In this episode, we talk to Brad Cowen who worked at the Department of Corrections in Massachusetts for over 34 years. Brad worked his way up through uniform ranks, entering a management position after 20 years. He discusses what he saw from a staff perspective, how difficult it is to discuss issues, including vicarious trauma, institutional trauma, as well as the code of silence that exist even among staff. We discuss a late, great man we both knew, Robert Sweeney, as well as the murder of his daughter and how this impacted his life, as well as his family.
Brad is open, honest and clearly invested in helping others and this really shines throughout the interview.
In this episode, we talk to Brad Cowen who worked at the Department of Corrections in Massachusetts for over 34 years. Brad worked his way up through uniform ranks, entering a management position after 20 years. He discusses what he saw from a staff perspective, how difficult it is to discuss issues, including vicarious trauma, institutional trauma, as well as the code of silence that exist even among staff. We discuss a late, great man we both knew, Robert Sweeney, as well as the murder of his daughter and how this impacted his life, as well as his family.
Brad is open, honest and clearly invested in helping others and this really shines throughout the interview.
Hi and welcome to finding your way through therapy. I'm your host, Steve Bisson. The goal of this podcast is to demystify therapy, what can happen in therapy, and the wide array of conversations you can have in therapy. I also talked to guests about therapy, their experience with therapy, and how psychology is present in many places in their lives. They also share personal stories. So please join me on this journey about there. Hi, and welcome to episode 85 of finding your way through therapy. I'm your host, Steve Bisson. If you haven't listened to Episode 84, yet, it was a little bit about me, very uncomfortable talking about myself, but go listen to it and you'll see what I'm talking about. But episode 85 will be with Brad Cohen. Brad is someone I've known personally for a while. He is someone who started working in Department of Correction in 1986 and retired in February 2020. During his 34 years of employment there he went up the ranks and ended up being someone who went from a team unit leader to an IPS to a sergeant to an ACA training instructor, an auditor and also serve as a lieutenant. At the end of his career. He's worked at different places in the state of Massachusetts, including MCI Framingham, the Substance Abuse Treatment Center, MCI, surely Pineville, MCI, Norfolk, as well as the state transportation. Rad wanted to talk a little bit about the correctional staff and what they go through. And it's something that's dear to my heart for several reason. Most importantly, I worked in that field for several years. And also, hopefully, we'll talk about a couple of personal connections that both me and Brad have with the Department of Correction, in particular. So here is the interview. Hi, and welcome to Episode 85, of finding your way through therapy. It's also episode 21 on YouTube. So please check out the YouTube find the podcast and if you're on the podcast, go check YouTube out. But today I want to start off by dedicating this to a good man and a good friend who unfortunately passed away last like this last year or this year, it will be last year when this comes out. Robert Sweeney was a good man that worked in correction. And he was always helping out other people always trying to reach out to other people. And ultimately, not only for the Department of Correction, he was a veteran. He did my wonderful work for veterans. He did so many great things for people who had passed away voc including a nice garden. So I want to dedicate this to someone that we both know. And I want to say that it's going to be for me, that's an emotional thing. I really like Bob a lot. And I know that Brad did too. But let me get into who's here, right? Because you want to probably know who's here. Right? So Brad, is someone that I've worked at has worked in, how long did you work at for the OSI department.
Alden "Brad" Cowen:34 years,
Steve Bisson:Steve 34 years. And Brad Cohen is someone who's worked for 34 years for the Department of Correction. Also someone who knew Bob very intimately, and ultimately a great guy I've known Brad for over a couple of years now. And Brad's another guy that would give the shirt off his back if you needed it. So, Brad, welcome to finding your way through therapy. And maybe you can start off quickly. I'm gonna let you go right away and talk maybe about Bob and what your memories are, Bob, because we both miss him.
Alden "Brad" Cowen:You're happy to be here. Steven, I'll tell you that Bobby was a great guy. I got to work for him that work with him, I should say, Framingham, and we never really lost contact. He was one of those guys. He was a guy's guy and marine part of the Marine Corps. He did have his own battles. But when he was assigned to the employee assistance unit, for the department correction, that was like his niche, that's where he kind of belong, because he had so much integrity, and people just love them. He was one of those guys that can relate to anybody whether you're weak, strong, male, female, Caucasian, African American, he just he just he loved everybody. And that's kind of who he was. And he was like this, like I say in the Marines, staunch biker and, and I really appreciate you recognizing him prior to this podcast.
Steve Bisson:I'll always remember him for so many other things, too, and the people that he impacted, which, you know, I've also heard many stories about. So I think that it's important that we talk about Bob, and when you said Framingham, just for people who may not know, Framingham, Framingham, Massachusetts is there's a Department of Correction there. That's mostly women, it's all women. And that's what we were talking about. So just for my, my international crowd, I gotta make sure they get it on
Alden "Brad" Cowen:and off. Steve, we're going to talk about the memorial after the always remember Memorial, but Bob was really, he was the backbone behind that memorial. And he, he took a personal foot when it wasn't really taken away. He thought it should be taken by correction officers. And you know, but let's say Bob is a special guy and thank you again.
Steve Bisson:Well, I think that we need to get to that memorial for sure. I think that there's even a personal link for for you there that we can talk about too. But how about usually start offered an introduction of who the person who say, Hey, tell me about yourself. But I think it was important talk about Bob. First, I think that we need to give that dedication to Bob, and we'll definitely come back to him. But how about Brad, you tell us a little bit about yourself to the audience of finding your way through therapy.
Alden "Brad" Cowen:I went to high school I graduated in 83. While in high school, I play football, baseball's have fully athletic. And I made the decision to join the Army National Guard with a friend of mine when I was 17, to pay for my college, basically, and I went to school for criminal justice, especially psychology with a criminal justice minor. And I ended up starting to work for the Department of Correction. And at the age of 20. My goal was really to be a state police officer, because my next door neighbor, and my best friend, was a state police officer. However, when when I started making rank in early age, I was fortunate to make rank early, like 22 years old, that was a sergeant correction all of a sudden became a profession for me. And it was the route that I took. So it was a great rule. 34 years, everybody has their ups and downs on it, but it doesn't. But in the end, I was very proud to wear the uniform, I was proud to represent the department, it really is an amazing agency.
Steve Bisson:The first thing that comes to mind when I hear that right is how the hell did you survive 34 years?
Alden "Brad" Cowen:Yeah, it's interesting, Steven, I think you can either. I think what helped me towards the end is believe it or not, is like when I was a security guy. So it's all about the inmates not really worried about the inmates. So what's good for them, but what isn't good for them. And, and I think as your maturity agency, and I think also return life, you start realizing that, that these are human beings, and when if you really want to look at recidivism, you want to look at people not coming back, and the purpose behind it. And that is like this guy could get out and could be your next door neighbor, or your father's next door neighbor. And you want to give that person as many tools as you can to succeed while they're out there. And I think you see a lot of that, but you really have to push it down. Because sometimes security staff really, they missed the big picture. But when you talk to them, and you open and transparent and get out there and they believe in you, I think you can make certain changes that are positive for the agency, and also the individuals themselves.
Steve Bisson:I work with corrections, not only on the DLC level department correction in Massachusetts, I worked on a county level with a couple of counties around here. And I also worked with the jails and prisons up in Vermont. There is certainly a code and one of the things that always struck me and maybe you can speak to that is that there were brands but they were few and far between. Because a lot of it it was a competition competition competition. I always admired you because you you like if you elevate someone you great, I elevate someone you always want to elevate someone but I don't find that as a culture in the Department of Correction, my wrong.
Alden "Brad" Cowen:Yeah, I agree. Sometimes, I used to talk to staff all the time, particularly as I as I want to prank and became a deputy DLs superintendent, I was able to meet with groups of staff and try to look at the culture and kind of where I came from uniform. That was a big advantage for me. Because oftentimes, folks in uniform, don't respect the folks that came up with a classification piece as much, which I'll tell you, I've worked for a lot of great people that came from the classification piece. But that's just kind of the thing would be in a person in blue. But I always tell them about how you talk about management, how management doesn't care for people. Well, oftentimes, they don't care for themselves. They don't bring each other up. They'd rather just quick Shut up people. But that's that ends up being a culture and it's not everywhere. It's a different ways at different institutions. Again, working with so many institutions like I did, you see the different things, but you always try to make things positive, I tried to make a negative environment as positive as I could, which wasn't always easy. And I don't think we have enough time to podcast over all the things. I think that there could have been improved. But yeah, I just think that trying to take a negative environment and turn it as positive as we can, I think would be the best goal. And that's that actually creates a safer environment for staff as well as the inmates.
Steve Bisson:Well, I think if you want to think about we don't have to do just one podcast, I run the show. So maybe one day we can talk about that because because as much as I had a, I was mental health. I was not a department of corrections staff. I was never a Worcester County or Middlesex County. I was never there staff. I was a mental health guy who worked was contracted. But I definitely had different type of situations with people. And I know that Department of Corrections sometimes struggled with people coming from the outside. Do you think that that culture still exists? Or do you think it's changed?
Alden "Brad" Cowen:Oh, absolutely. So I think the problem with culture is, I think in society, we've looked at the mental health, downfalls so much greater, like closed roles, mental health facilities, yes. Back to like, oh, we shouldn't have closed them. And now you know, when I first started mental health was part of the Department correction is shown on the MediCal, but they didn't have the voice that they have today. So I know the mental health directors in every meeting in the morning we talked about every case in the morning. We talked about every inmate in the morning, not every me but every inmate that's on a watch in the morning.
Steve Bisson:But I still think people wear their watches before we go on because oh, well,
Alden "Brad" Cowen:my apologies. So, so you have a 15 minute watch was a close watch. And you have a an Apple watch or a one on one watch, which is a constant watch. And those are the folks that are having trouble dealing with either society, life nation society, because they're in prison, but life or personal issues that they're dealing with, which is way above my paygrade. However, especially as a superintendent, I'm supporting the mental health staff with you know, we want to get the inmate off the watch as soon as we can, because it is creating overtime, is creating issues. But more importantly, we can do it for for the individual themselves. And sometimes I think that's the piece that's missing, I think sometimes we look at. So for instance, mental health can even make decisions on sanctions for disciplinary action. So if the disciplinary board says that the inmate should have 10 days isolation, which means evanesce, without the TV met, the Hopkins can turn around and say, well, that's really not good for his mental health. And I don't think we should change change in isolation to maybe room detention. Well, that doesn't really go very positive. With the uniformed staff, especially folks, if if this inmate threatened somebody or did something very inappropriate. It's not a positive thing. However, the mental health professionals looking at the AMA, personally and what their needs are. And I think because they are a private contractor, and it is a contract, they want to be awarded the contract when it comes up again. So sometimes I think they give in a little more than the really need to but that those are tough decisions. That's for sure.
Steve Bisson:You know, the stuff that I can tell you, from my experience, is that my biggest show this prior to us recording here, you know, I remember being called in a max area, and saying, Steve, we need to do an evaluation, it was an act of suicide attempt. And they made me wait at the door, because there's like three doors to get the max obviously. And they opened the door eventually, because the janitor was there. And this the janitor went in and I thought I was going in like, no, no, he goes in. So I always joked around. And it's not even a joke, when you really think about it that the slush bucket goes over mental health sometimes?
Alden "Brad" Cowen:Well, I think part of that is you have to have meetings with different disciplines. So when you start looking at an agenda, you want to pass so say, say you want to do something with movement, in a movement to make it more fluid, you have to bring in mental health, you have to bring a medical, you have to bring a meeting, you have to bring in everybody and you have to create a team. You know, it really is a team. And when we talk about the memorial that was a big part of the memorial was that everybody who worked into the monitor correction would be recognized if they in fact passed away. So that's up to the upper administration to create this team and not create division. We all know about division, oh, just look this country. Unfortunately, we have a lot of division. But you can't have that division inside. And I also do not believe in the me versus staff mentality, either. I think part of that needs to be together too. I think the needs of the inmates are important as well. And whether people want to think I'm a white hat, no, this is really never bothered me, I look at what's best for the institution was best for people in general. And, and sometimes these people never just never had a chance.
Steve Bisson:Right. And I think that that's a little bit of what we want to talk about too, in general is that we want to know what these men and women face regularly when they're in the jail and that the public might not know and one of the things that I always found interesting is I tell people like, like, I would go into XYZ jail will say in Bridgewater, Massachusetts, I'd go into Bridgewater, Massachusetts, when I went into the jail, it might as well been Zimbabwe, or China, or it was a complete different culture and you needed to adapt as a mental health guy, but also the culture of the OSI and the culture of the county jails. What else should the public know in regards to the men and women who work in those type of environments?
Alden "Brad" Cowen:So I'll say this, it's interesting. I was talking with a friend of mine just yesterday about how cold it's been. And I said, you know, are you better off being homeless? In the city of Boston with a with a cardboard box and maybe a blanket? Freezing your butt off? Are you better off committing a minor crime and go to jail where you're gonna get three hot meals, you're gonna get heat, you're gonna You don't have to work and get up when you want, you know? Because it's an environment that really isn't that bad, like when granted, you lose all your freedom. But honestly, in my 34 years, and people listen to this podcast may not think I'm being honest, but but I really am like, it makes we're not mistreated. They really weren't. I did not see a cultural systemic issue of inmates being mistreated. I think the state of Massachusetts also very liberal. And I think some of the things I didn't always agree with, but like the reason the releases were pro, like they want everybody released, especially for non violent crimes, and, and I always believe in a second chance. But unfortunately, there are some folks in there that really aren't ready to be released. They're not ready to release. But if they take advantage of the opportunities to go through anger management, certain trainings and possibly get involved in religion, which I think is important, then they can be a better product when it gets to society. But sometimes it just won't Take it out, and then we see him back. Three months later, nevermind the addiction side addiction was a totally different thing for me. But I really truly believe that's the thing I would love to pose to people is that do all these advocacy groups and athletes This is the worst thing in the world at the correction also walking around ability clubs to hit people left and right. And, and honestly, I did not see that I'm not telling you we didn't see verbal abuse at times. But that happens everywhere. You know what a lot of times that was created by by the inmate due to his actions which after a while, if you make conforms to the policies or procedures of the institution, that's going to also go to the wayside to this like people always said when I worked in North Florida, we had 1400 inmates and out of the 1400 700 Well lifers that was the place for the lectures that goes on
Steve Bisson:off work. And if someone doesn't know what a lifer is, what's
Alden "Brad" Cowen:natural life doing first degree and impossibly second, but we had 701st up lifers, which
Steve Bisson:I got. Some people might not know what we're talking about.
Alden "Brad" Cowen:Oh, absolutely, my friend. Thank you. So with that said, people, often times it's oh my god, you went to 700 life. That's amazing. Today, the easiest population to deal with, because they Oh, that this is they know that this is their home. And this is where they're going to live for the rest of their life. So they want to make the best of and they don't want to lose their single cell. They don't want to staff coming in and tearing apart the room because they used off language to somebody. So they were the best. They were the best population. I like you worked in the county, Steve, I never did. I always found counties, county inmates because they always wanted to be that alpha male, and they always wanted to prove themselves. That was a tougher environment. And when I say working with life is that's the best population to deal with.
Steve Bisson:I agree wholeheartedly. i For those of you who get YouTube, you saw me pointed Brad, because I worked with lifers that were second degree. So they have a possibility of parole, they would come out on parole. And a lot of people like oh, you work with murderers. I'm like, those were the easiest ones to work with, because they knew the consequences of their actions. And I think that what I've always said to people I'd rather work with 20 lifers locked the door and work with them, because I'll be fine than work with five people with his history of assault battery, because they don't know the consequences of their actions. And I don't know if you had the same experience, but that's certainly
Alden "Brad" Cowen:well, no, I didn't. And I remember talking with a life who I've known for years. Again, I start when I was 20. So I started really at a younger age. And some of these guys were 20 themselves. But when I'm 30 years old, that means no one if I've known for 10 years, I'm 35 and known for 15. But they've been behind a wall I've been coming to visit. And so I had one high profile individual who was brought back on a parole violation that he really had nothing to do with but it was something to do with New Hampshire in a murder. But I remember talking to him, he said, you know, common he said, When I get out that was scary, you know, the alarm went off, it scared the crap out of me because I never heard an alarm before. He said, I don't know how to work the VCR back. And we have VCRs said, and then you know, I was always a runner. So I went down run in the Senate in the house that was there before wasn't there, it was a different color. There was another one that was built in its place. The cause was so much faster. It was tooting horns, you say that running back to the house, you said it was scary being out there. You don't have to be so institutionalized to get on to society was tough for him. And then so sorry. And you also have the responsibility of now they have to work to get rent, they have to work to get food and it's just difficult environment for them.
Steve Bisson:And I think that when you you talk about that I the first thing came to mind is on parole. I had someone who did two consecutive, what they would call manslaughter for 10 years. And he came out I had a conversation. He did reentry stuff. About three days in he came in crying into the office. And I'm like, what's going on? We'll call him George. He's like, the machine will give me money. Like, you mean, the money machine won't give me money. I went to the ATM. And then they give me money. I mean, I said, Okay, I'll go with you. It's not far we'll walk over what you walked over with him. He thought that he had to speak to the machine and the machine would give him the money. Because he never knew to put in the card, putting in his pin. He knew nothing of that. And I always tell people like the things that we take for granted in what I consider outside life. Something that when you're doing 20 years straight, you know, you lose sight and ATM then exists in 1984 when this guy went in. And so I think that that's absolutely one of the things they face. What about like he talked about men and women? What else do they face inside that people don't really get outside here.
Alden "Brad" Cowen:So a lot of things that like you think about it when you when you respond to an emergency, especially the yard, the chow hall areas that are frequented by so many inmates or large groups of inmates new over the airwaves, you know, there's a fight in the chow hall. And most of the time when it's called in, it's not called in like it's a fight in the chow hall. It's it's not your job. And you can tell the excitement. So right away, your blood pressure is going up and you're responding to you know, fight or flight we know about the fight you know, so we respond. And then you get there. And it's over with this. It's working out he's cuffed and second one works out. He's cuffed. Steve, what do you do when you have all this adrenaline built up and what do you do with it? What do you do when you when you want to sell and sell is just full of blood, because you may was involving self self injurious behavior. And what they would tend to do is mix the blood would water, which made it a larger volume of blood, but still the whole, the whole cell would be full of blood and they write on a wall. Satan lives here and take feces and, and write your feces on the wall. You know, those are things that people just, they don't see that just the disguise that live with you for the rest of your life. I remember as a young sergeant and it may put a cigarette in his eye. And after you put the cigarette in his eye, he was going to Mass sign in to me, he said, Colin, my hurts. In my mind, I'm like, I'm gonna shoot you right here. So you just turned around and put a friggin cigarette, you're a when you look at that stuff, you're like, This is so abnormal guys cutting up and at the time asking for cigarettes, that is full of baloney. Like, No, you need to give me the razor First, I need the reason. But those things that I just don't think people really know how to live with or deal with. It's the second EMT and EMT that they go to the the first accident incident where somebody's dead, they'll just go to somebody that's dead, that dead body is not normal. It's just not normal. When if the gray in color or say it's been a hanging sleeve, and people don't realize that when when you hang your neck stretches. So if the image has been there for three or four, for a little while, we don't say it could even be an hour and a half hour, two hours. I don't know the exact timeframe. But the vertebrae could be stretched state different vertebrae, and it's just an abnormal scene. And then and then you go to the officer and he told you all say, you know, do you need a break? Was the officer going to tell you? No, I don't need a break. I don't need a break. You know why? Because I'm, I'm Teflon. Nothing bothers me. And if I do need a break, then that means that I'm powder, or motoboy, and I'm weak. Right? So those are the tough things that people don't deal with so much was of the job and, and I remember that like people going out by ambulance. Sometimes it's stressed blood pressures go Hi, they have an asthma attack, and we're going to take them out by ambulance and offices do not want to go out by ambulance. The last thing I want to do is roll up the ambulance, especially if you're caught in, in front of all kinds of inmates, which will always avoid take them off the back or lock everybody in. But still it's the module was some of the job. I think people don't realize happens. You know, it's like we talked about police officers, and I was never a police officer, can you imagine being in a cruiser, and you have somebody in a high speed pursuit, and he almost hits the woman pushing the carriage out across the street? And then also, it's the baby that the woman's walking with? What does that feel when they get out of the car? You know, they got all this adrenaline and yet you're supposed to act appropriately? And what will society do? What would society do? What would the average person do when when somebody spits at you in the face? Right? You want to punch him right in the mouth. But if you punch him in the mouth, guess what? You're in trouble. And I'm not saying the punch of mouth is always the right answer. All I'm saying is what would Joe society want to do? And I'm gonna say those actions happen all the time. But to tell you they don't, they do happen. And sometimes it's unwarranted. So those are the things I think that's the biggest thing is the trauma of dealing with the violence. You know, how many people have even seen a seizure. And even that seen a seizure before knows, like, the violent, these grand mal seizures of island? Yeah, if you've never seen one before, it's tough. And you got to kind of hold the guy down and hope that the other arm doesn't hit you in the face, because the person on the other side can't hold them down. When you're a new officer dealing with the games that inmates play, because who's going to play it? And it really realized the game has you become a seasoned officer because you see the inmates planet and you go up to them say, Come on, what's what's your problem, stop, relax, you know, but until you become really unfortunately, a part of that environment, when you're accepted. In that environment. There's a lot of work to do.
Steve Bisson:I think it also desensitizes us in general. I mean, I again, as a civilian mental health guy, I've had urine thrown at me, I've had feces thrown at me, spit the whole nine yards. But I think that what we're talking about here is a little bit of what I think you also want to address, which is institutional trauma. Because for me, and I'm just like, my time in inside was only a few years, but I've worked with enough correctional staff to know that there is a thought process that you can't just take like, Alright, my shifts done at four, I'm good. I'm gonna go home and I'm going to live the civilian life and I'm going to be good part of that institutional trauma, in my opinion, is there other stuff that as institutional trauma goes that you find is important for people to know?
Alden "Brad" Cowen:Just it's it just dealing with a negative environment, dealing with folks that click for instance, a lot of people have trouble dealing with sex crimes. And when you do have to read a case and the case is so heinous, but you really can't take it out on the individual that committed the crime. You know, you really have to treat that person like they were human being. And those are tough things to get past. They really are. It's tough when you deal with a high profile inmate that shot and killed 14 people and even took money away from a retiree woman's worked her whole life to build this nest egg and then somebody with white collar crime decides they want to just take it from. Those are things like police officers say I deal with the individual once you deal with the individual every day and you do You deal with them. So it's like, it's almost like mind war. It's a psychological thing. The thing that always helped me is people say, Oh my God, you're six foot three 280. And I used to be really into lifting weights and strong. But the physical pieces that is important is the mental piece. Like you have to know how to talk to people. My quick wit helped me a lot. And then after a while, I think my compassion can really help me. When I get towards the end, and I worked in an office work, the staff will say, you know, it's great, you're out here talking to us. And we appreciate it, you know, if we feel like we're pointing, which they were, they were always reminded, I'm also going to talk to the inmate population too. And when I talk to them, and there's something that they need, not something more than the policy dictates for something that they're required to have. My job is to make sure that they have it. Right.
Steve Bisson:And I think that the thing that I've seen, even in my short time working with the department of corrections that I've worked with, is that there's a lot more talk with the escalation and using words, but again, I forgot to say I worked, I worked long enough, I've never seen a baton come out and never seen an inmate get hit by a correctional officer. And even the people I've seen hearing in counseling and all that I've never heard of anyone doing that
Alden "Brad" Cowen:will sometimes do, but like, that's a supervision thing, too. And I'll give you a good example of that. We had an issue where we're an inmate was being very mouthy and threatening towards a female staff member. And one of the female staff members started it or didn't start it, you may say that she started it. And she said, I just didn't want to wear it, he was playing games, but make a long story short, when we took him out of the cell, the direction of her was to not be around anywhere. And I remember she was mad at me, because I asked her to leave. And I wasn't blaming her for anything. All I was saying was, what's the risk versus reward? Right, that there's a lot more risk than it was what if I get you out of here that I'm not going to have to worry about who's spitting, I have to worry about using force, I'm not going to so I omitted that. And that's, that's part of the escalation, I give an end, it's just use a little bit of common sense. Another big piece, and I'd be remiss if I didn't talk about is some of the uniformed staff deal with a lot of poor decisions by management, or people that work for them, whether they work for, for instance, somebody's never late for work, and all of a sudden, elite five or six times, and instead of talking to the officer, but you get a written warning, or you get you're gonna not be we're gonna, instead of calling a minute, find out that the person is going through a divorce, the person just lost their mother, they don't have their babysitter, there's a lot of traffic coming into work, and you try to work through and say, Hey, how are we going to get you to work on time? What do we need to do? Can you leave earlier, or just even be open to it? So it will last for like three months? We went for about three months? You know, and that's that's how you take care of staff.
Steve Bisson:And I think that that's goes a little bit about, you know, we talked about institutional trauma. The other thing that I think happens a whole lot is the code of silence. Yeah, yeah. And if you want to talk more about that, but
Alden "Brad" Cowen:yeah, there's actually some states that if you're found guilty of the code of silence, you can be terminated. The code of silence is real. And it's a hard thing for me to talk about only because sometimes, you have to really stick with each other, and you have to support each other. Not just to have a safe environment, but just to have a working environment with people. However, however, when you deal with a case, like you did with the police officer of Minnesota, and he's hold them down in a guy, and they call that positional asphyxiation, which a lot of people don't even really know about. Because when you put downward pressure on an individual, they want to fight even more. Well, the other people have to come back and say, Hey, like, step off, get off. It's like one of the teachers to force when I Will Teach You To force training to supervisory staff, I would always tell the supervisory staff, you really can't stop an officer from hitting an inmate once. You really can't, because you don't know that they're going to do it. But you can stop the officer from reloading and hitting me again. Right. So if the officer is not doing what they should be doing, or it's inappropriate, what he should be doing, then pull the officer away. And then hey, let's talk about this. Let's see why you did that. You may not see that the author was being bid. You might not see that. So that could be a reason why the author did it. But with a code of silence, sometimes. I don't think that the staff are held accountable with each other enough. You know, it's like the state police. You give us a state trooper pulled somebody over artist when I was hanging out and being out of uniform. You just don't see it because they police themselves because they say, Hey, we don't do that. We wear our uniform, we're professional group. But yet, I remember the times I've seen a correction officers pull into a Dunkin Donuts, they pull into a handicap spot, their shirts open, per se do a spin on the ground and I'm selling myself like I said, What are you? What are you doing? How are you representing the uniform? So sometimes, we need to let people know Hey, and I want to use a bag with this. There's another verbiage I use, but you need to unscrew yourself like you I mean, you need to do need to do better. And I would oftentimes, like if it was a property issue, I would always have the officer who wasn't making the right decision, correct it like if it makes me happy and said hey, you know I'm not getting this. I'm looking I will talk to the officer I told you I'd say do a favor. By the end of the day, you get it to him, not me, I'm not going to tell you or tell me, Hey, you're gonna get it. But I want to make sure that he gets what he's supposed to get without really making a big deal out of it. So the quarter sales is prevalent. Steve, just to agree to degree, but there's a quarter sounds in government. There's a court of silence with the Republican Party with the Democratic Party. It's just part of life. And and I wish I had them out with the miracle answer blue because it is it is it can't be an issue and can create dangerous environment.
Steve Bisson:You know, I go back to something. I've had a conversation with police officer, Jay, who's been on my podcast many times. The code of silence to me can be really worked on. When you really think about it this way. 95% of people in mental health, they're just trying to do their job. They want to make you like get better and move on in your life. And they do well, there's 5% that are schmucks hassles will treat you like crap. My code of silence tells me I don't cover those 5%. I don't. And if we can get the police, like, the problem is the media, like if a police officer does something wrong, and now suddenly, it's all cops are like that? Well, no, it's a 5% Because there's 5% of crap. Everywhere you go, there's 5% of correctional staff that are assholes. Sorry, that's just that's just how I see it. But instead of having like, if you say, well, that one correctional officer is doing that the code of science does not work for that 5% He will see it as no, you fucked over there. 99.9% of the team know you fucked over that 5% I want the code of silence and keep continuing. I don't know if you agree with me, but that's just how I perceive it.
Alden "Brad" Cowen:Steve, you're 100%? Like I remember staff would come to me and they would they say, you know, we're not giving love people Christmas off. And I would say well, why don't you get the people that are out on IAA because they have a hangnail? Why do you have them come back before Christmas? But it was amazing. How many will come back after Christmas? would that person be at home? Is one less person scenario wise getting the day off? Right, you know, but yet if you go police yourself, sometimes the problem but I truly believe what you said, you get that 5%. And if the 95% Tell the 5% Hey, we don't agree with your actions and we don't work. We don't do it this way, then just create a better environment. But I think people are just afraid to upset the applecart. They really aren't. And I know people that take rink, they want to go home, they want to be proud. And like, you know, I'm a sergeant and I probably shouldn't be a proud thing. But part of that is when you get to work you need to supervise. When an officer doesn't do their last round. Well, you make sergeant, you're proud to be a sergeant and you need to tell the officer Hey, before you go, you need to last round, or you've been in the control room. For the last half hour, you got to be on the floor, dealing with issues we have with you. But the chair condition, this idea won't get out there. Your post is out here. And unfortunately, that isn't the case.
Steve Bisson:Can I play it? Can I play devil's advocate for a second? Absolutely. Okay. Because this is a story. I've been told by a couple of people. And I always go, Okay, I have my answer. But I want to hear someone who's been there done that probably has a few T shirts. So what I've been told is like, well, if I go into population, there's 100 of them, and there's four of us. So we're gonna get our asking, that's why I don't spend time there. What would you say to someone like that?
Alden "Brad" Cowen:Let's say it's a crock of shit. I'm gonna say it's a crock of shit. When when you get out there and you interact with these guys. And they know that you're fair. And you can be firm, right? But you're consistent. And they get to know who you are. It's like people would ask me, Why are you afraid to see anybody on the streets? Well, part of my past is I did eight years of investigations. There were guys who got extra time during my investigation. So guys did isolation time through my investigation. So the guys that went to DDU do my investigation, there was not one inmate that I'm worried about seeing on the streets, because every single one of them did something wrong. I didn't plant drugs in this. So I didn't get my dirty urine when it wasn't a dirty urine. I never did all that. So if you're gonna go out there, and you're going to treat these guys fear, you're going to when you walk around a tear, and you walk by excuse me, thank you the words that people don't think you can say in prison. Well, that that makes it better for you. Like I was never once afraid of 100 image. So when I'm 20 years old, and I'm working in a prison, quite frankly, my walls are bigger than my brains, right? True story. So it's not different. I'm 20. I'm just out of boot camp here. I mean, it's like, I'm the king of the world and just kind of knock me down. But then eventually, your brains catch up with, but you don't mistreat people, and you treat people fairly. And you see it, you hit it on the head, Steve, there's 5% and knuckleheads. They really are there's 5% knuckleheads that are allowed to be knuckleheads. Because the other 95% laugh at them produces that 5% that when the shit hits the fan, they run the other way versus going towards the issue you have. Yeah, that's an interesting.
Steve Bisson:Well, I that's how I perceive in any way. And I think that if we just accepted the fact that 5% of every profession that you can think of, there's assholes. Yeah. And then 95% of them are trying to do their job, just go home at night, we would have a different perception. And I think that's what I would say about my experience in corrections because for that slosh bucket comment that I made before. I also had a lot of like CEOs that would come to me By the way, just for the record, since I have this space, they're not guards, the correctional officers for the record. And that's where the CEO is. I remember some of the guys would come on like, Hey, that guy seems a little off, what do you think I can do? Or what would you do want me to go? Can I watch you? Or was there a lot of guys were willing to do that. And there was a 5% that like, you know, fu your mental health. And I think that that's part of it, too. And I'm going to make a quick transition from that as to talk about the mental health of the correctional officers. I'm not talking about the 5%. I'm talking about the 100%. And I think that one of the things that you wanted to talk about a little bit is like, how do we address the mental health issues? Because that is a big? What's the right word stigma? Because I remember getting a phone call from Bob Sweeney that we mentioned earlier. Baba, call me and say we'll invent the AI. There's a CEO John Doe at Swansea. There's no jail in Swansea, Massachusetts. That's what I'm using that. He's going into a program. He needs an outpatient. Can I really connect them with you right away. So when he leaves, he has you. And I remember, that was like one of the most brilliant things. Bob did a lot of brilliant things. But that was one of the most brilliant things because then that person would talk to me, Oh, I can talk to you and I get out of we have McLean Hospital here in Belmont, Massachusetts. And they would come and connect with me. I think that we, when we talk about mental health, there's like this perception that I'm going to sit here like a Freudian, or I'm going to be like, you're fucked up. That's not how mental health works. But I think the mental that's the perception sometimes a correctional staff in general, can you speak a little bit about how they perceive the mental health stuff now? Yeah, so
Alden "Brad" Cowen:I'll tell you, it kind of leads to what I said earlier alluded to what I what he said earlier about, it's a sign of weakness, we think with Teflon. And I dealt with heart aches in my life where I you know, I lost my best friend, I lost my father, and everyone for help, will show talk about when I when I lost my daughter. I just had enough. And I was actually retired when Emma died. And that's when I called the niece and I said, Denise, anxiety is just going through my body. I can't deal with this. Like I just, I can't believe I can't deal with this. I was always that guy, I can deal with everything. There's nothing I can be done. But I just reached a point where I couldn't deal with it. And Denise had had said, Hey, Bob, I met this guy. And although they have heard of Steve, Steve Hassan, so badmouth this guy, he's, he's perfect for you, Brad, he's like a straight shooter, he's going to tell you how it is, he's not going to let you deal with any, like, bullshit them, you know. And that's why I mean, you develop such a great relationship, and you helped me so much to the therapy. But there's a lot of people that really, they need it. I don't know, many clinicians or many therapists that don't seek therapy. I think all you guys have your own therapist.
Steve Bisson:I'm looking for the top therapist, I keep on going, my therapist says therapist, this therapist I want to hit. But that doesn't work. But yes, absolutely. And I think that's a good point. And
Alden "Brad" Cowen:for so much. It's a macho thing, Steve, it really is. It's about to sign a weakness. And it really isn't. It isn't a sign of weakness, you know.
Steve Bisson:So I think that what I've also kind of, I'm going to allude to this now. But I'd like to talk more about what happens with correctional staff who may see, you know, you're the devil, and they wrote it in your feces and erode in blood. And this is not all if it's triggering the people, I'm sorry, but that's just things that happen. And just really, I've seen it. I think that for me, you know, when I think about mental health, there's a stigma. But it's also because not everyone has the cultural competency to work with someone with a correctional staff. And I don't know if that plays a factor for some people. But I know for me a lot of people like, Oh, you've been there. And then I talked about the institutions or whatever. And they'd be like, Oh, so you know how it is? And then they'd suddenly trust would come in? Do you feel that maybe that's what we need to do learn more cultural competency in order to get more therapists involved and have the correctional staff trusted more?
Alden "Brad" Cowen:I think for me, it was meeting the right therapist, and how do you match? How do you match therapists are you better off go to a meal guru, a female therapist, a female, go to a female, or even I do know that even matters, if you're African American, you got it. Like, it's who you can relate to, I think, and your personality. And some people don't like to be told the real deal. And some people may think that your style is offensive, where I think it's the best freakin style in the world, right? So it's a matter of matching people and figuring out what's best for you, like you may want that person says, oh, it's gonna be okay. If you just go to this, versus, hey, put your big boy pants on, get your ass out of bed and start feeling bad for yourself. Right? Two different forms. Correct? Right? So, but yet they both might work for different people, like the other form might work for somebody else. That's how they can deal with things. And you know yourself, your plates busy too. So you can't always take the time to get another good client or somebody that you can really help and your experiences working in prison. Or working in a prison setting is beneficial to deal with a guy like me, who's worked in a prison setting that has trauma that I don't even know I have. But right when he talked when they talk about PTSD, right, we'll never be recognized for PTSD, but I have PTSD like I have to have my back to a tour. To the wall, when I go out to eat, I'm always looking at people's hands. I'm always looking into fractions. When I was helping my buddy at his bar in Fall River, I saw fights were going to happen before that happened, just because of my experience working inside, and you just start seeing this and seeing that you become part of that. But going back to your question with the therapy, it's just matching matching rate, the right therapist, I really don't know the answer to that. But
Steve Bisson:I've got I've got an answer for you. This is something I wish me and Bob had had access conversation and keep on coming back to Bob, you know,
Alden "Brad" Cowen:my bottom reason why Bob would always say like,
Steve Bisson:if Steve doesn't work for you, I have three other people that can refer you to. And I always thought that was a brilliant way of saying don't give up after one one bad therapist. And I'm not saying I'm a bad therapist, but maybe they didn't like me, I'm not your cup of tea. I'm not everyone's cup of tea, and I'm fine with that. And I think that that's what Bob did. That was very unique that I don't hear a whole lot. And I wonder if that would also help when you correctional staff may need a therapist and like, Well, Steve might not be your cup of tea, but Jane might be your Courtney or Stephanie, or what have you. Or John, or Bill, I don't care. But ultimately, what I would say to you is that one of the ways to solve that is that stop thinking that you saw one mental health counselor. It didn't work out our mental health counselors suck No, and might be the 5%. That sucks.
Alden "Brad" Cowen:Yeah. But Bob also had a unique way about him too. That was believable. And he had the integrity and he walked the walk. And he talked the talk. And I was one of those guys. He wasn't management. He was a CEO. He was like I say Marine Corps, we're going to Marine Corps and biggest thing with Bob Bob for his own demons. Right. So Bob could relate. And when he talked to people, people just like He was his he was his bigger than life guy. Just a bigger than life guy. Like, we get the best hugs me and him. You don't because just his big, big, big, big, big teddy bear.
Steve Bisson:You know, I think that this is a great place to transition because I think Bob is a big teddy bear. You are a big teddy bear, frankly. And risk of breaking a wall here. I've hugged both of you, and I'm fine with it. But I would like to hear more a little bit because you had a daughter, Amber was in the works in the correctional setting. And I don't want to say the story. That's not my story to tell. I'd like you to tell a little bit of story of your daughter because I think that's an important one to talk about.
Alden "Brad" Cowen:Amber was a correctional program officer, she started working for Spectrum do reentry. And she really believed in a process and believe that helping other people and Abel was a was an interesting soul because she grew up with with people that were friends of mine that were now superintendents and Deputy Commissioners and but yet she never really, she didn't want people to know who I was. She didn't want to know that her father was a superintendent. She was like really guarded with that. And her husband, who was a correctional officer, who was also marine was over in Iraq. There was incidents of domestic violence, but they weren't physical. It was always emotional and never ever was ever put on a pedestal. She was never told how beautiful she is. She was never told how good she cooks. She just was was put on a pedestal, she he was very much of an introvert and very socially awkward. And he was also very much narcissistic. But those were all things that as a parent, I could see, but how do you tell your daughter, hey, this guy isn't for you. And because what ends up happening is I lose my daughter, and she just is going to follow the love anyway, you know, when she truly did love them. Right? So she left him for six months, and then they get back together. And they get back together for about a year and a half, two years, I would say and then just things wouldn't change. She and she left them again. And we weren't surprised. We wouldn't have been shocking to us if we knew that he thought we found out that he committed suicide. It wouldn't have shocked us to know that he committed suicide for an AMA do that narcissistic behavior of wanting to be in control they can't know you're gonna live with this you're at rest of your life. But he made a decision to take Amber's life and then take his life which changed my life forever. And it impacted the the palmerola because of who she was and, and that's why I think I get the most emotional was how much Amber at such a young age truly impacted people in such a positive way. Like we talked about being positive. Every morning. She went to public Correctional Center, she say good morning. Good morning. How are you? How's your weekend? You know, How's your mom doing if the mother was wanting for surgery or something she like really got it. And nobody ever because people ended up finding out who her dad was, you know, and nobody ever held that against me because of who she was. So when passed away and I know what do you want me to go into the memorial It was created not yet.
Steve Bisson:Like Brad, this is your interview you go are you brother
Alden "Brad" Cowen:so one of the happening because of the love that they have for her upon villain and staff will really feel crushed upon crushed. It will commonly lockdown for what a while at both institutions. Pavel decided that they wanted to create a memorial for him. And when he wanted to create the memorial, they wanted myself and Lisa and his mom on the committee. And we also had him his best friend and I think Amazon was up was on a committee. And as we started talking about this memorial that we started really leaning towards, why don't we Why don't we create a perpetual Memorial and the thought process is, if we do a memorial in five years, we won't remember him as much as they do today, in 10 years and remember even less, because people transfer people retire. Eventually, the institution is filled with people that never even worked with them. And then at 20 is the shift man is gonna be like, Well, you go, mow the grass is that memorial looks like shit. And by the way, who the hell is him is in McAllen. Right. So with the thought process of us losing the market correction, we lose approximately six to eight offices, maintenance managers, chaplains, CPOs, who have a clinical staff, we use them every year, when you have 4000 employees, that's what happens, you're going to lose people during the course of their duty. So what we decided was, hey, why don't we Why don't we create a memorial for all department corrections staff that that gives us a nice place for peace and healing, that people can go. And the idea just blew up, it just really blew up. But we talked about Pat Sweeney, no boss really took the bull by the horns and donate his own money, donate his time. And he made this his mission, that he wanted to do something for correctional staff. It wasn't just about me, Nicole Cowan, you know, it was about corrections about people like everybody that worked behind the wall. And to be honest with you, but I've had some pushback. And he had some pushback, because one was a superintendent. So staff think automatically that don't know me, this is a management thing and some illustrative thing. And then inmates also had a lot to do with clearing the ground, like because it's a path in the back called him his way. And they were like, well, is this Bobo's on the ground? We don't want to be part of this, which is really, really ignorant. And right. It's it's very, very juvenile, as far as I'm concerned, because the image of humans to you know, like, I remember going into institutions that people say, don't use that bathroom, it's in every bathroom. Well, Steve, I would use an empty bathroom every day because it's cleaner than the staff bathroom. Right? And that's the truth. Right? So when it comes to that, who cares if they did I don't see these people from other institutions volunteering, the colonel and I don't see them voluntarily dig a trench, you know, what what's happened with the memorial is I believe we've had 10 services already, for folks from functions of ASCII to surely to Special Ops. And what's happened is more and more people have gone to the memorial, it's become a bigger and bigger deal where others, other states actually want to model the memorial. And they the committee still affords us the opportunity, we should just decorated the memorial for Christmas or the holiday season the other day, she'll decorate it again, come spring. And whenever there is a memorial service we go, oftentimes I'll speak but it's not. It's not about ammo. It's about what was the past away. It's the day, it's a day to be remembered for the services that they provided.
Steve Bisson:Well, I appreciate you sharing the story. First of all, I also know that I was there that the pre ceremony. And it's also what I've loved about it too, is that it's also a group per the Department of Correction where they worked. Yes. And so like if you again, I'm not saying people feel that way. But let's say you don't care about Walpole or cedar junction I'm sorry. Then you don't have to look at that when you want to go see where you want to go see gardener you want to go see Sousa you want to go see whatever you have that capacity to do so and just look at those people. And hopefully they'll remember because we do this for police. We do that for fire bombs idea was phenomenal. And I knew all the push backs that he had and you know that will live forever. And you're absolutely right. One of the things that's always lost is like oh, well, you know, the inmates are going to take care of it. You think What do you think the inmates are going to do to it? I mean, what is wrong with you?
Alden "Brad" Cowen:Exactly. We don't have a camera there's no cameras on that site. It's something we want freedom what people just the company like I said, it's a it's a place of peace and healing and we added in a retiree wall where retirees in the past they can actually go on the wall we're still looking to make that grow a little bit more. And the commissioner count he has been behind that 110% She's building a pavilion in the event of inclement weather when we do these services she has Jana God go to all services which I think is very important because the audit guide were a nationally recognized on a guy with one correction is but it's I call it unselfishly self esteem. You know, it's there where we don't make it about ama so that's the selfish part. But the selfish part is she's always remembered until we die she's always gonna remember because the bench, the bench right before the main part of the memorials to amateur called Colin with a beautiful sand. So that's create a lot of healing for me, for me and Lisa, but it's really create a lot of healing for the vomit correction. And those family members like when you're gonna need a nine year old kid that did that. It's like a superhero that day like did that just the other guys hear from my dad was my dad. My dad was somebody you know, and isn't it great to be somebody even for that day that there's somebody and then the kid whose kids remember that the rest of him Life Holy Father was what Muller was memorialized. On that day, you know,
Steve Bisson:again, at the risk of breaking a wall, I obviously mean you have talked about Amber. I know Bob and I talked about Amber. But other people who didn't know us, and they would tell me about Amber and how, you know how sad they were and how they were touched by her and how human she was. And it always struck me because yeah, obviously, you know, everyone saved money. What's your daughter? No, no, she was universal. Doesn't there's no, like, I'm not, you know, me. I don't be yes. She was universally loved. And if she was the push that got that garden done, that Soviet,
Alden "Brad" Cowen:yeah, yeah, she didn't die in vain, you know, something good came out of it. And that's kind of what we have look like. So we, we think oftentimes, we lose the loved one, we always want them to be remembered, like, I never want him or her forgotten, you know. And when you can put something in place like this, it's beneficial for the whole agency, you need to see that she would have been flourishing in for years to come. She really loved her job. She will love helping people. I'm sure she would have disappointments at some point in her career, because I think everybody does. But she was somebody that the staff just love that she go cook this coffee cake that that Lisa will cook every year, on the 27th of June, that he passed, we always deliver pizzas and stuff to department will put on staff so that so they remember and we'll do that too. Until we pass on and we go to eventually so we'll bring coffee cake. That was the recipe that Amber had, you were down to the superintendent superintendent like the like the buffalo dip. And a lot of times somebody going in and given a superintendent portfolio. People look like you'd say when a kid says to her superintendent was okay as a superintendent, but she loved the correction officer. More like she she got it she you know, I mean, if you just really understood the chin, that quality of love, true true love that people just embraced. And they miss it. They miss it, you know?
Steve Bisson:Again, I It's hard to move from Amber. But I will, as we wrap up the hour already went by really fast. I want to finish because you know, you're not here to plug anything. You're just here to be yourself wanting to educate people. First of all, I might have you back on are you willing to do that? Because I have
Alden "Brad" Cowen:ideas anytime I from anytime. Perfect. The
Steve Bisson:The other thing too is that for a correctional officer, anyone but particularly a correctional officer, or someone who works, I go out call them correctional staff, because can be the superintendent, you can be the CEO, you can be the janitor, I don't care. What would you tell him to say, look, go get the help, and stop kind of like putting your pride before everything else.
Alden "Brad" Cowen:I think that's a culture. I think that's where collectively you have to accept it and say, Hey, you got to take care of yourself. First, you gotta take care of your family first. This isn't about the materialism of so late, like when it came to suicide, I'd ask you if they're okay. And I could tell by the look in their eyes, it's not okay. And I would tell them, Hey, do me a favor, we're gonna have your leaves, not for any other reason. And I want you to write the report where you have a clear head, which is a good practice anyway. But it was really to get him or her away from the area that we're in. So I was making the decision for them. But yet, given them a little way out, right, and somebody's having trouble at home, but they're going through a divorce and having a tough time with a divorce. They're having a tough time with a with a mother who's getting ready to move on to be with God, that supervisors need to sometimes go to the people that they know and say, Hey, someone, so John Doe's having trouble, can we make sure that John Doe isn't working in a tower? You know, because how towers, we have weapons, but they have to say, Oh, my God, well, we're gonna have a president kill themselves, you have to the only so we always get into being paranoid with with things that we do. But some things have to be kept in house sometimes. And see, we have to put our staff first man, they're just so fragile. We they're so fragile. And you know, I can talk it all I want. But I see people that talk, but I see people have never walked in. I think you need to, when you walk around and staff, they have a thing called encouraging the heart. That's one of the five practices of leadership. And people think that oh, yeah, if when you give an adequate letter, or you're given an award, that's how we help people deal with their processes. But I truly believe when you go when you ask them and you make them look like human beings, and you know that they have a mother and then you know, they have a sick father when they hit when, especially when you're the superintendent, they look at it, like Oh, my God, like this person actually came out and want to see how I was doing. And I think I think those are things that you really have to look at, it starts at the top. And then it starts with supervision, like you always have that person that will make a collection for somebody because they're going through a problem. And they want to make sure that they that they have gifts under the tree or wherever it may be, you know, you're gonna grab for everybody. You can't just do it for the person that's a favorable officer. So you know, I think culture is a big part of it. It's just it's just making it positive, having a good Wellness Program, a program that that people believe in getting together and doing things as groups. I just think that that's that's a positive thing. And I always think that meetings and open transparency was always good to like, like we would meet every service week and we talked to the staff and just sometimes wasn't easy, because staff would be mad at me for something that I did. Or they think I did, right. But I would tell them straight up, they didn't always like my answer. Like I was never a Yes, man. And I know Steve Bisson is nice man, you know, and that's what worked for me. And I never changed who I was, I would try to do it appropriately. But I wouldn't just say, Yeah, you know, you're kind of right, when No, you're wrong. Like, this is why we do things and, and if I'm gonna offer or if I'm gonna allow folks to have their own opinion. But guess what, I should really have my opinion as well. And I'm not telling you that my opinion is trumping you. All I'm saying is I have an opinion also. It's unbelievable how if you get out and talk to people and make them feel like they're part of the process, when you look at create new policy and procedure, why not take the person who works in the area, like, if I want to do a new procedure on segregation, when I have the person who's running the unit, at these meetings, by telling me how it really goes, you know, like, we have posters, and I always want the posters to go out to the post, and I want the officer to read it. And then I want the officer to sign in the top. Well, the union will come to me like, you're setting them up and make them sign a top. I'm like, No, I'm having to sign the top. So I want to make sure they have the opportunity to read it. That's why I'm having to sign the top. I'm not walking into anything in it. But if we do move in at 730. And the post orders are received more than eight o'clock. Well, I need to know that that's what I want the posters to be right. You know, I rather was running up on the operation based on practice the running operation based on policy and procedure. Your practice should meet your policy procedure, really not your procedure policy procedure should meet your practice.
Steve Bisson:Right. So I think that's great advice. I'll tell you that what Jay Bas, who's been on my podcast before work works as an officer. So listen to him a couple of times, he's excellent. One of the things he said is it starts with leadership, and the leadership being like, and again, there's no attack on anyone in particular here. So please, if anyone's listening in the Europe happened to be like, you know, the Commissioner, the Deputy Commissioner, I'm not attacking anyone, go block the jail, go talk to the guys go see what they need. And ask those questions. And if the leadership shows how to reach out to mental health, how they don't need to care so much, but you need to at least listen to people. I think that if you start with leadership, it will trickle down. And it's rare that I believe in trickle down. But in this particular case, I definitely believe in trickle down. So if you normalize mental health on a leadership level, you will normalize it on a whatever level I'm I don't I'm not much of a I know that you guys are pseudo military and all that fun stuff. I'm not I'm not much of that stuff. And it's just feeling that the oh, wait, wait a minute, the superintendent talked about mental health and seeing how it reach out and what's good. And wow, okay, well, maybe I can do it. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but long term that will have that impact. And when Jay says that I think it makes perfect sense. I mean, I think the correctional world would really benefit from the same type of leadership. Yes,
Alden "Brad" Cowen:very true. Leadership is paramount really is and me put my hand on somebody's shoulder and I'm feeling the love going through my hand. And I did. I'm here and I kept for them. It goes a long way. It really does. But again, you can talk all you want, you got to be able to walk it. And there's a lot of people that talk it, but they don't walk it. Well, Brad,
Steve Bisson:I want to thank you. I know that people don't know a couple of things here. I want to share this because it's funny. I'm in my office, and you're in the next room. And that's the way we're recording it, number one. Number two, there's a great woman in your room with you right now. And it is Lisa. And even though she can't hear me right now, and I know she listens. I want to thank her for being there and being strong. And just ultimately just being a great example for a whole lot of people. And I really appreciate her. Brad, I appreciate you more than you'll ever know. I hope I will have you back on I'm pretty sure I have a few ideas. We'll talk about it.
Alden "Brad" Cowen:Oh no, it'd be great. And a couple of things released it just because would be remiss if I didn't say one, she also worked 24 years in corrections as a correction officer. And a lot of the reason why I haven't had all that love was because of Ramallah.
Steve Bisson:And I knew that but I didn't want to say it. I want to say it's not my news to give, so to speak.
Alden "Brad" Cowen:Alright, my friend. Well, Brad, thank you. Thank you, Steve. Thank you for doing what you do.
Steve Bisson:Appreciate. That concludes episode 85 of finding your way through therapy. Brad Cohen, thank you so much. I hope you've loved those personal stories we shared. And you know, it's great to have his wife right in the interview room. Hopefully we are going to do another one soon enough. I have a few ideas. But episode 86 will be with Dr. Anita Bhushan. I hope I get it right. I'm never good with these things and names in general, but hopefully she'll tell me she's just released a book called that sucked. Now what? Can't wait to talk about that. And hope you join us then. Please like, subscribe or follow this podcast on your favorite platform. A glowing review is always helpful. And as a reminder, this podcast is for information, educational, and entertainment purposes. So if you're struggling with a mental health or substance abuse issue please reach out to a professional counselor or therapist for consultation