Surfing the web

Went looking for other blogs by Corrections Officers this evening. Boy, the results just leaped right off of the page. There's lots of blogs by inmates (how in hell are they blogging???) and by inmates families, but few by us. Me, I find it to be rather therapeutic. Helps me unwind and sort out some of the harshness and trash-talk that gets stuck in my head during the day. Helps to sort out some of the snarls and knots. Like this one: We had a new offender start at our house today as a food service worker. Background: Since our inmates are not allowed to be out of their cells except for special circumstances, their meals are brought to them. The food is sent down on a truck and other inmates from other housing units put the food on plastic trays and take it to their doors and feed them in their cells. After they are done the other inmates pick the trays back up and take them away to be washed and sent back for the next meal. This happens three times a day. Get it? ((Closed Captioning For The Correctionally Impaired)) (grin)
Anyway, back to this offender. The first time I remember laying eyes on him was about three years ago when he and a few other "emotionally impaired" offenders were repeatedly playing in their own feces in the cells. Several times a day. There was once, I swear to Bob, what I believe was the first chapter of his autobiography written in feces on his cell walls. It was pretty bad, those days. More than once did we have to use pepper spray on him and more than once we had to use a fair amount of physical force to subdue him to keep him from hurting himself or someone else. The man was a menace to himself and others. And he claimed to be a pro hit man for the mob in whatever town he was from. Just like the IRA assassin we had last week. To make it short, the guy was a menace. He finally caused enough trouble they sent him to a maximum security camp somewhere else in the state. Thought we were done with him. Now, after about nine months, he's back again. But this time he's on my side of the cell door and it really feels odd. It's so strange to see him outside of a cell period, let alone without cuffs on. It's only been one day so far. I guess I'll see how it goes. At least he's being polite.