Mission & Values

Criminal justice agencies, including corrections, focus on back-end, reactive approaches to existing social issues: crime, mental illness, substance use, housing insecurity, food insecurity, limited education, and more. We at KRJC envision a focus on proactive, preventative work that provides support to communities before something goes wrong. Our ultimate goal from this angle is to offer support, guidance, and opportunity to improve chances of success and upward mobility, particularly for youth who come from disadvantaged backgrounds.

A Vision for the Future — John Wetzel offers Keystone Address at the 2023 Pennsylvania Workforce Development Association.

Areas of Service

As KRJC prepares for its formal launch, we have a number of areas of service. Below you will find a brief overview of our areas of service as well as a description of projects that fall underneath each area.

National Corrections Staffing Resource Center

This multidisciplinary, full-scale policy, practice, and resource center is designed to assess and disseminate existing resources on correctional staffing. Despite the consistency of needs across American prisons and jails, there has not been a centralized approach or a single voice in the field to address either the root cause of staffing issues nor the impact that short-staffing has on the culture and climate of corrections agencies.

Framing the Correctional Staffing Crisis — Testimony with Senator Cory Booker, U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee

In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, staff have either left the job entirely or are experiencing a high level of burnout while facility operations became more intensive. Additionally, the needs of the incarcerated population have become more acute, including high levels of mental illness, substance use, and people who are elderly or medically fragile. In other words, the demand on staff has increased substantially while the supply of staff members has decreased, a dangerous equation that leads to unsafe facilities and anguish among staff and incarcerated people alike.

KRJC Founder John Wetzel offers context to the recent spate of escapes from local facilities

Learning Communities

A participatory planning approach to system improvement, KRJC is spearheading the “learning community” model across areas of need in criminal justice. Learning communities identify and ensure that stakeholders have a voice in the solutions that benefit our systems: an embodiment of solutions that are “for the field, by the field.”

Staffing

A majority of jails and prisons in America are understaffed and many are likely deploying their staff according to a dated staff coverage plan, leaving them unable to know whether they have enough staff, to what extent is their staffing deployment effective, and determining whether their staffing plan aligns with current operational needs.

Given the reality that correctional staffing is both the primary cost driver and key success factor for anything that occurs in a facility, we offer to agencies a formal staffing analysis that systematically assesses the demand on their corrections system and compares it to the supply of staff and other resources necessary to achieve their objectives. As needed, we also engage with local stakeholders to ensure that any proposed changes occur as part of a participatory process, supporting the likelihood of success long after we are gone.

Framing Staffing in the Context of a County Jail: Dauphin County, Pennsylvania

Staff Optimization

         Staff optimization is a reframing of the idea of “staff wellness.” Wellness is a necessary part of anyone’s ability to thrive, but in corrections, more is needed to achieve a level of health that will stave off poor health and interpersonal outcomes that research has linked to the job. Thus, staff optimization involves a comprehensive approach to improving every area of one’s life, including but not limited to sleep, nutrition, fitness, interpersonal relationships, job readiness, and job satisfaction.

         Led by a team of subject matter experts in strength & conditioning, nutrition, psychology, and applied defensive tactics, select counties in the Pennsylvania Correctional Staff Optimization Learning Community will learn and adapt wellness strategies to their local jails. This initiative involves training staff how to make small-scale changes to their physical fitness, diet, sleep patterns, and interpersonal skills to improve overall health and well-being.

Shifting Culture and Climate in Corrections

It has been over fifty years since criminologist Gresham Sykes wrote about the nature of the prison environment, but the relevance of what he termed the “pains of imprisonment” are as relevant today as they ever were. Staff and incarcerated people both experience a locked-down, “total institution” where tensions are frequently high, amenities generally bare, and expectations for behavior are mostly aligned with the goals of custody and control. Despite the static bottom line of corrections as a field (to maintain the security of individuals sentenced to terms of incarceration), the climate and culture of facilities is a dynamic factor.

Aligned with efforts to address the correctional staffing crisis, KRJC is focused on intermediate measures to improve the culture and climate of prisons and jails. These may include a range of approaches, including, but not limited to, changing the physical environment of housing units to building the communication toolkit of staff to improve relations between staff and incarcerated people, and using new technology to cost-effectively improve meals and diets so they are adequate for providing the foundation of physical and emotional wellness incarcerated people require.

Though the United States is not well-known for having a healthy culture within prisons, there are lessons to be gleaned from other nations who have long adopted practices to restore humanity to those incarcerated. Lessons from initiatives—such as “Little Scandinavia” (within the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections) and the “TRUE Unit” for emerging adults (at the Connecticut Department of Corrections)—have demonstrated that there is space for staff and incarcerated people alike to feel restored while behind the walls. The key is to work with corrections leaders who are committed to trying new things.

Rethinking Our Approach to Corrections — A Discussion on between John Wetzel & Joe Watkins

Applied Yield Theory Training & Technical Assistance

​​One mechanism for improving relations between staff and incarcerated people, and thus reducing the “us vs. them” mentality within either group, is to improve the ways in which people inside communicate with one another. A nationally recognized expert in applied anger and emotional management strategies, culture change and management, and organizational management, Dr. Christian Conte has worked closely with corrections agencies like the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections to train both staff and incarcerated people in how to communicate better and improve interpersonal relationships.

Using principles of his proprietary Yield Theory, Dr. Conte’s work has transformed the way staff and incarcerated people interact with and understand each other. While contracted with PADOC, violence was measurably reduced across facilities through improvements in conflict resolution between staff and incarcerated people. KRJC works closely with Dr. Conte to integrate Yield Theory approaches into multiple areas of our work.

Leadership Coaching/Development & Strategic Planning

Part and parcel of shifting long-standing culture is the leadership behind the effort. The “SEAT” is the loneliest place in the world, and it can be intimidating to commit to changing the way things have always been done. Those who sit at the helm of a state or local corrections agency are required to manage the expectations of their own staff and the people under their care as well as the expectations of a political figurehead, typically a governor or local leader or board.

We aim to guide either first-time or existing Commissioners, Directors, or Wardens through a strategic planning process where they can quantify the state of their agencies and what would be needed in order to achieve the goals they set for their leadership term. Our team has extensive experience in leading agencies through disruptive transformation to measurable outcomes, including through uniquely difficult situations such as the COVID-19 pandemic.

Measures for Success: College/Career Readiness for Underrepresented Minority Students

Our society offers better life chances to some children simply because of where they grew up or what they look like. The foundational philosophy of KRJC is the idea that every person is worthy of being restored to their full potential, which not only includes providing people with the skills and resources they need to succeed but also by removing barriers to success, of which there are countless.

Kids in high-crime areas, for instance, are unable to focus on their studies or prepare for college in the same ways that kids from safe neighborhoods are. For these kids there is an ever-present preoccupation with survival, and they are often exposed at a young age to financial strain, food insecurity, violence, drug use, a shortage of adult role models, and more. As a result, these kids experience high-levels of stress that have been found to be comparable to that of combat veterans, yet they are not provided with any resources to address their needs or to work toward a healthier future. To date, our culture has been satisfied with letting needy kids languish because they cannot, on their own, meet the standards we have set. We then wonder how an incarcerated adult ends up sitting across from us in prison, and we tend to decide that it was a moral failing on his or her part rather than a failure of ours.

We envision a portfolio of programs that provide holistic support and resources to youth living in disadvantaged communities, including but not limited to college readiness, reducing food insecurity, violence prevention, and mentorship.

Propagate Program

Kids who grow up in high crime areas have unique barriers to success that are often placed in front of them due to their circumstances. The Propagate Program will be aimed toward strengthening the transition from adolescence to adulthood for young people coming from school districts where graduation rates and college acceptance rates are below the national average. Even students who do make it to college sometimes do not make it beyond the first year, attrition rates which are higher for underrepresented minority students than others.

While scholarships are helpful to offset the high cost of post-secondary education, these students also need guidance and support through the process of acclimating to higher education and later on in the job market. This program will be geared toward offering formalized social supports and mentorship to students navigating adulthood who did not have a strong level of preparation during their high school years.

University Program for Underrepresented Minority Students

To address the physical as well as emotional needs of underrepresented minority students, we are proposing a one-year gap year program for young people who want to prepare for living on their own in a safe, supportive environment. Our goal is to secure available resources at a participating university (e.g., unfilled dorms, facilities, staff, curriculum, etc.) to serve young kids that come from underprivileged and underserved communities and school districts.

This program allows transitional students to spend a year on campus where everything that they need to learn, grow, and find purpose is at their disposal as they develop into who they are meant to be. Another restorative effort, we will look to rebuild youth for whom schools, communities, and services were either unable or unwilling to invest in their futures.

Coaching Across Pennsylvania

An initiative for recent college graduates to have the opportunity to positively impact the lives of kids as an athletic coach or teacher/mentor across underserved school districts. For an entire school year, participants will be able to grow and develop professionally while also building up children who need mentorship as they grow and mature.

Behavioral Health

KRJC will also lead an initiative with prosecutors to address behavioral health issues and challenges in our criminal justice system. Working with all stakeholders, including health and treatment officials and victims, this initiative seeks to improve one of the most challenging drivers of incarceration, something our law enforcement officials want to address in a meaningful way.  Our project will  strive to reduce the burden of incarceration and improve public safety and recognizes that we can collectively do so much better to help those with behavioral health challenges, consequently helping families and communities as well.

CJ System Assessment/Transformation

KRJC recognizes that incarceration is an output of plenty of other criminal justice processes. Once again, our commitment to restoring individuals to their full potential points to a commitment to optimizing the way the entire justice system functions.

As such, KRJC works across agencies and alongside multidisciplinary subject matter experts in order to optimize these processes on a system-level. Needs assessments and full-scale operational analyses shed light on practices and procedures that are outdated, duplicative, or failing to achieve intended goals. Then, on an individual level, reducing or eliminating various touchpoints can improve the chances of success for people who either may be better suited to have needs addressed outside the criminal justice system or to support the reentry of those who are justice-involved and returning to the community.

“No Cap:” Reimagining Juvenile Justice

An initiative focused on reimagining responses to juvenile crime, “No Cap” restores young people to their fullest potential despite their circumstances. In areas where juvenile arrest, incarceration, and community supervision are the standard response to delinquency or misbehavior, youth are frequently set on a path to experience further struggle or criminal justice involvement. Our focus is to understand these kids, provide the resources necessary for their success, and restore the life potential of the future of our society.