Criminal Thinking? An Oxymoron?

In the academy they told us about "criminal thinking". About how the offenders think and rationalize what they do. About how they most don't consider the consequences of their actions and only do what feels and sounds good to them at the moment. I've seen a bit of it now and then.

But not today. Hoo boy....... not today.

Got this knucklehead who was over in b-wing. We put him over there in a cell with a guy who isn't there and isn't likely to come back any time soon. It's called an "outcount" for you the correctionally impaired. The inmate actually belongs to our camp, but he's somewhere else. We have to account for actually "having" him, even if he's not there. It's stupid, I know. But it keeps the books straight. And the guy we had in that cell isn't even in this state at the moment. He's in another state in court for another offense that happened in that state.
Anyway, we got this knucklehead....(you thought I got lost, didn't you?) who's a wee bit on the crazy side. He gets lonely and crazy when he's in a cell by himself... and frightened and crazy when he's in a cell with someone else. We end up having to move him alot because either he's afraid for his life from his cellie (no matter if his cellie is half his size and as big around as a pencil) or his cellie is in fear for his life from him. So we stuck him in b wing in a cell by himself but not in c wing in hopes he'd feel less lonely and crazy over there.

That didn't work. Nope. Not a bit.

He started in screaming out the door this morning first thing that he wanted a C.O. in there. I told him we were busy and to keep his pants on and we'd get to him. I actually tried being nice the first couple of times. After the second hour of him screaming he wanted to move I'm afraid I wasn't so nice anymore. I finally told him there was nowhere for him to go (which was true) and he wasn't going to get moved so shut the hell up because I'm BUSY!

He didn't seem to like that too much.

About an hour after that he started screaming Code 16, which is our code for a medical emergency. I could see him standing at the door and see him moving around so I could tell he wasn't dead on the floor from a heart attack or having seizures. I also knew that one of his things was that if he didn't get immediate satisfaction from whatever it was he was upset about, he'd scream code 16 just to get someone to come in there and listen to him cry. We've got quite a few who do that and it really pisses me off. It's like a baby in a crib who, when mommy doesn't come running at the first little whimper, will scream like it's being swallowed alive by a wildebeest just to get mommys' attention. It's a learned habit.
As the rest of the staff was actually busy with other things, I let them know about him screaming again when they had a chance to look in on him. It turns out he got mad because we wouldn't move him so he banged his forehead on the side of the metal bunk or something until it started bleeding and then spattered the blood all over his cell. You know how forehead wounds bleed. He even inscribed a nice holiday greeting on the cell mirror in his own blood.

Wasn't that thoughtful.

So, instead of getting moved to another cell with a cellie like he wanted he got moved to c-wing and stripped down and put in a kevlar smock and put on suicide watch with a sore forehead.

I just wanted to go down there and ask him...... "So, how's that working out for ya?"

Criminal thinking.......................... Pfui.

If they thought at all, I'd be out of a job.