges and the whites were getting the cocaine. So the guy, the white guy might get five years. And the person that had cracked, the African American was getting 15. And there was a disparagement.

in sentences. And it basically boiled over in 1995 and we had crack riots. The inmates in two of our housing units barricaded themselves in the unit, smashed the pool tables. Well, it took the pool tables to barricade the doors. They smashed TVs. They just were vandalizing and terrorizing the units. And we had to take the units back over. I was on the disturbance control team at the time. And I got to admit that was kind of like an ass puckering moment, you know, like hadn't been through that. And I was very young in my career. It was only my second, into my second year of being a correctional officer. Our sort team, we had skylights that were in the top of the unit.

And they cut a hole through them and repelled into the one unit because we couldn't, we couldn't get in. They had so much stuff piled in front of the doors, I should say. And so the sort team repelled in and we took back control of the unit. And that was the first time ever in 1995. It was October. The crack riots were in 1995. And several institutions throughout the Bureau of Prisons participated in these crack riots. And we had a national lockdown.

So that was the first time in the Bureau Peace history that they had a national lockdown. Now, they've had many since, not many, a few since then. And the most recent one was the pandemic, right, when we had COVID. And we went on a national lockdown then. But that was the first time that they'd had a national lockdown. What happens during a national lockdown? Lockdown across the Bureau of Presidents. Amates are locked in ourselves.

Obviously, we were scooping up a lot and putting them in shoe. We had to convert one of the units over to a shoe unit because we just had so many inmates that participated in this riot that we had to convert a unit. So that was a maintenance department taking those wooden doors out and putting steel doors on with traps. We converted unit Delta Bravo. It would 4B Delta Bravo changed names a couple times over the years. And we converted that to a special housing unit because of the overflow. We just couldn't handle it. And then there was no transit.

We weren't transported inmates from facility to facility. And a lot of these guys that participated, more than likely we're going to go to a penitentiary due to their participation in the riot. So that on the national lockdown, it was a lot of sorting out your own facility first. and getting the guys, the players that were involved. And you got to understand back then, there wasn't cameras. There was no cameras in our facilities. And so we had to do a lot of interviewing, a lot of detective work, I guess you'd say, to try to figure out who the main players are just by, you know, CEOs before they had to vacate the unit,

seeing who was the major, you know, contributors to the event and who were the leaders. And we tried to get the main group of people that were the leaders of this event. But lockdown, no visitation, no commissary. I mean, you're locked in your cell 24-7. We're feeding you. Showering you every third day. That's policy. You get a shower every three days.

And that's across the bureau. No matter if your institution was calm and didn't have a riot, it was still the same. Study and play. Come together on a Windows 11 PC. And for a limited time. college students get the best of both worlds. Get the unreal college deal, everything you need, to study and play with select Windows 11 PCs. Eligible students get a year of Microsoft 365 premium and a year of Xbox GamePass Ultimate with a custom color Xbox wireless controller.

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When you want savings, not surprises. It matters where you stay. Hilton, for the stay. You were going on national lockdown. No, I know it was your job to do that, but how do you personally feel about it? A lockdown? Yeah, and the shoe, solitary, all of those methods. Well, there's two thought processes, right?

Like, you know, group punishment, does it work or doesn't work? The bureaus always use it as a deterrent. Like, you know, if one or two are going to do something bad, then we're going to punish you all so that the message goes out. what does that do in return? Usually jailhouse justice happens then, you know, they'll punish within, like don't do that because you're going to get our TVs taken from us or you're going to get this taken from us. So it ends up creating kind of a volatile, violent situation. So, you know, we want to avoid that. But, you know, it's a big deterrent when that, you know, you're going to lose your visits or you're going to lose your commissary. Those are important things while you're incarcerated, you know. A lot of guys can't just

live off the Chal Hall alone, they have to, you know, they supplement their diet with things from the commissary. So my take on it, I don't know. I just think that there's, there's some good and bad with both ways. I don't believe in over usage of the special housing unit. I think mental deprivation, just that whole isolation is not good for the mental health of any individual and especially extended periods of 9, 10, 12, 15 years, you know, like kind of the ADX. I understand the ADX is concept, but are we putting out individuals that are better for society? Are we putting them out worse? And that's a question we have to ask ourselves, you know, what other ways can we do things

that puts people back into society in a state where they're able to help themselves and they're not a threat to society? How do you feel about the states like New York, for example, that are getting rid of use of the shoe? I mean, from my perspective, I feel like the shoe is good if you have a very violent inmate that you need to remove from the compound, like in that situation. But if you have no shoe whatsoever, how do you deter that? Yeah, I think that I don't think we can eliminate shoe, right? Like, I don't think the state is eliminating it, but I think that they put some restrictions on how long someone can be in there. So they can still use it as a punitive measure, right?

have a guys found guilty of a prohibited code in the facility like the state. I don't know their codes. Of course, I'm more familiar with the fed's codes. But it's a deterrent, but you can also use other means, you know, taking phone privileges, taking visiting privileges, taking commissory privileges, restriction to housing units, you know, no rec or, you know, no participation other than mandatory programming, you know, mandatory callouts. if you had to go to the medical for some reason because you were on call out or you had a GD class or a mandatory class you had to attend. So there is other means for punitive measures for violating prohibited codes. It doesn't always have to necessarily be shoe, but sometimes shoe is a measure that may be necessary. Like you said, in a very case of, you know, maybe we had a riot.

Maybe there was some type of gang attack on an individual where there was, you know, life and death. And we had to, you know, in certain cases, we have to protect. We always have to protect the person that's, that we're in charge. You know, like they're in our care and custody. We have to protect them. So if that means putting somebody into our special housing unit to protect them from either being, you know, gravely hurt or death, that's what we have to do. I mean, so when we protect them and then try to transfer them as quickly as possible. No, on that topic, what I realized is, and I think this is where movies and TV gets it wrong, about protective custody.

In my experience, protective custody is just the same as the individuals that are getting thrown in the shoe for punishment. No, it's, I mean, we have no other place to put you. So you have a little bit more, some less restrictive things, rules in the shoe. So like if you're on disciplinary side, you're going to have your radio taken from you. you're going to have all, like, limited commissary just to hygiene items, very restricted as far as those items go. But if you're on there for, like, protective custody reasons, you know, you're still entitled to, you know, if they allow for radio or if they allow you to, you know, a larger amount of commissary on that side. So there's administrative detention and then there's disciplinary segregation. But you're still in a box.

You are. I understand that. But the alternative is you may be dead if we put you out on our compound. So I would rather put somebody in our special housing unit and save their life and not have to answer to their family when you have to make that phone call that we decided to put your loved one back out on the compound knowing that there was a threat or a risk for harm to them. And it also leads to litigation problems, right? you know, you didn't protect my, my loved one, my son, my brother, my husband, and now he's dead. And you have to answer in, maybe not, maybe in criminal court, but most definitely you're going to probably answer in civil court. Now, how do you feel about the investigation process when someone is under investigation and put in the shoe?

I've seen guys that have been under investigation and have been stuck in the shoe for 18 months without even being, you know, convicted of an infraction in prison. So the policy is 90 days for an investigation. After the 90 days, we've got to charge you with something or kick you out of our shoe. So if that was happening, you know, 18 months, then there must have been, they were using it. I don't know how they were getting away with it. if they did 18 months like that because it's typically policy is 90 days and then they have to charge you with something. Can they extend it at all, like at higher approval? Quite possibly.

But typically on a, you know, an SIS investigation, it's 90 days and either we got to charge you with some, transfer you, or whatever the case may be. Now, at the conclusion of 90 days, it could recommend a transfer because, yeah, we didn't have enough evidence to charge them, but we feel strongly that if we put this person, them back out on a compound. Our drug introduction is going to continue. And they might put you in for a transfer. Now, the audience has heard multiple times the word SIS across multiple episodes. Can you explain what that is to the audience? Just a special investigation section. It's our investigation team within the prison system. It's basically a lieutenant. And depending on the size of your institution, it can be anywhere from two to five, two to six, depending on the size. of specialists that were promoted out of correctional services.

They go to some schooling to learn investigative techniques, and they do the investigation of all misconduct within the facility. And that could be from, you know, as far as contraband introduction, all the way up to homicide. How long do you think it takes a new correctional officer to realize or figure out that this isn't the career for them and they want out? I have a theory on that, And I'll tell you, I said it takes you two to three years to kind of know yourself as a correction officer.

There's a lot of people that are in corrections that shouldn't be in corrections. There's a lot of people that can't say no to inmates that have a hard time holding the line as far as, you know, rules and regulations go. So I said it's typically about two to three years to find yourself, right, just to find how do I fit in? if you have too strong of a personality and you're too hard on the inmates, you know, that is sometimes a recipe for disaster. And then the converse there is, or the opposite of that is being too soft where you're a yes person and you don't hold the line and you're not. So I would say in the middle is the best place to be, you know, be firm, fair and consistent with rules and regulations. And like, think of the cops on the street. What's the cops? What's the cops?

you respect the most, who have some understanding, some leniency at times, but when they need to enforce the rules and set the bar, they have to do that. So I would say there, you know, I'll give you an example. When you do it in that manner, firm, fair, and consistency, I'll give you an example of something happened to me. And this isn't a pat myself on the back moment, but I'll just give you some understanding on how reputations work inside the prison system. The inmates already know who they can get away with what. They also know who's the hard asses, who's the softies, who's in the middle, who'll kind of find that middle ground or common ground.

But I was standing out front of education. I was a supervisor of education at the time. I'm standing there and there's a 10-minute move. Lots of inmates moving from recreation back to the housing units. Individual takes a piece of candy, hard candy, and he throws a wrap. red on the ground. And I go, excuse me, excuse me? And he's like, oh, you're talking to me? I'm like, yeah, come here a minute. I say, hey, want to pick your wrapper up, please? I didn't drop that. I said, no, I saw you put the cany in your mouth and you dropped the wrapper and you can pick it up.

And he's like, nah, man, it ain't my rapper. And I said, well, I said, I saw you put the can't key in your mouth and you dropped the wrapper. I say, hey, man, here's a deal. I said, I can go the hard way. I can write you an instant report. You're disobeying a direct order. I can just pick the wrapper up and throw it in the garbage and we're done with this. And he's like, you know, the flat tire came out and I got the, psh. Anyway, he picks the wrapper up, throws it in the garbage. And the next day, I get a knock at my door and it's the same individual. I had the little confrontation with the day before.

He said, Mr. Whitmore, I checked with some of the guys in the unit. And they said, you're a good dude, man. You're well respected. And I just want to tell you, I'm sorry for giving you attitude. yesterday. I said, no problem, man. I said it's, it's easier to deal with it that way than it is, you know, writing an instant report for that because really, I don't know, it didn't warranted it. But you also want guys to not litter on the compound because someone else is going to clean that up. The orderly is going to clean that up. Somebody who's got extra duty is going to clean that wrapper up.

So it's simple things like that, but working through those processes. Do you think the amount of power that certain inmates have makes correctional officers jobs way harder, especially in those early first couple years on the job. Positions like within their cars, like, you know, it means to have like power. Yeah, say they're a shot caller or they're the head of the car or they're well connected. They have a lot of influence. I don't think it makes it harder. It really makes it where there's an intermediate that you can go talk to the shot call or the car.

I mean, if someone comes on here aside from me and tells you, there's not shot callers, It's just not car leaders that they're talking out the, you know, their butt end. They're not talking out the, there's always shot callers on our yards, no matter if it's from the camps all the way up to the penitentiaries, they're shot callers. And it makes it a little bit easier when you can go, say you got an orderly who's not doing well at his job, and you know he's a Pisces, for instance, and you know the Pisces guy in your unit who is, you know, he's the, I don't know, one. Not maybe not the shot caller, but in that block is kind of speech for the pices.

Hey, man, you go to them and say, you mate so-and-so is not working out, man. He's not doing his job. Like, I'm going to get rid of him or you have a talk with him. You know, and of course you can talk to them yourself. But sometimes that peer-to-peer, right, conversation is a little easier than the CEO because it may not, they may not receive it the same way as they have their homeboy or their homey, their peer, talk to him about it. So in some ways it makes it easier.

Some ways it makes it harder. I mean, some guys are intimidated by those shot callers. They ain't know two ways about it, man. There's some people that are freight inmates. From your perspective, what is a shot caller? And how do you find out about what a shot caller is? Shot caller is just somebody that has, depending on the organization or the gang or the, sometimes not even a gang. It's just a geographical location like the Ohio guys or it's the Cleveland guys.

Some of the big cars when I was at McKean were the Detroit guys, Cleveland guys, New York City guys, Philadelphia, because those were all places within a 500-mile radius that we have to keep an inmate if they haven't done anything wrong within a 500-mile radius of their home so they can give visits and they can strengthen those family ties. That being said, so you quickly learn who's got the clout. You'll see, like, when they meet up, you'll see who's doing the most talking. Typically, that's the shot caller. And when we have significant events, a lot of times the SIS department has already identified all the shot callers.

And a lot of times the inmates themselves are quick to say, hey, I'm the leader of this car or I'm the shot caller for this car. If you've got any problem with my car, let me know. So it's kind of like a well-known thing. It's not a secret. And do you think you always need shot callers in prison? Is the yard better with having shot callers? like I said, you know what? Sometimes pure to pure conversations are easier than authoritarian, authority conversations with somebody who's incarcerated. So I don't know if I say it's better. It just is, it's an intermediate, right? Like it's a liaison that you can talk to who have cloud. Who have, they're respected in their thing.

What we need to do differently is we've got to fix these penitentiaries. These penitentiaries, these penitentiaries, in the federal bureau prisons are awful. They're the most dangerous place in the country. They are awful. They're, you know, they're worse in some of the cities we have in our country. They just have that much violence in them. And oftentimes it's, you know, it's car going to war over a lot of times just simple things that you and I take for granted. I describe one of those simple things.

I know what Pollock is a guy lost his life over a roll of toilet paper. Somehow there was a roll of toilet paper that became an issue, whose it was. And the guy got stabbed and he's dead over a roll of toilet toilet paper. And like I said, we've got to do things different in the penitentiary. And the penitentiary, that's the life, like cars and gangs. And you have to, you have to group up with somebody. You have to be a part of something. Even if it's like the independent white car, it's still a car because if you don't, you'll be victimized or you'll be ran off that yard.

You were even telling me off camera that the sex offenders had a shot call or a leader of their group of individuals. I was at a low, made associate warden at Latuna in El Paso, Texas. And lows are, you know, our most minimum, lowest security facilities that still have a offensive. around them and a patrol around them. So it's a lot, sometimes this guys has worked it down, worked their way down from a penitentiary. Maybe I've got a 30-year sentence and, you know, the first five or six years were in a pen, then they went to a medium, and then they've worked by good conduct and age and just the things that go into scoring you as far as your points go, have worked their way down to a low. And they don't really like it, but they know that it's

easy at a low, like time's not bad. There's no violence. There's really no fights. If there is, it's very minimal. So they got a good gig, but it does empower people who have those crimes that are looked upon negatively to be more vocal. So sex offenders at Latuna had a car. Yeah, it was a large car, too. And no one gave them any problems? Not gave them problems, but they weren't respected like some of the other cars on the thing. I mean, they may have a – they probably didn't have a seat at the table.

but they had a, like, they were, you know, maybe one row away from the table and they could interject every now and then on maybe something they had a concern over, you know, just as far as talking about, inmates go. Is it hard to leave your personal opinion to the side on certain individuals when you're in a role like that? Have to. You have to. You know, I had to, as associate warden at Latuna, all sex offenders that come in are basically

restricted from computer use. because no matter what, they look at it as you're a sex offender. You tried to entice. You tried to however you tried to get your victim to either. And some guys will say, I'm a clicker, not a toucher, meaning that they didn't touch a kid, but they viewed pornographic material, kid porn, kiddie porn on the computer. So that was one of the things that would preface it, like, hey, I'm not a toucher. I'm a clicker. Okay.

well, we still got to look at, you know, your computer. So they would write the warden. I was associate warden at the time to say I would like my computer privileges restored. I didn't use any social media. I didn't use my email to solicit. And I'd have to read their PSRs and in detail of what they did. And I still have to make a fair decision on allowing them to have their computers back. And this is just some horrendous, nasty stuff that these adults put.

kids through. And, but I have to remain professional. It's my job, right? Like, you may not like the crime, but that's not for me to judge. They've already been judged, and now they're doing their time. Now, when you say computer, you're not saying internet access. You're saying, like, email and music. Yeah, sorry. Just in the Federal Bureau of prisons, there's, there's, they do not have email. They hadn't for a long, long time. And maybe about 10 years ago, we got email for the inmates to, to email their loved ones. But there's some loopholes in that. And there's, there's some loopholes in that too. They can email one person who puts out a group to a lot of different larger group of people. And we had at Latuna a case of that where the guy was basically, you're only supposed to email on

your list, but that list grew because he hired somebody to expand. And it was almost like he was soliciting. So there was a case and we ended up transferring the guy. I think he went to a higher security level because of that. And so there's there's just, I mean, when you've got to. got individuals who have nothing to do for 24 hours a day. There's an old saying, right, idle mind is a devil's workshop. So there's an idle mind thinking of how they can get over, how they can try to, you know, a vice that they may have trying to continue to do that vice and or break the law. So there's there's that opportunity. But it, yeah, the computer use was either, you know, obviously we didn't restrict them in the law library.

They could use the computers in the law library because that's the centralized system that has a nexus, Lexus, Lexus, Nexus, Nexus, system on it where you could look up. And that's how a lot of guys are fronted out on their cases because some of their cases are on the computers. Mine was. So I went there and I printed mine out to show my, because I had an appeal going, so it gave a detail of what I did. Right. But they also find out if someone cooperated, if they're a sex offender. and you've seen guys get stomped out at some of the yards because they lied about their basically the only place is that a PSR, PSI, your paperwork is required, required is a penitentiary.

Some mediums, depending on what car you're in, they're going to ask for your paperwork. And same, Lowe's a little less, right? Kind of know a lot of people at Lowe's have probably cooperated or maybe a sex offender. So because that's potentially a lot of the individuals that we have at those facilities. Now, like I said, before, there's guys have worked their way down who have lived, you know, never told on anyone, don't have a sex crime. So they've, you know, as far as the righteous way, as far as inmates are concerned, they consider that the righteous way. But what's your opinion on paperwork from someone that was actually at that, you know, associate warden level, knowing how this runs? Well, they're not supposed to have their paperwork, but they find ways.

around it. They have someone mail it in and I don't know how it slips through the mailroom or they'll find it on the computer or they'll have someone look it up in the newspaper or whatever and through email take a screenshot of it or whatever or write down or type in verbatim what it said in the newspaper about them. So that's how they find out a lot of information. And the penitentiary, that's life or death. I mean, when you're found out that you're not good to walk on a yard, they're going to come to you and tell you, get off the yard or we're going to take you out. So you either go to lieutenant's office and check in and ask for protective custody or if you risk going back out, they're probably either going to beat you down severely or they're going to kill you.

Do you think prisons would be a safer place if there was no such thing as paperwork, like every single paperwork item was banned? Well, I'll say this. I would tell guys this. I said, why are you looking at someone's paperwork and determining if they're good or not? And there's been this, well, look at the mob, right? Let's go mob. Mob for all those years had nobody tell.

And then all of a sudden, it was the cool thing to start telling, right? Not cool thing, but people started cooperating with the government. And today, it's looked like it's okay. And the prison system, it's not okay. And they still hold that value or that, that, that, they still hold that kind of near and dear. Like, don't tell on anybody. You can't be a sex offender. So when you are, they run you off the compound.

Well, I said to some of the inmates, I'm like, are you doing this in your community? Think about it, right? If you're, if you're that concerned in prison, you should be even more concerned out in your community of who's around your kids and your loved ones. Who's next door? Who's living in it? But you don't. You don't. Right? You don't go to the neighbor and say, hey, show me that you've never testified or cooperated. Hey, tell me you're not a sex offender. And now sex offenders have to register so you know who the sex offenders are. But you're not doing your community. So why are you doing it in prison? Why don't just come do your time? Stay in your lane and everybody does their time and goes home. But it can't be that easy. And it isn't that easy. Now, if someone say there was no paperwork and say that they batten down the hatches on cell phones and they were able to secure that problem, what happens if someone just uses the prison email system to email their husband or wife and say, hey, can you look up this person? Are you guys flagging every one of those emails or do some get through? Oh, I'm sure they're getting through. I mean, we don't have the staff or the resources to read everybody's emails. I mean, staff are set up to read some emails and monitor calls. And obviously there's inmates who get caught all the time saying things on phones.

All calls are recorded and all emails are saved. So the potential, but if you're not particularly looking for some, you're probably not going to catch a guy doing it because it's oftentimes that that's how they do it. They just say, hey, look up so-and-so on the computer to the free person and the person incarcerated. All they do is email them back. And they could be even using code. How do you know that it's not code, you know? Now, and on that topic on letters, do you guys read every letter that goes out? And every letter that comes back in, how does that work?

Depend on the security level. Okay. Okay. So the higher up security level, both correspondents in and out is read. As you go down, it's a little less restrictive. And I know now, like at Fort Dix, how is there when they implemented now you get a photocopy of your letter, unless it's legal mail? Well, the spice and the K2 and some of the other drugs were being, the letters were being soaked in it. And then they get them in, and then they rip them up and they smote them.

You know, it's just craziness of other drugs. And there's been many of staff that have been ill or had to go to the emergency room. And there's obviously been some that have died handling mail that was contaminated with some type of drug. And it's just unfortunate. So, you know, obviously you can't ban mail. It's a right you have to receive mail. So they've just got to find ways to be, you know, more careful for the staff. I just interviewed someone.

His episode will come out before years. he got into selling synthetic marijuana K2 and ended up going to federal prison where there was K2 in synthetic marijuana. Yeah, I mean, we do the best we can of trying to eliminate contraband in the facility. But what I just say, you know, when you've got idle minds that just want to come up with ways to,

you know, the best inmates are the ones who keep their day busy with positive programming, right? They're in education a lot. They're up on the rec yard doing hit classes and fitness classes. They play in our leagues. They're keeping themselves real active and real involved. It's the nefarious ones that are not really involved, from my experience, not really involved. Maybe still haven't had that criminal aspect of their life eliminated yet,

or it started to think through that process, and they're still trying to introduce contraband into the facility. But, you know, we try to keep them active, keep them, you know, programming. What was the most outrageous item you've found or have heard of found? And you're like, how did this even get in here? Cell phone, of course. You know, I can tell you a story of a recreational specialist at McKean. He was working out in our wellness center was, you could see the rec yard from the wellness center. And he saw two guys in gilly suits.

Do you know what gilly suits are? Yeah. Like full military gear. gilly suits creeping through our wood line around the facility there's trees and then there's a perimeter road he saw them laying and then low crawling with like backpacks so he he called to our control center and says this is a Saturday so he was like no way but let me just check make sure it's not sort doing some type of maneuver or something today so he calls to our control and and says hey is sort got something going on today and they're like no it's it's a Saturday like no and so

he went running out the door and yelled at him and they got up and started had run and well they had backpacks full of tobacco, marijuana, cell phones that they were getting ready to throw over our fence. So it's really, I mean, it's just crazy how they're getting things in. Now they're having drones drop it in and that's difficult too because a lot of them have cell phones. I don't say a lot, but there's cell phones inside the facility. They can coordinate the drop site. Like, hey, tomorrow at this time, at this point, drop it because the staff are patterned. They don't come up at this time or whatever the case may be. And that's how they're getting their contraband in. And it's, it's, it's just always a cat and mouse game. Right now, I think it's a having, we're having a very

difficult time control and contraband. Now, I've always wanted to ask someone higher up in the federal prison system this. Why can't you guys just use radar jammers or block or cell phone jammers? We've tried. I don't know if there's some FCC rules and regulations with that because a lot of our institutions, some of them are in metropolitan areas, right, located in the city. So if you jam, you might affect some of the homes that are close by. A lot of our facilities in rural areas, but there are still homes close by. And if you do that like half mile radius or quarter mile radius, you might affect some of the homes. So maybe that's why.

But I think they're trying to do some legislations to change that. But let's go back to you said, what was some of craziest contraband? Let me tell you a crazy contraband story, though. Yeah. So this was probably, I don't know, maybe eight or ten years into my career. and there was an inmate who was suspected of smuggling contraband in through the visiting room, swallowed some balloons. So whenever we have guys potentially swallowed contraband and they're going to defecate it out, we'll put them what's called dry cell. No water in a cell. They can't flush.

And somebody has to sit there and watch them for 24-7. Typically, we make them have three bowel movements, and that will pretty much pass. through whatever they did ingest. This particular inmate, he notified the staff that was sitting outside the cell. It's like just a plexiglass window on the cell. And, you know, it's a shoe cell, but it's plexiglass so you can see in and make sure that the individual's not doing anything, you know, like defecating on the floor or something. So we give him a little, like, plastic bedpan that he puts over the toilet. And we, you know, the lieutenant comes down.

Lieutenant has to come and observe it. It's all filmed on film. And when the individual is done defecating, they either cuff the inmate up, we'll step in and grab the sample out, or we will just have them hand it out. I can't remember how we did it with that individual. But anyway, he did it, defecated in the little bedpan. He looked out the window and he just picked the pan up and he just started eating it down, eating his own shit, and eating his feces.

And it was like it was eating a Hershey bar. And it was crazy. Like, just unbelievable what someone will do to, you know, avoid that charge because potentially could have had a criminal charge and I don't know what his situation was. But yeah, he ate his own feces. Wow. Since we're on the topic of contraband, how do you feel about prison camps? Because, in my opinion, from an inmate standpoint, it's just contraband city.

You can't control it. there's no fence and 90% of them. Why even have the camp to begin with at that level? Put you on an ankle bracelet. Send you home. Keep you paying taxes. You're a taxpayer, right? You're going to work.

You know, that makes them some requirements. Hey, these are the requirements. We're not going to have camps anymore, but you are camp points. But here's the deal. You're either going to go into the low or you can go home. We're going to put a bracelet on you. Or we're going to fines are going to be higher, right? I mean, think of the income that you're not making.

You had a five-year sentence or you said 27 months you served. 27 months that you weren't working, correct? So 27 months you could be making income. So you could probably afford, you know, a higher fine or restitution or whatever the case may be, you know, and make the regulations or the rules kind of stringent to deter that. And if you messed up, you're going behind the fence, which changes your life completely. Are the camps actually necessary to support the lows and mediums that some of these facilities are next to? or if the camp's disappeared tomorrow, those facilities will be fine. And in my opinion, there's nothing keeping you there, but your honor, right?

Like, I mean, if you want to walk away, you're walking away. And we don't call them escapes. We call them walkaways. You know, you walked away from a camp. There was nothing securing you to be there. And some of our viewers might find that, right? Like, what? You have prisons that don't have any fences around them?

Yeah, it's just, it's a camp. It's a minimum security. I mean, we would escape and come. back guys would go meet with their wives and everything. You have a conjugal visit, come back, right? Yeah, bring back McDonald's. People don't believe that. Yeah. We had a situation, and I don't know how much we're going to get into, like, each institution and, like, what kind of went on at those places. But I can tell you a story from at Thompson. So I was at the SMU. That was my last assignment, the special management unit, Thompson, Illinois. And we had a camp. And we, there was a motel right across the street, like the tracks.

You just had to walk over maybe 100 yards, 200 yards tops, and you would be at this motel. Well, we caught wind that guys were going over there. And we set up a little sting operation. And as they came back on the grounds, we nabbed them up. And our union president, so you've got to understand that our relationship, the executive staff at Thompson and the union president there, John Zumpker, was very contentious. he's just a he's a wildcard like he he ran straight to the media and said that you know we had escapees five escapees they were in the community dangerous individuals i mean this is what he put out on tv and the tv stations there seem to eat it up for some reason and it alarmed the um the community

so much so when we had a um we have community relations board with the community we bring a lot of the community members in, mayors, the local police, the schools, anybody that wants to come that is involved with the community. We have them, we invite them to come in and, you know, we are transparent about our operations and, you know, to a certain degree as far as, like, it's just not, you know, trying to violate security, but trying to be open to the community. If they've got questions, we try to answer their questions to the best of our ability. and so the chief of police he came to a CBR or community relations board meeting from that community like a month later and he said hey you know when that happens you guys should call our police department

because there was there was people calling from our district saying you know what should we do should we lock our doors do we need to get our weapons out and be ready for and it wasn't that kind of case it was a walk away from our camp but this is how bad this individual would lie to the media and they would run with it. And it just made the local community paranoid. And they were getting overwhelmed at the police department with these phone calls. And I had to say to them, sir, I said, but it wasn't that way. The media put out a false narrative based on just one person's assessment of the situation.

And that was John Zumpker, the union president. It was totally, you know, embellished. They weren't. They were guys from the camp. What happened to the guy you nabbed that you guys set up the operation? We put in the special housing unit, went through the disciplinary process for a walk away and ended up transferring to either a lower medium depending on where their points were and put them behind a fence again. Now back to the supporting question of the camps. What I had meant was do the camps support the medium and the low in the sense where you need those campers to work the grounds, do maintenance?

I know sometimes when at the camp, I worked in the kitchen. We've made bag lunches for the medium when they were on lockdown. So if those camps disappeared tomorrow, will those mediums and lows still function properly? Oh, I would think so. Because we had low inmates that could go out on gate passes. We had at Latuna, we had individuals that we could, you know, well, that was a camp. We could take them out in the community. but we would get things done.

You know, staff would be probably called upon to do more than what they do now, but it could be done. So if the government were to say, oh, we need these camps for, you know, to support it, there is a realm, a world where you don't necessarily need them. Who does most of the work in the facilities? Ian, let me ask you that question, as far as the grunt work goes. The inmates? The inmates. The inmates do all the work.

Even if you're in the maintenance department. There's some manist guys that are hands on. They're right there with their inmates, you know, putting up a piece of drywall or whatever the case may be. But there's a lot that just sit and, no, go do that. Yeah, here, let me write your pass to go here. Okay. That could be changed, right? If we're really wanting to talk about fraud waste and abuse, right?

Isn't that what Doge just was created for? There's a lot. And that's what I said. They're not going to the individual agency asking them, how can we? And as a supervisor, this is what they used to do to me every, end of the fiscal year. They'll be like, hey, you had a $90,000 a year budget. You've got like 15 left in, and it's August. You've got to spend that by September 1st because we want to clean our books. So even if I didn't need something, they were encouraging you to spend that money so that it wasn't taken away and appropriated

to another agency. Or you got the same amount year to year so that you could maintain your budget. Now, did I need $90,000 every year? No, there was some years that maybe I could function off a $60,000 year budget. So you've got to imagine that every department in that facility has a budget. So there is ways within the system to tighten the belt up and save some money that we could have done without eliminating positions and firing all these people that got fired. There's ways that we could have done it. So after two years of being a correctional officer, you decided to take that next step. Why did you decide to move up? I always, I'm a driven person, so I always wanted to better my career and promote.

And then, like I said, I always wanted to be a phys ed teacher. And that was the ideal role. And I spent 13 a half years in rec. So it was, I just got bored. So I was thankful that there was more opportunity. I guess if I was in a school system and it was a gym teacher for 13 and a half years, I wasn't going to be something different, right? I was always going to be a phys ed teacher.

So I was glad that it had that opportunity. Tell us about what a day-to-day was like in that position. As a recs back? Yeah. Typically, we worked four, ten-hour days, and most of it was night shifts. You would work from like 11 in the morning until 9 at night. And typical day, daytime was usually open activities because most inmates had jobs. You're required to have a job in the Federal Bureau of Prisons.

If that's an orderly in the housing unit or if that's a tutor in education or an orderly up in recreation, most inmates. and we run work call from usually 730 to around 3, 330s recall, and then inmates all go back for the count. And then in the evening, we would be open for league play, intermules. Holidays, we'd have tournaments. So during holiday weekends, we would have card games. Sometimes one year I did an egg toss. Yeah, we did an egg toss on the rec yard.

And you would think like, come on, who's going to participate in it? It was, we had like a lot of participation in something as goofy as that. So it, typical day would be coming in the morning, you know, opening up the, back when we had weights, it was, took the weights out. Most institutions, if they're newer, don't have weights. And we had weights. And then we ended up having where if your weight, if you're, any part of your weight room was used in any type of violent act, you could, the warden could pull them. And we pulled them, I would think. and McKean like the early 2000s.

The Zimmer Amendment of 1995 did away with weights in any new facility. So we had a botchibal courts, handball courts, basketball courts, baseball field, soccer field. So we had all those. And then depending on the time of year, we would run the different intramural leagues like wintertime. We run basketball. And we'd have volleyball league if we had enough participation. that didn't seem to be one that had a lot of participation. Kickball or wiffle ball in the gym would have a lot of participation.

And inmates take those very seriously. They do, yeah. And we get prizes out for the winners. We pay our referees. I know people are going to find this crazy, but we do referee training for the inmates, and then we pay the inmates to ref one another. Some of the big games, like in football, they would get a little crazy.

So another Rexbeck and myself would ref them. We probably shouldn't have because it could be. put us in a vulnerable spot. But there was so much gambling on the game. And you didn't know if a ref was going to try to throw it or something because, and this was legit stuff, like real deal stuff. Like a ref was going to throw the game so that, you know, some of his homeboys would win a bunch of money. So another recs back in myself, like championship games or playoff games, we'd ref them.

How do you feel about the inmates monetizing amenities that were meant to be used for the public? Like, for instance, a wait room, we'd still have. one at Fort Dix, you couldn't just be an inmate off the yard and go that weight room. You're paying for a slot. There would be an inmate there with a schedule and you pay your fee to use it at this time. It wasn't that way at McKean. Pretty much, well, not to mind how it's. The barbershop is like that, though. Yeah, that's crazy. Yeah, the barbershop is inmates that are paid by the institution to cut hair. And then they basically charge inmates stamps or whatever. commissary items they can use as value or a currency. They make money that way. And did you oversee the barbershop too?

Because that was rec. No, it was educations. Then it was the compound ran it. So it was located in rec, but it wasn't recreation's program. It was educations because it was a VT program at first. And then the VT instructor was too hard to get their licenses because so many of themates were from different states. You know, if an Ohio guy was taking the barber class and it was a Pennsylvania, he was going to get his Pennsylvania accreditation.

It didn't transfer over to Ohio. So he had to take the exam and the tests when he got to Ohio. So it really was not working out. So they eliminated it. And then the compound took over as the barbershop supervisors. Why did you decide to switch to education after so many years in rec? Just became kind of stagnant. It was mundane.

Just kind of same thing over and over. And I just decided to, I started to, I started substitute teaching. I didn't have an education degree, so I didn't have, you know, like I wasn't certified history teacher or certified. A lot of them aren't anymore. They made it to certification. Teachers in the Bureau aren't certified anymore. They have that background. You know, they maybe were originally got their certification, but they'd let it last.

You've got to keep your certification active. So I substitute taught at a couple different school districts for three years. And Pennsylvania had an emergency teacher certification that you had to have if you some. So I applied for that and got it. And then the opportunity opened up during when I had that certificate because that's what qualified me and I got the job in GD. And you know what? That was by far the best job that I've had in the Bureau of Prisons because there's so much reward in that. inmates have come to me and, you know, like big tough guys.

Start crying. Mr. Whitmore, thank you so much. I never thought I'd get my GED and, you know, just emotional. like this is how I grew up and like education wasn't a priority and and I thought I was dumb and you know and you gave me the opportunity. I'm like man, I just did my job. I guess my job. And but it's fulfilling, man. When some other human being says that to you, they thank you. And one gentleman, I remember he had a bad eye. And he also had some other medical issues. So he come out the when you were in it was computer based testing, wasn't it, for the GED?

I didn't make it that far, I don't think, to actually do a test. Right, but do you remember if the inmates were on computers or if they were paper-based? Well, we went from paper-based to computers, and the computers got progressively harder. Like, the test was harder on the computer. So a lot of inmates kind of, they didn't give up, but they just were like, if they had failed on the paper base, they're like, oh, no, you know, the computer base is going to be so much more difficult. I'm not going to get my GED. And this one kid I had to really talk him into it. But this other guy, he failed, I think he kept failing ELA, the English language at arts.

And then he also was failing math. He'd pass the social studies and he passed the science. And so he was leaving out. And I said, hey, can I ask you a question? And he's like, sure. I said, is your eye, you know, like I noticed that it's, he goes, oh, no, it's like dead. I don't, I can't see out of it. I said, okay.

So anybody put you in for accommodations? And he's like, no, what's accommodations? And I said, well, you can get, you know, because of your medical conditions, maybe some extended time, more bathroom breaks. You can get a scribe. You can get a scribe or you can get someone to translate to you. And he's like, really? So we took his medical records, forwarded him to GED testing services. He got like crazy amount of accommodations.

Within a couple months, he passes. He comes to me. I saw him in a child. He was a food service worker. And he said, you know what, Mr. Whitman? I'm never going to forget you. And I cut it out, dude. Like, I mean, come on. He goes, no. He goes, that accommodation thing you got to understand. He goes, I've been to three. This is my third facility. And I've been in GED every time. Nobody has put me in for accommodations. And you're the one that did it. And I passed my GED. I said, man, I just did my job. And that was my job. And I'm sorry that two other institutions failed you. because that should have been their job too. But it just goes to, you know, it's got to be the individual. If you want to help people and you want to help them succeed, there's a lot of people in the federal system staff-wise that don't want you succeed. They don't want you. They want you coming back.

It's a job. Why do you think that happens? Like, why are that, why do you think they're voluntarily putting themselves in positions that are meant to help people but not helping people? It's a paycheck. Steady. It's recession proof, right? Like you go through a recession, we still have a job.

And like I said at the beginning, there's a lot of people that aren't cut out for corrections. They shouldn't be in corrections. Why shouldn't I want you to be successful? Like why wouldn't, like, I'm back. Why wouldn't I want you to come out here and have success, be a productive person in society, be a taxpayer, do the things the right way? And there's so many guys. I could name you like 10 or 12 guys now that I know, still contact me and tell me how good they're doing based on programs that we ran in McKean to help them with their lives. Adam Claussen is out in Las Vegas.

Jason O'Malley's down in Pittsburgh. There's just a bunch of guys, Munch, Richard Brown, down in Atlanta. There's all these guys that are doing phenomenally well and have not violated, have not committed a new crime, and are doing fantastic. And those, what we should hang our hat on, not the guys that are coming back. Because obviously we're failing with the guys coming back. How are we succeeding with the guys that we're putting out there who are flourishing? What did we do right? Yeah.

It doesn't make sense a lot of it. I saw that firsthand. We were talking with your wife who was a case manager, just the program issue. When I got to prison, I was excited to see my case manager do programs. And you just realize it's not what it's like on paper, it looks great that there's programs, there's credits, There's all these things, maybe college courses, but it's really not there. It's not. They might be working on it now, but for the longest time, it's not there.

And a lot of these programs are inmate ran by people that aren't even qualified to teach these programs. Right. You're talking about ACE classes, right? Like, yeah, adult continuing education, if you have an expertise or an experience in this area, you might be able to put a curriculum together, approved by the SOE. I know we had ACE classes, too. You're right. They don't have a lot of bite, do they?

They have nothing. You get a little institutional certificate and that's it. We need meaningful programming in facilities. We need inmates to walk out with jobs. We need inmates to have their identifications before they leave prison. We need so much to help you be successful when you go out there because I hear so many guys when they hit the halfway house. Oh, man, like I don't know how to use a cell phone. And I'm not saying that maybe we could teach a class on it.

I mean, you're not bringing a cell phone in, but you can certainly use a, a PowerPoint to go through how to use a cell phone and how to get services, maybe, you know, how to put the app for your social security, an app for these different things that you're going to need when you get out there because a lot of agencies, they either do it by appointment or they're not doing it in person. You do it over the computer or your phone. So that's why I think that a lot of these guys are failing because have you been in 30 years, things have passed you by. Like, this world has changed a lot. So we need to be. be proactive with our programming, job, housing, identification, mental health help. That's important.

You know, you got to have, I mean, some guys, they don't even know what they're suffering from. And a lot of them are PTSD because they've seen so much cruddy, crappy stuff happen in their life. But they've never been told, hey, man, you might suffer from PTSD. Like, that's why you're having issues. maybe if you talk to somebody or maybe if you saw a mental health specialist, maybe get on some medication, it might help you down the right path. But if you've been in a penitentiary, you've more than likely seen some really nasty shit and you need some help. Like you might need to talk to somebody about it or you might need to, you know, seek out professional help. Why did you transition from education to then associate warden? I want to promote.

I actually went to, so I was supervised of education at McKean. My next position was Supervisor of Education at Pollock, Louisiana. And Pollock, Louisiana is one of the most violent and deadliest places in America. It is, it's bad. It's a bad spot. Your head's on a swivel. You've got to, you know, you've got to really, really, really pay attention to your surroundings. Because if you don't, it could be the end of your life.

I was fortunate to have a great department, staff that were seasoned, staff that were, you know, just about doing their jobs. But one thing that I did notice when I got there that I can tell you this story was that I would walk down through the hallways of my department. And some of the teachers had like three inmates in their classroom, five, you know, sometimes not anywhere over, you know. And I'd look at their roster. I'd go to my office, pull their roster and say, geez, there's 25 guys assigned to this class time. Why does this individual? It was the cars. The cars were, you know, protection or putting work in the unit was more important than the car leaders saying go to education.

Now, some, some cars put a high priority on education, especially some of those Spanish gangs, Serenio, some of those Spanish, you know, organization. organizations or gangs. And they put a high priority. Like you got to, if you're a GED, you don't have your high school, you got to go get it. Well, a lot of them don't, right? And so they weren't coming to class. And that was a fight to try to get guys to come. They just didn't care. I mean, when you got a 100, 100 year sentence and you're in a penitentiary, the most dangerous place, you could give two hoots about education. They were worried about their life. So the pandemic happened. And it was an interesting opportunity at Pollock. because in 2020, the pandemic happened.

And I went to the warden. His name was Chris McConnell. A wonderful warden. He's a fair guy. He knows how to run an institution. And he's open to ideas. So I went to him and I said, hey, boss, I know we're on the pandemic and we're locked in. But what if I brought over, like just some isolated guys that are close to getting their GEDs,

but maybe haven't been coming because, you know, situation with their car. and this is an opportunity for them to come over without that pure pressure. And he's like, well, what do you think? And I said, you know what? You've never gotten more than two. The highest they had for completions up to that point was, I think, two or three guys on the computer base. This is computer based. In 2016, we switched over to computer base.

And in 2020, we got five guys. By thinking outside the box, my staff would walk over, escort the inmate from their house. unit over. We'd do like some one-on-one teaching because my teachers, you know, there was only so much you could do during the pandemic. We had to be creative and find things for them to do. So we've got five guys to get their GED. And that won me supervisor of the year, you know, like my boss recognized me, you know, Mr. McConnell said, you know, hey, you did a great job and you thought outside the box. And I'm going to reward you with supervisor of the year. And, you know, that was pretty special. So, and of course, and I didn't deserve that. My staff deserved that. That's not.

That's not my award. That's my department's award because they certainly made me look good. So now when you said violent was a violent for the staff or violent for the inmates? For the inmates? Because, you know, they, every unit has lookouts. Every unit has, you know, within a car, you know, just guys on the yard who are watching to see us, you know, shit's going to cut loose. And so the security or the, you know, running business on the. the yard was more important than education. And then also I implemented some things, you know,

I think education be a sanctuary for individuals to come, even in the penitentiary, your most violent places. I thought that I wanted education to be a sanctuary. We had a metal detector up at the end of the corridor, and they would come through, and it was a corridor officer there, and they'd come through, and they'd clear the metal detector. But Ian, you and I know that not all weapons are made out of metal, plastic, wood, can still kill you. So they'd come down and I asked my staff, I said, let's do shakedowns outside the department. It'll ensure that, you know, guys aren't bringing weapons in. And they were on board. And we never had an incident inside our department, ever. Never, never had to, I was there 19 months. We never had an incident

inside the education building because I stressed that. I said that culture, I want this to be a, a atmosphere that you feel comfortable. I don't say let your guard down, but you can be a little bit more at ease and focus in on your study and focus in on your legal case, focus in on if you want to read a book in the library, because in those units, it's chaotic. It's chaos. And so I remember one day I was patting a guy down and I tapped his foot with my foot, you know, just to get him to spread his legs a little more, medium and a low, you can get away with that all day. And after the guy, he didn't do nothing. I patted him down. And like I said, I just gave him a little, because usually kind of stagger, your leg in between just a little bit, just in case he spins on you.

And I tapped his foot with my foot to get him to move his leg over a little bit further. And he goes into education. And the one of my staffs grabbed me, he said, boss, don't do that. I said, what? He goes, you tap. Like, don't do a movement like that. These guys will turn around and punch you or they'll turn around and stab you. And I was like, okay.

You know, just like at the medium you could do that. And then the pen, they said, no, you know. But I think that staff that care themselves in a certain way can work in any security level without any problems. Tell us about your job as an associate ward and what that was like. Yeah, so I promoted from Pollock as the supervisor of education was a GS-13 there. I went over to Latuna and worked for Ward Eihar over there. She promoted me or the regional director did promoted me to actually the director of the Bureau of Prisons actually makes those. selections. Yeah. So, or the regional director does. Anyway, that being said, uh, social warden is more

of, uh, managing all the departments. So it's split into two sides programming. And, um, geez, uh, I can't think of the other name, but anyway, it's two sides of the house. There's the programming side. And, um, I can't remember. Uh, yeah, whatever. So it's just about managing departments and then you've got obviously you're a decision maker for the institution i remember i was acting warden for about two months um my warden her husband had some health issues so i ended up she was out of out of uh state for quite some time dealing with her husband and his his health issues so i was a warden for about two months and um you know you're the whole facility is is lying on your shoulders you've got to make those decisions you know we had some uh uh

It was pandemic time, right? So you had to make calls. Like if you had a positive, what are we doing? How are we handling this? Are they going to quarantine? Are they going, you know, just all these different things that you had to think about. But the main thing was just the, oh, it was programs or operations. Sorry, I get back to the two associate wardens.

And then we would switch over. Like if you've been on there for a year and a half or two years over programs, you'd go get an opportunity under operations. and operations would be more of like the day-to-day running programs obviously fits in with your chapel, your education, recreation, those are your programming areas. But more of just a manager, right, or a leader of the people that the department heads. So once a month we'd have department head meetings, and they would meet, we'd meet with all our department heads and go over any questions or concerns. And usually we required every department head to give like a brief spiel of what's going on in their departments. So we were kept abreast.

And the best way to keep abreast is be out walking, making rounds. You know, you learn so much and you learn more about your departments by going out and putting boots on the ground, going to the housing units, going to recreation, going to education, hearing, you know, the good things about the staff, hearing what the staff aren't doing so well as far as, you know, talking to inmates and talking to staff. So, and ways we can prove. Crack a Cayman Jack Margarita and taste your escape. It's America's number one for a reason. Kamen Jack is a premium malt beverage with flavors.

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Conditions apply. Safety and security. is another way of, you know, going out and about and being proactive. Were you able to successfully make improvements that you saw needed to be made as just a regular correctional officer so many years prior? And then when you finally get in that position of power, you're able to make those changes? No. And that's why I think that so many correctional officers become just checked out.

Maybe just don't care, right? Like you saw that, right? You saw a lot of corrections officers probably treated you like a piece of crap, didn't they? And it's sad because there is no really. fulfillment or there is fulfillment in the job but you've got to take the the little wins and you've got to make them the things that you walk out the door happy with that day if you take on all the bullshit you know like all the negativity that's in there it can really eat at you and it can put you in a dark place so i would say um you know that uh there there there isn't a lot of reward

for a correction officer there isn't you know you're turning keys you're locking doors you're you're policing people, you're making sure that their rooms, their cells tidy. You know, it's just, it's, I mean, truly the sense, you're like the beat cop, right? Like you're the beat cop. You're not promoted up to the detective where you figure out a case and solve a case and you get that pat on the back. Like, wow, you solved this murder case. Well, you're not getting those pads on the back. You're more of like the beat detective who just has to do the normal rounds and you don't always get to accolades. So you can certainly, as you move up the chain with the Bureau of Prisons, that's where you can start making a difference.

you able to make a difference on that level? I think so. Like when I got to Latuna, I noticed in the education department because that was my forte. That was more of where, you know, my expertise was in. We started landing some Department of Labor classes. They had none. And I think within, and the supervisor of Ms. Cignonius, she was awesome. And she took my lead and she was like, sir, you were a supervisor of education, you know, you know my job too. So like, I'm interested to hear any suggestions you may have. I'm like, listen, Department of Labor classes are, what do they call them? The journeyman licenses, they're free. And the Department of Labor, all we're going to do is, you know, apply for them and show them that we can meet all the programming that was required.

And you get a journeyman's license once you complete the program. Some were 1,000 hours, 3,000 hours. And we implemented, I think, five within that. I was a year and a half. We put five Department of Labor programs in. So, yeah, I think that, you know, in small ways I was able to make a difference. Tell us about the last facility you were in. Oh, God, that was a nightmare.

I don't even really. So my window for being a warden was closing in shortly, right? I started late promoting up. I went to, you know, I was at McKean for 25 years, made it all the way to the promotional potential that I had there. So when I was 50, I finally got the GS-13. And then I was, I think 53 when I moved to Thompson. And Thompson, Illinois, it was a special management unit. I mean, there's been tons of articles and news stories written about Thompson.

And there's been previous spots, Florence, and then obviously Lewisburg, that have run the schmoo and just not successfully. It's not a program that is set up for success. So anyway, my window for being warden was shortening because there's a mandatory retirement age of 57. So I wanted to try to promote and become a warden. I would love to be a warden, you know, kind of full circle. Start as a correctional officer and come back as a warden. And just learning that wealth of information you go from working at different institutions and seeing different leadership styles and stuff.

And Warden Bergami was the warden at Thompson. He only got there two months ahead of me. And he was all about wanting to do the right thing and clean the place up and do what was right for both, staff and inmates. and sometimes they are together, right? Like when you make an improvement or you make a suggestion, it improves both the inmate and the staff. Well, in this situation, it seemed like that the decisions were, you know, there was a lot of abuse going on, a lot of just bad stuff happening to the inmate population.

When I, Marshall Project had reported on it. Prior to Warden Bergami and myself getting there, there was three homicides and two suicides within an 18-month period. So it tells you right there, right? The culture, the whole operation, something's not working right, because that's a high number, right? Especially in a lockdown units, right? The SMU is a lockdown unit to basically rehabilitate the incorrigible.

It was the worst of the worst inmates throughout the, the Federal Bureau of prison. So it took the penitentiaries dumped all their, their worst, and sometimes not their worst. They were sick of dealing with guys with a knife charge and a drug charge. And they were telling, no, not transfer and put them back out your compound. Well, they were getting sick of these guys. We get on their compound and continually going to the special housing unit.

So they just dumped them off on the schmoo. And I think when we got there, there was close to 800 inmates in the schmoo. It was a program set up for like three to 500 tops. And we had close to 800 inmates in this special management unit. Contentious union that was terrible. But my reason for going to Thompson was because it was one of those prisons that was in the optics of the whole Bureau of prisons. Like if you go there and you're successful, you'll be a warden somewhere because it is one of the toughest joints to manage in the Federal Bureau of Prisons. So if you're able to go there and be successful, you'll definitely have a chance to write your ticket.

to become warden. So I did not have it as a place that I wanted to promote it to at first. And then I got a phone call from my warden. Remember, I said she was dealing with her husband's health issues, but she called me. And she said, hey, there's an opportunity for you to go to Thompson, if you would. What do you have on it for? Because you can put a number on it. One being desirable, two, meaning you were like 50-50 on it.

Like, I may go there if the opportunity rose. And three being like, I don't want to go there. She's like, what number do you have on Thompson? I said, three. And she's like, oh, well, there's a change that they may want you to come there. Would you be open to changing that to a one? I said, you know what? Let me think it over.

Let me talk to my family. Let me talk to some of the folks in this agency that, you know, I respect that I've worked with over the years. And she's like, yeah, no problem. Let me know, though. You know, let me know in a few days or whatever. And I said, okay. And so I talked to my family and I said, you know what? I am willing to do it because.

it could fast track me to that warden spot, you know, do 18 months at Thompson, and it could be a warden job. And so I went there. But wow. First day there, I mean, I say hi to staff and I don't even get an acknowledgement back. Like, I mean, they had no respect for the administration there. They were going to do what they wanted to do. And that was the bottom line. And the union president set that tone because he was, he, I don't know, why, but he was somehow empowered by the regional director. I don't know if he had something over the regional director or not. I don't know. But to this day, the regional director would set guidance down to us and say, hey, I want this done. And we would set it in motion. You know, the warden would put out a memorandum or we would put out an operational change. We would, you know,

facilitate that, you know, procedural change. And we'd get a phone call maybe that day. And we'd get a phone call maybe that day or maybe the next day, yeah, backtrack on that. We're not going to do that. Wait a minute. We already put out the memorandum. We already did all this. And now what, yeah, Zumpkers, he's really belly aching about it. And I don't, I don't need to hassle. And we don't need to, you know, the media attention. So why don't we back off that? And it made us look bad as an administration because our boss is not supporting us. And he is listening to the, you know, the union president who has no power. He's a GS9 counselor who in three years did not do his job at all. So there was no memorandum of understanding. You probably don't know what that is, but a lot of institutions have memorandums of

understanding. And sometimes, not often, sometimes like at Pollock, the union was on a memorandum of understanding of 100% official time, meaning they did union duties 100% of the time. They didn't go due to their correctional officer job or their counselor job or their so that meant someone else has to pick the slack up because they don't that person's filled that position so he's a GS9 counselor in a unit well he is not doing his job so the rest of the unit has to pick up the slack for his absence but we didn't have that memorandum with this individual at thompson and we told the regional director that we're like sir there is no memorandum of understanding he should not be an official time. We're going to make him go back to work, and we were not supported on that. He would not support

us on making him go back to work because he was afraid of the blowback. It was just mind-blowing. And then just some of the horrific things I saw there, one time I was walking out onto the compound. It was probably a, oh, I don't know. No, no, no, no. Let me backtrack. watching a video from any time there was an incident, the executive staff, we always had to watch the video to see if we were in compliance with policy, if we did anything that would constitute sending it up higher to get an evaluation on it. You know, if there was a use of force, if it was a medical emergency, whatever the case may be. We had to review film. Usually it was for use of force, but typically we would review all incidents. just to make sure that we did everything the way we were supposed to do it.

And on this one video, there was a cell fight, and they pulled the two inmates out of the cell, brought them down, searched them, did a quick medical assessment. I think that one individual needed more medical attention. So they walk them out of the unit, and it's about a 100-yard, you don't know, 150-yard walk from the housing unit to medical. And when they're taking them across, I look down, and you know the little, booties they put over, you know, you know what I mean? I guess if you're a contractor walking in someone's house, those little blue things that go over your boots so you don't get to, in the middle

of winter, and it's 20 degrees out, there's this much snow, and they're walking this guy across, and I look down and I'm like, wait a minute, we treat our dogs better than that. Like, people put booties on their dogs to go out in the wintertime, and we're not even putting shoes on this guy, and the screams of human rights violation, right? Like, we've got to get better. But the stuff staff were resistant to that. They were like, screw the inmates. We're the staff. You know, like, it's our way. No, that's not how it works. Like, we have to follow our policy and procedures. And I'm certainly by no means an inmate lover. I mean, that's a term that they give a thugger is what I'm not a thugger. I'm about accountability. And I'm a count, I want accountability on both sides, inmate and the staff side. And I'm like, no, if you're asking them to do their part, you've got to do your part too. And if you hate inmates that bad, first of all, foremost, why are you working here? And second, if you hate them that bad, why are you doing things that open us up for litigation, meaning lawsuits? Like, this guy could go and file a civil lawsuit saying you violated his human rights.

And he's probably going to win some money. The deaths, the suicides, all the things that have gone on there, people are going back and litigating this and they're winning millions of dollars from the government. if you truly hate inmates this bad, why would you allow them to, A, be able to recoup money from the government, and B, some of them are going back and getting time off their sentences because for cruel and unusual punishment. Just had an individual who was there prior to Warden Bergami and myself getting there. He just won his federal case in Arizona. He got like 10 years knocked off a sentence for cruel and unusual punishment. It's crazy. If you hate inmates that bad, then why would you do things the wrong way?

So it allows them to go home sooner, win a lot of money. It blows my mind. I don't understand it. How long were you at that facility for? 14 months. And I realized, so what happened was my boss was 100% on board with me, you know, promoting up to warden. My boss writes my evaluation. And he gave me, there's like four different categories for your evaluation.

There's outstanding, excellent, fully set, and then minimally sat. You know, when you're going for promotion, you want to be in that outstanding category. You want to be in the top category, right? So my boss writes my evaluation, and he gives me an outstanding. It goes up to the regional director for review because he's the writing official. He's the, he's the, my warden is my raider, and the regional director is the reviewing official. So he basically, he knocks my evaluation down to an excellent. It's still good, but it's not going to get me promoted now.

And I see the writing on the wall that this guy's not supporting me because we are blowing the whistle on all the bad shit going on here at Thompson. And you just screwed my career. So I wasn't forced out. I left voluntarily. I voluntarily retired at 54 years old. And because I seen that I wasn't going to promote it to warden because I did the right thing. I told the truth about what was going on. there. And that wasn't Director Peters. She came to our facility. She testified in front of the

Senate Judiciary Committee. It was the worst facility she'd ever been in her 30 plus years of working in the judicial system or the criminal justice system. Worst prison ever. And we blew the whistle off it. So anyway, this guy lies. So the regional director, he lies. His name's Andy Maddozoian, and I can tell you how he lied. So I filed a basically basically an appeal to my evaluation. And through the process, he said that I had two failing departments, correctional services, and one other one. It was the unit management. So those two programs, they weren't mine. I produced two memorandums from the war and that I was not assigned to those departments. So those two failing departments,

that he said he reduced my rating because I had two failing departments, they were actually the other HWs, who he gave an outstanding to and promoted. So it just tells you the character, and it shows you the corruption, that they were wanting to keep that under lid, so he didn't lose his job. Well, Director Peters is out now. I mean, obviously, she was only in for like two and a half years. Just a terrible job, terrible. She would testify in front of, you know, the Senate,

And she would have, they made her look silly oftentimes. Now those individuals in those high up spaces where do they always have to come from the correctional officer background or are these people coming from other aspects of government thrown into that position? No, no. It's always promoted within the Bureau of Prisons all the way up to the director. You know, our deputy director right now is a former inmate. He was a Trump pardoned him. And did you not know that? No, I didn't know that.

Yeah. Yeah. So the new director is a warden that was over top, or excuse me, a director of prisons that was over top of either, I want to say, West Virginia, West Virginia's prison system, I think. Yeah, West Virginia's prison system. I may be wrong, but I think that. And the deputy director was just announced a couple months ago, well, not even a couple months ago, a month ago. And he is a businessman from, I want to say Tennessee, I think, that was incarcerated. I think he had a 10-year sentence, mainly did mediums and lows and maybe made it to a camp, and he was pardoned by Trump on Trump's first term.

And so he was pardoned, and there was rumor that he was going to be our director, but I think that they were going to get so much pushback from the staff because, I mean, you can't imagine what people are saying, right? Like, what? We're going to have a frickin' former inmate running our agency? Are you effing crazy? You know? Like, no.

So they picked a guy who was not formally incarcerated, but they did put him as deputy director. So, and you should see the comments. I don't have social media anymore, but I looked at my wife's Facebook and, oh, yeah, like just blowing up about, oh, yeah, now we're promoting freaking felons to be the deputy director. Ah, it was crazy stuff. Do you think that's beneficial? Like, do you think that'll help having someone with that experience? You know what I do? because it's lived experience.

Listen, I'm learning a lot off these prison channels, right? Some of the secrets that you guys kept from us, I'm learning because I watch some of these former incarcerated prison channels, and I'm like, whoa, I didn't know that. Wow, I'm finding that out. What was the biggest thing you learned, do you think? Just some of the ways, like some of the, you know, I mean, I did know, but I guess if you're not in like the special investigation section, you don't know all the details. of the bad stuff that goes on.

Like the coding of messaging and some of the gang, like the control they had over people's lives and things like that, some of that stuff I find, you know, that I'm learning more about. Do you look at inmates that come on the show now differently than what you did before in your role now that you're retired and watching a show like this? Like, do you think this helps change the stigma of individuals? Yeah, I do. I think that, you know, if you can give people the understanding, like I tried to, I hope I was crystal clear how violent our penitentiaries are. I hope that your listeners or your viewers,

they just understand how, I mean, worse than any other prison in the nation are our U.S. penitentiaries, bar none. And maybe in the world, I don't know, you know. I mean, obviously the ones in El Salvador are there that they've got running now doesn't seem very nice. But as far as violence go and the volatility, bar none, our U.S. penitentiaries. are the worst. And I'm just, I'm trying to, I don't know if you can come across that strong to individuals who don't understand prison. It is, I mean, these guys are coming on and saying, you know what, every day was just trying to survive. Like I wanted to just, I just had to make it through another day. And a lot of them didn't tell when they were going home because they didn't want someone to kill them

before they went home. They're made to put work in. You know, your reviewers probably know what putting work in means you have to do something, either violent or smuggling. drugs in or get a phone in, you have to do something for the gang or the gang is going to do something to you or the car, whatever you want to call it. So survival is. I mean, I think this is a new way to make change happen. I think if you have individuals come on and tell their stories open, wrong, honestly, whether they're a former warden or a correctional officer or an inmate, and it gets the intention of one of these politicians who's on social media and they get that like someone needs to be, um, inspired in order to want to create change. You need to be inspired to sit down on the show. It needs some inspiration behind it. So my hope is like these powerful individuals see a clip and they realize that's what's happened to this person in prison and they want to make a change. We could sit on Capitol Hill all day demanding change and it doesn't necessarily mean it's going to happen. You need someone that's in that position of power. And that's why, you know, you look at Trump and he's watching social media clips. And I think that's why a lot of these people are getting pardoned to begin with celebrities or whatnot because he's

relevant and seeing these things go on. Whether you like him or not, you know, he does pay attention to what's going on on social media. He does. And you're right. And maybe that's the way to get this point out. There is a lot of negativity in our federal prison system, the Bureau of Prisons. There's a lot of staff that are, that aren't held accountable. When he did those cuts. Like there are so money. All right. So he went after the low hanging fruit, right? This administration did, right? Went after the probationary. And do you know why that is? Because they have no rights. There's no protection. The union cannot protect them from being fired. So they went after the low hanging fruit first. They eliminated all the, you know, they cut probationary people. But here's my,

argument with that. Some of your new minds coming in, your new workers, you know, that's probably a younger person, right? Just starting out their career. Obviously. either in their probationary year, that are hard workers. And this guy or girl or whoever, it has 15 years in, and they're lazy as hell, like a John Zumpker who want to just do union work and not do his job. Okay, you're going to eliminate this person who has a potential to be great to get and keep this dud who does nothing. Is that really changing government?

No. It's actually hurting government because you're eliminating the easy, the low-hanging fruit and key. Wishing you could be there live for the big game, soaking up the atmosphere in the crowd. But too often, life gets busy. Or the price holds you back. Priceline is here to help you make it happen.

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Just help when you need it. Shop up to 45% off site wide right now during the Early Access Memorial Day sale at blinds.com. Rules and restrictions apply. Keeping these slugs that don't, they should not be working for the government. They should be gone because they don't do their jobs. You know, that's like in corporate too. Like when I worked at Whole Foods, it's always the wrong people in the wrong positions. And a lot of it has to do with favors or connections or anything.

And they appoint the wrong people to begin with. And that's why a lot of these problems are caused. Yeah. I mean, half the problems probably in the prison system are because the wrong people are in the jobs. And you're absolutely right. But in private industry, right, you guys are not funded by taxpayers. You make your money by being an organization that is for profit. Well, the government isn't for a for profit industry, right?

Prison is not for profit. It's about it's the taxpayers paying these peoples. And if they knew the laziness, and a lot of times when these inmates come on these shows and they complain like, I couldn't even get a visit and informed from my, I counsel, I couldn't do this. They're not lying. They're not lying. Now, is there some great staff in the Federal Bureau of Prisons? Absolutely. There's some great staff. Do the great staff outweigh the bad ones? I believe so. I hope so. But I saw a lot of lazy, negative staff, the disliked inmates, disliked their job, came and didn't do their job. And it was a fight

to try to get rid of them. The John Zumpkers of the world would fight for those guys to keep their jobs. Yeah. And it's like, it's crazy. You know, and Trump just did something where he eliminated the bargaining power of the union. And it kind of is recently, and I wish he would have done, I wish someone would have done this when we were, Warden Bergami and myself were at Thompson. I don't know if it's the right answer completely, not to allow somebody to come to the table, like the union, to have their perspective when bargaining issues or bargaining, you know, decisions on the prison. So when Warden Bergami got to Thompson, he met with Zumpker and Zumpker said you and I are the same.

Okay, this is a GS-9 counselor telling the warden who has been at 13 different facilities that you, me and you are the same. I'm on the union side. You're the warden of the institution, but you've got to go through me for decisions. And Warren Bergami is like, no, it doesn't work that way. Because at the end of the day, the decision made lies on my shoulders, me and the warden. And if I'm sued, if I do something illegal, it falls on my shoulders. But if I listen to you and then I get fired, you'd lose nothing.

So, no, that's not how it works. He said to him, I will listen to your input. I will take it into consideration. But at the end of the day, I'm going to make the decisions on what's best for the facility. And Zumpker hated that. He hated that his power was taken away. And from that day forward, he was a pain in our rear end until the day we left. And he still probably is.

Someone's pain in the rear end unless they allowed him to, have the power back that he, but then like I said, Trump just kind of knocked those union presidents down a bit as far as an executive order they signed. But then I heard seen where that had been overturned that you just can't not, you know, take away the bargaining opportunity for the bargaining union employees. So I don't know. It's craziness. But we had a very tough time. I'll tell you one more story real quick about the, so I retired and I had somebody tell me that there was a potential for a gun smuggled into Thompson. Okay?

So that's something really, you know, serious to be talking about, right? Like a gun being introduced into a facility because now it takes a whole safety and security of that institution into consideration. You're going to have to lock down. You're going to have to do something. So Thompson's on lockdown. And like I said, I get word that it's a potential gun. So I call this John Diaz. He works for the news station out in the Quad Cities.

I forget what, I think it's NBC that he works for. And I went on his show and interviewed. And he, I don't know, like I said, the media was very slanted towards the union's presentation and side of the story rather than the administration. But the administration, sometimes we were handcuffed. Like we would say, hey, we want to do a, you know, a rebuttal to this story or we want to, you know, public information, you know, put this out. And we were told, no. Now it's not worth the battle in the media. Okay, but they're not telling the truth. It's a false narrative. And they're not telling the truth. Well, we just don't want to open up Pandora's box. So let's just stay away from it. So we were told oftentimes that we couldn't, you know, do a rebuttal to the faults, the lies that Zumpker was making up. So this John Diaz, I called. And I said, you know, you guys give a lot of, a lot of credibility to Zumpker. And I said, it's very disappointing. The man is a pathological liar. He lies to you constantly. You guys have not called him out on this. He doesn't do his job. He hasn't does his job in three years. He's a counselor who has a responsibility to the taxpayers to be in there

doing his job and you've not, you guys won't hold his feet to the fire, but you held Bergami's and my feet to the fire. I said, it's unfair. I said, well, there's potential for a gun in there. And I said, and I'm pretty confident that's the reason why they're locked down. I said, will you add Zumpker with the reason why they're locked down? Because when Bargami and I were there, he'd run and say, there's a gun inside the facility they're worried about, no, I'm just telling you He would. He would go do chicken little and just blow it up. And so I said, can you please ask him that question and see what he says to you? Because I said, I know with most certainty it's probably a gun they're looking for. So he called me back. He said, yeah, he goes, Zumpker wouldn't tell us what it was. He said, just contraband. We're looking for contraband. And I said, okay. And he goes, but we did reach up to central office. they made a statement saying there is we are looking that there might be a potential weapon introduced to the facility.

And I say, he lied to you. I said, and that's what he's always done. And now you have the facts right in front of you because he lied to you because he could have told you the truth like he did, but he decided that he was going to cover it up by saying, oh, it's some piece of contraband like a phone or like some introduction of drugs. No, it was a gun, which is serious business. Yeah. And he lied.

Wow. Or what I want to say? It was just deceptive. He didn't tell them what was actually. But when Bergami and I were there for the year, I was there 14 months, but I think Bergami was there close to 18 months, he chicken little to the media and just tried to, oh, he put a statement out in the media that he wanted Bergami fired. There was a hit one time put on the warden, a potential hit,

that supposedly correction officers were negotiating with inmates to stab the warden, the regional director. pulled those corrections off their post for like four days. I don't know. I'm not confident. I don't have much confidence in the regional director that he did a full and thorough investigation if that really was what happened. Needless to say, four days later, put him back on their post. So obviously, that's the way he felt about our administration, which was sad. So what's your life like now?

What do you do? Retired. I did run for county sheriff last fall. That was some that I'd always dreamed about doing. I ran on the Democratic ticket, which was, I'm in a Red County. So it was an uphill battle from this start. But, you know, I think that I was able to effectuate some get taxpayers to understand how bad the county was, like the under sheriff who ended up being sheriff and he got elected.

He wasn't going to work. I mean, he was on vacation more than he was – vacationing, like out of state, more than he was going to to work and I you know exposed that and he had nine jobs he was dog catcher at like eight townships he was a part-time cop at one of our local city city police departments then he was the undersheriff so he had nine or nine or ten jobs counting count his undersheriff job and you know people are like on social media last year were like well so what he's a hard work or no okay so under sheriff should be a 40-hour. If you elect somebody, when you think it would be a 40-an-hour, at least a 40-hour-week job, I would think that, but it's not.

I mean, there's no requirement on how many hours you have to put in to the job. And I think that needs to be changed. Like if you elect somebody into a position, they need to go to work, right? Like, how do you manage your department or set the culture or set the tone if you don't go to work? And then about the nine jobs, I said, okay, I call you and say, hey, I've got a vicious dog over in this township, but you're on duty as a police officer. down in this one city that I said that he worked for. How do you go to that respond to that call when you're already working a district? You'd have to call your boss say, hey, I got to go to this dog call over another township,

and I need relieved. That's just not how it works. So, like, there's no way you can be in two places at one time. So obviously, those townships were being neglected or his sheriff job, under sheriff's job, was being neglected, or the job at the police department was being neglected. You just can't do that many jobs at once. Like I said, I came out on the short end of the stick, and that's fine. I, you know, lick my wounds and I'm moving on.

But at least I was able to, I hopefully expose some of the corruption that was going on down there. And maybe taxpayers will look at that a little more closely when they do make a decision next time that it does come up for election. But other than that, I snowbird in the winter. I go down to Florida for the winter months and come back up here. Just had another grandbaby born. So just, yeah, thanks. Just, you know, trying to figure it out. Retirement, when you go from, you know, you're at 100 miles an hour for 34 years.

That's how many years of government service I had, 34 years. You're 100 miles an hour for 34 years. And then you've got a downshift down into, you know, first gear and go, you know, 10 miles an hour because you don't have a job anymore. It's been a struggle to try to figure out, okay, what's my role and what's my place? So, but, you know, like doing things like this. I think that they're twofold. One, I get my story out there. And, hey, someone might, this might go viral.

We might, you know, get some help behind this, you know, changing culture in our prison system. So it's helping people make it out and come home and be successful when they come home, right? Not just sending you home, but be successful when you come home. Definitely. Yeah. Well, DJ, thanks so much for sitting down with me today. Very fun time, man. Yeah, me too.

This is cool. Yeah, it was an easy interview, man. You did a great job. Yeah, you went for two hours. Wow. Yeah, time flies when you're having fun. Yeah. Well, you know, thanks again for coming.

I hope you and your wife enjoy New York City. Yeah, thank you very much. Appreciate it, Ian.