Motivational Interviewing 22: Erica King
An episode of “Changing the Conversation” podcast
Erica King and host Ali Hall discuss using Motivational Interviewing strategies to support women and nonbinary people in criminal justice systems.
April 24, 2023
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Ali Hall, Host (00:05): Hello and welcome to Changing the Conversation. I’m your host today, Ali Hall. I work as an independent trainer and consultant in motivational interviewing, and I’m a member of the Motivational Interviewing Network of Trainers or MINT. I’m joining you today from San Francisco, California. And our topic today is motivational interviewing, women and non-binary people in our criminal legal system.
(00:28): My guest today is Erica King, Senior Manager with a Center for Effective Public Policy calling in today from Portland, Maine. Thanks, Erica for joining us today.
Erica King, Guest (00:39): Thank you, Ali, for having me. It’s a pleasure to be with you for this conversation.
Ali (00:43): I’m so glad you’re here, Erica, and I’ve known you for decades. We’ve intersected over the years on many different projects and initiatives, and I just … well, candidly, I’ve really been in charge of your fan club for a really long time. And now to have a chance to have this conversation with you today. But you’ve just joined this organization and you have this new role. Please say more about that.
Erica (01:07): Thank you so much. It’s a mutual admiration fan club. I am the big fan of yours and thank you for all the mentorship you’ve provided to me and MI over the years.
(01:19): But yeah, I have a new gig, a new position. I’m joining the Center for Effective Public Policy as a Senior Manager with a focus on gender justice and gender equity. As well as racial equity and community engagement. So the Center for Effective Public Policy has been around for about 40 years working inside the system on reform, on improving the outcomes of our criminal legal system. And within that is a center that’s focused on the needs of justice impacted women and supporting practitioners and advocates and justice involved women with information and resources and technical assistance to increase the gender justice inside the system, as well as uplift trauma, inform policies and practices. We do some projects, some of which are called the GIPA or gender informed practices assessments or policy assessments. Where we’re going into a system and evaluating the degree to which gender is informing and driving programs, operations, leadership, staffing. And making recommendations and following up with training and support and strategic planning to help improve social and economic wellbeing for women and non-binary people in the justice system.
Ali (02:38): Thank you so much. It’s just such important work and I’m so glad to hear that you’re doing this.
(02:43): And Erica, for context, who are the women and non-binary people in our criminal legal system? For example, how many? And why is it important to focus on them in particular?
Erica (02:54): One of the reasons we need to focus on this population is because they’re the fastest growing population in our nation’s criminal justice system. Since 1980 to 2020, most recent reports that we have are that women’s incarceration has increased by 575%. That is a lot of women and increasingly non-binary people who are coming to the attention of the criminal justice system, living under the surveillance of that system and being, and eventually returning and reentering our communities without a real gender equity and gender justice strategy.
(03:34): And so one of the things that I’m excited to do in my new position at Center for Effective Public Policy and in partnering with you in this conversation, is to elevate partnerships in working with Black, Indigenous, People of Color, justice impacted women, and non-binary people to develop better resources to help women navigate the complex journey through the justice system and back home to community wellbeing and thriving and freedom.
Ali (04:04): Well, that’s a really shocking rise. And I’m just wondering some of the ways that you have found motivational interviewing (or MI) being used in this system? How can we help those who are impacted in the system?
Erica (04:18): I think endless ways at the micro, macro and mezo level, but definitely in conversations for practitioners and listeners who are working directly with women impacted by the system, realizing that the focus and maybe targets of change for women may have some common features. For example, so many of the women in jails are mothers. About 80% according to a recent prison policy institute report are mothers. And that has a specialized impact on mental health and depression, anxiety and family wellbeing. Not just on the mother, but on the child who might also be a client of some of the practitioners.
(05:04): And when I talk with women in the justice system about their desires, abilities, and reasons and needs for change, almost — I won’t say a hundred percent of the time, but more commonly are not, their children are the biggest reason and need. And so what we can do to increase the hope and healing of these mothers and their families is really, really important. And I would specifically lift up that lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender folks are overrepresented at every stage of the justice system, including right from the youth justice system and juvenile justice system involvement. And so they are arrested, incarcerated, and subjected to community supervision and services at significantly higher rates than straight and cisgender people. And so I think this is also relevant for practitioners working with MI to understand what transition means, what change means, what hope, all of the things that we lift up in change talk to be really listening for those things. Because there’s a real gendered pathway to the system and a real gendered pathway potentially to freedom and liberation outside of the system.
Ali (06:19): Yeah, thanks for that. And so clearly a non-random distribution and certainly systemic and structural traumas that we could spend hours unpacking, no doubt. And I’m curious, I mean, in particular, what are some of the challenges that you’ve noticed that some system actors point to when using MI in these involuntary and often dehumanizing contexts?
Erica (06:45): I really appreciate that question. Both for the women and folks under supervision and for the practitioners, some of which are holding a dual role. So that they have a role as a change agent and maybe some training in using MI, and maybe even some coaching in using motivational interviewing. And yet they’re doing that service or that style in a sanction — what I’d call like a sanctioning context or a carceral system. Or even for our substance abuse providers listening. Even those that are mandated to treatment and who are involuntary. And so I think that brings up issues of power and boundaries and liberation and freedom.
(07:32): And why I think MI is such a powerful anecdote to those things is because it’s a style, a guiding style that can offer opportunities for agency and egalitarianism and humanism and meeting people where they are. But I think that’s a hard dual role to hold from any practitioners who feel like their role might be more about managing risk or containing a behavior. And maybe tend to rely on some of the styles that are not MI to integrate an MI style in is sometimes pointed to as a difficult challenge. But in my experience, not one that’s not worthy of overcoming. And I think I’ve heard Bill Miller say, we can be really strategic about using that sanction as a lever for change if we’re not defaulting to power over methods.
Ali (08:23): Yeah, well said. It may feel counterintuitive to some system actors that collaboration and autonomy support should have such strong evidence behind it. Where it feels like that’s the last thing that they can possibly have faith in doing. But it really is a leap.
Erica (08:39): Right.
Ali (08:40): I’m certainly … what we know what the evidence shows, I mean, the facts are in.
Erica (08:44): It’s the thing that means the most. It’s the thing that means the most. So even for folks working in the justice system or the criminal legal system, I’ve seen people use MI in incredible ways to deescalate very difficult situations by just defaulting to that guiding style in moments of power and control or conflict or even violence. Defaulting to reflective listening, defaulting to a guiding style that does not amplify the situation further. But that can help guide towards change in a safer decision. Even if that decision is, do we need to walk to segregation together? Or do you need help and escort? Those are very hard conversations for people to have in the system, and yet I know people have them every day. And MI has been a huge tool to guide the success of those micro interventions.
Ali (09:40): And what other advice would you have for MI practitioners within this system?
Erica (09:45): I think a big one for me is to pair MI with other strategies or to be really mindful about social and human capital that we’re building around the MI conversation. So through the MI conversation, like who else? I think in criminal legal systems, we tend to have an over reliance on formal supports that quite frankly don’t even exist as robustly as needed. And sometimes some of our tools and interventions tend to put a lot of onus on what I would call individualizing structural problems like racism and class and inequity in communities.
(10:24): And so I’ve seen women in particular have huge success with MI paired with something like, how are we going to build resources around you? How could you barter with your neighbor about, you could fold laundry if she watches your kids while you get to a meeting. And just come up with some real social capital and opportunity pathways alongside the MI. There’s nothing that can underestimate the power of a conversation.
(10:56): And Ali, you’ve taught me that over and over the years. I remember one of the first things you ever said to me, which I’ve repeated and credited you for. Is that, when all the policies and practices and programs float away, all we really have left is the way we talk with each other. And especially in those difficult times. So for women and non-binary people showing up with a style like this is a trauma informed practice. MI is a trauma informed practice. And so if we can help practitioners to form healthy relationships and model what those skills sound like when they’re talking to their employers and their children and their partners. Then those skills tend to leave not just the interaction between us, but they ripple out into other conversation in these women’s lives.
Ali (11:48): Yeah, thanks, Erica. And it really gives me hope to imagine that practitioners can elevate the expertise of the person, help the person find out what works, really tap into the ingenuity and to offer respect for how people navigate their lives and help people do that. So thank you for that.
(12:09): I’m curious, many of our listeners have been increasingly interested in abolitionist practice and counseling. What are your thoughts about that?
Erica (12:18): So that’s a powerful word. Abolition is, I feel like, all the rage these days. And for some folks it can be really polarizing in the justice system. What do you mean you’re trying to shut down my job? And for others it can feel like possibility and freedom and dreaming.
(12:35): So the way that I hold abolition, and I’ll quote Ruth Wilson Gilmore and many of the teachers before me around abolition, is it’s about building something new and it’s about dreaming and having creative imagination. And I know of no other practice that I’ve been taught in my professional career that’s as liberatory as MI is. As someone that came into this field as a social worker and a fixture, I don’t want to date myself, but a couple decades ago. I thought that I had to have the answers and to me, MI is a liberatory tool where I can help join in a conversation with people to help them to dream what freedom and liberation can really look like in their life. And what is it that they have to abolish?
(13:21): And I can have those conversations with women and non-binary people. I can also have them with policymakers and program like how can we dream? What is it that you want for your system? How is the status quo of this system keeping us all stuck? And what could we imagine that would be a system or a network that would actually produce wellbeing, economic and social? Instead of decrease it. So I would say, MI is an abolitionist and liberatory practice. And that’s a good thing. We need to be dreaming. Dreaming about our desires and taking steps towards change. The world needs us to be doing that together. So MI is as relevant now as it ever was as a tool in my view.
Ali (14:06): And Erica, this can feel like a really difficult system for making an impact. What can you say about those who already are?
Erica (14:14): I would say that the women that are directly impacted by the system and coming out the other side and leading change are things that give me hope and are providing some beautiful leadership to us. I want to recognize the work of a group I just became aware of last week, SE Justice Group, who’s doing some beautiful work. Actually they’re located near you, Ali, in Oakland, California. But stretching out to wrap their arms around women who are in gender justice across the country. There’s the National Council for Formerly Incarcerated Women, Women’s Transcending Collective at Columbia University. There are so many groups of directly impacted women leading the change and very clear about what they need for gender justice. And I am so humbled and grateful to be able to partner with them to advance this work.
Ali (15:05): Thank you so much, Erica King, for joining us today. And for all you do in making the world a better place.
Erica (15:12): Thank you so much. It’s such a pleasure to talk with you always.
Ali (15:15): Such a delight.
Erica (15:16): Thank you, Ali.
Ali (15:18): And to our listeners, join us next time on Changing the Conversation.
Erika Simon, Producer (15:21): Visit c4innovates.com and follow us on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and YouTube for more resources to grow your impact. Thank you for joining us. This episode was produced by Erika Simon and Christina Murphy. Our theme song was written and performed by Peter Hanlon. Join us next time on Changing the Conversation.
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