Getty Images I served this country first as a Marine and later as a correctional leader. Those jobs were different, but they taught me the same lesson: loving your country means defending it when necessary and repairing it when something is broken.
With America celebrating its 250th birthday this year, candidates will talk about freedom, safety, accountability and responsible government. They should. But corrections does not fit neatly on a bumper sticker, so most will avoid it.
They should not. Whether they campaign on it or not, corrections is government’s responsibility. Governors cannot pretend it belongs to someone else.
The U.S. had more than 1.25 million people in state and federal prisons at the end of 2023. This is not a Washington problem — it is a state leadership problem. Governors oversee systems that consume major public dollars, employ thousands of correctional professionals and decide whether people return home better prepared for the outside world or more damaged.
In corrections, a suicide happens, and policy tightens. Contraband appears, and family contact tightens. Violence occurs, and programming tightens. A lawsuit lands, and discretion tightens. An escape happens, and everything tightens. Each decision may be defensible in the moment. But after decades of tightening the same screws, we should not be surprised by the result: exhausted officers, warehoused people and leaders rewarded for avoiding embarrassment more than producing results.
Corrections thus teaches government to look away. That is not a strategy for public safety, but for survival.
Corrections professionals are part of this culture — that must be said honestly. Some treat people with dignity under difficult circumstances. Others become hardened by the environment or reinforce habits that make facilities less safe and less human. I have worked with officers, wardens, nurses, counselors, chaplains and administrators who gave more than most people will ever see. I have also seen a broken culture wear people down, excuse poor treatment and teach good people to accept things they once would have challenged.
The better question is not, “Who runs the prison?” The better question is, “What outcomes are governors requiring this system to produce?”
If we pay only for custody, we will get custody. If we judge success by whether a facility passed inspection and stayed out of the headlines, that is what the system will chase. If we reward silence, we will get silence.
Governors should require more than reports that describe the problem. Many systems already track vacancies, assaults, use of force, program participation and reentry needs. The harder question is whether anyone is held accountable. Governors should build an outcomes-based culture where leaders and staff are supported and rewarded for reducing violence, improving retention, expanding treatment and education, strengthening family connection, and preparing people for housing, work and medical care before release.
They should also measure culture. In corrections, culture is not soft. Culture determines whether officers feel supported or disposable, whether rules are fair or arbitrary, and whether a facility is calm or chaotic.
I learned that years ago when I took over a facility that held people under four different populations. The old playbook was not enough. We listened to staff and incarcerated people, changed routines and treated safety and humanity as partners. Officers and nurses stayed. We went three years without needing a new academy.
That was not a miracle. It was management.
The lesson was simple: humanity is not a security risk. The absence of humanity often makes correctional environments more dangerous. Secure custody and consequences still matter, but custody without better outcomes is just an expensive way to postpone the next crime.
Governors do not need to campaign on “prison reform” as a slogan. They can do something practical: demand outcomes-based pilots inside government facilities, through nonprofit or private partnerships, or through hybrid models that keep public authority where it belongs, with the state.
Those pilots should be measured by independent research, real-time data and published results. If a model reduces violence, improves retention and prepares people to come home safely, scale it. If it does not, fix it or stop doing it.
Roughly 600,000 people are released from state and federal prisons each year. The question is whether they return more isolated and dangerous, or better prepared to live responsibly and stop creating new victims. That is not a soft-on-crime question. It is a public safety question.
As voters listen to candidates talk about freedom and safety, they should ask what candidates will do about correctional systems already under their authority. More of the same will give us more of the same. It is time for governors to build and test better options.
Brian Koehn is CEO of Social Purpose Corrections and a former warden and security expert.
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