Interview with Allen Ault
Allen Ault, Director of the National Institute of Corrections, U.S. Department of Justice, is a Class A (nonalcoholic) trustee of Alcoholics Anonymous.
AA has had extraordinary friends in corrections from the beginning. In 1942, just seven years after Dr. Bob and Bill W. met, Clinton Duffy carried AA's message into San Quentin, the largest correctional institution in the country. Thirty years later, nonalcoholic trustee Jim Estelle, former director of the Texas Department of Corrections, encouraged members in prison to get involved in AA's service structure and nurtured the growth of AA in prisons nationwide. Now the torch has been passed to incoming Class A, nonalcoholic trustee Allen Ault, director of the National Institute of Corrections, U.S. Department of Justice. Before taking this post, Ault served as director of prisons in Georgia, Colorado, and Mississippi, and chaired the Criminal Justice Department at Georgia State University. Despite his impressive resume and imposing height, Ault is an extremely modest man, who laughs easily at himself and seems fully mindful of the difference between the things he cannot change and those he can. Recently in New York for his first General Service Conference, Allen Ault spoke of his life-long work with alcoholics in prison and the role AA has played in their recovery.
Grapevine: What was your first experience with Alcoholics Anonymous?
Allen Ault: Shortly after I got my doctorate, the director of corrections in Georgia wanted me to design the diagnostic and classification system for a new maximum-security prison. So as an enticement, he offered me a position as warden. Although about 7,000 inmates went through there a year, I had a cadre of about 135 permanent inmates and a cellblock with 100 of the most violent inmates in the state.
Well, I had been there maybe six months when an AA group visited me and asked to come inside. So AA started in that prison while I was there. I didn't know a lot about AA, but I certainly liked the people.
And I was amazed. Everyone there had pretty good sentences, but even the hardcore inmates - murderers, rapists - were joining Alcoholics Anonymous. I got very involved with them and found that many had been under the influence of alcohol when they committed their crime. So I knew back in those early days - and this now has been confirmed - that alcohol was a tremendous problem within jails and prisons. It was the reason the people were there, or at least causation for a lot of the crime.
Grapevine: What is the percentage of alcoholics in correctional facilities?
Allen Ault: A conservative estimate is about 80 percent have serious substance abuse problems, and a lot of that is alcohol. We have about 2 million people in prisons and jails now, so it is a very serious problem.
During my last tour of duty as director of corrections in Georgia, we really concentrated on this. One time, I think I put in one of the biggest orders AA ever had - something like $28,000 worth of materials. But that was a drop in the bucket when you figure I had 135,000 probationers and 35,000 inmates, and 80 percent of them had serious substance abuse problems.
Grapevine: What was your first impression of AA?
Allen Ault: My first impression was that AA members knew a heck of a lot more about alcoholism than I did and that they had a program that was systematic. I liked the Twelve Steps, and I started seeing success stories in the behavior of inmates in the prison itself, and later as they got out. I'm not saying that all of them succeeded, but it certainly was a great help - especially when there was an AA connection outside, which to me was the most important part. That's one of my jobs, helping the states put together good re-entry programs for them.
You see, there are 630,000 inmates getting out of prisons this year, and too often they're each still only getting $50, a suit of clothes, and a bus ticket. They need so much more. It's just good public-safety policy. We need to do so much more to ensure that they don't create more victims and more crimes.
I think that AA could be a real essential part for a lot of inmates. You know, when I was a warden at Jackson Georgia Diagnostic and Classification Center, a lot of inmates getting out would tell me they were going out and get a bottle and get a woman. Then it was $25 and a suit of clothes and a bus ticket. Well, that $25 would be gone the first evening, and then they would be in an even worse mess than they had been in already.
Unfortunately, in many states that isn't changing. But AA has played a substantial part in several systems to help in training and treatment centers. The official count of inmates getting treatment got to a high of about 200,000 in 1994. But after the election in 1994, corrections and crime was the biggest issue and there was a whole push to be punitive - even though we had research that went way back indicating that punitive punishment alone actually increased recidivism by 7 percent. So a lot of the treatment programs were taken out. Even a lot of AA programs came out.
Grapevine: Seven percent? That's a lot.
Allen Ault: Oh, yes. Whereas we know what works: effective re-entry programs reduce recidivism by about 35 percent. And Alcoholics Anonymous could play a big part in that, too. So, we went all the way down to just 100,000 out of a million inmates at that time getting treatment, and we're only now this last year back up to about 170,000 inmates in treatment, including AA. So, it's a sad commentary.
Grapevine: So a lot of your work is trying to educate people?
Allen Ault: One of the biggest causes of crime today is criminal thinking, according to all the research and the inmates' own families. So, through very structured programs, you teach people different alternatives to criminal thinking and criminal behavior, and give them better alternatives. You reinforce that they do better with noncriminal thinking and noncriminal actions.
That's an oversimplification of cognitive behavior, but that's what it's all about. I'm trying to do a little cognitive restructuring with my golf game. (Laughs) My old bad habits are embedded up there in my frontal lobes, and I'm trying to get that executive functioning part of my brain to redo this thing. Well, that's one of the things Alcoholics Anonymous seems to do. It all plays an important part.
Grapevine: Have you seen changes in the way professionals view alcoholism among inmates?
Allen Ault: People used to say, inmates are in prison, so they're not going to get drunk while they're there. But, of course, they can get drunk in prison. Every time we do random urinalysis tests in prison systems across the country, about 3.8 percent of the inmates test positive. It was only about two years ago, maybe three, that it dawned on somebody that all these people were getting out and very little had been done for them inside. A lot of states even did away with parole, and it was pretty scary.
What we need are good, effective programs inside. Hold inmates responsible for what they have done, but go way beyond punishment. Develop good effective programs to carry over when they get out; at least, train them to get employed and make sure they have a good enough education. Then put programs out in the community, including employment opportunities - and help them stay sober. That is a critical, critical part.
Grapevine: So what you hope to do at the National Institute of Corrections is move people in that direction?
Allen Ault: In the past, the National Institute of Corrections left alcoholism and substance abuse to others, like the National Institute of Substance Abuse or Drug Abuse (NAIDA). Several federal organizations have done a lot of work with substance abuse. But not many did work inside prisons.
I see our institute sponsoring programs about co-occurring illnesses for directors of correctional mental health and the directors of substance abuse and pulling all the research together.
Grapevine: What compelled you to become an AA trustee?
Allen Ault: All my professional career I've gotten a lot out of AA. It is time to give something back. And I really like this organization, and I like the people. I know that this is a big commitment, and I take it seriously. Sometimes it's a little overwhelming. But I've learned an awful lot. Still, I have a few questions.
Everybody I've met in the trustees' meetings and all the delegates at the General Service Conference are very articulate and very intelligent. And, of course, the founders of AA were both extremely articulate, well-educated, good thinkers. I guess the question is whether AA is as effective with inmates who are not very articulate and not very well educated. How does AA adapt to those individuals? And does it attract them?
Grapevine: What has surprised you most in your work as a trustee?
Allen Ault: What's impressed me most is the AA members. Down in Washington, there are a lot of egos. Listening to the stories [at the AA meeting that opened the Conference], I thought, "That's a key part of AA's success. You control your ego." There is that along with how people help one another. There are not many groups like that and you really notice it. I have a whole different feeling about how people in the Fellowship treat one another and their sincerity in large groups. It was a big surprise. I've really, really been impressed.
Grapevine: What do you think AA might do to reach more alcoholic inmates?
Allen Ault: Obviously, some groups have done very well getting inside and reaching the inmates. But we still haven't really reached all the correctional professionals. Some of them are cynical and skeptical.
At the American Correctional Association conferences, AA gets sort of lost among the hundreds of business people selling weapons and computer systems and the latest electronic gadgets. I would hope we discuss methods of getting to correctional professionals, of getting the message to them about what AA is all about. They've probably heard court decisions about AA, but they haven't heard what AA is really all about. One of the nice things about AA, though, is that a lot of people, even in corrections, have family members and others who are alcoholics who have been helped by AA. So anecdotally, they know how good AA is.
Statistically, they don't.
Grapevine: You mean professionals think they need to see numbers before they'll believe AA works?
Allen Ault: Yes, and they're all trained to think that way. So AA doesn't always get the credit it deserves among many professionals.
Grapevine: Is there anything else you'd like AA members know to about your work?
Allen Ault: Just very selfishly, I want to see the re-entry model program from each state work. And because alcoholism plays such a big part, very selfishly again, I would to see AA play a bigger role. There are 630,000 inmates coming back to society every year. AA can do a lot for them.
© AA Grapevine, Inc. July 2002