Don't Get Me Wrong

I may have come off a little heavy-handed on that last post.  Reading back and it looks like all I want to do is beat up inmates.  That's not me at all.  If you ask anyone I work with, I'm usually the last one to resort to violence.  I spend wayyy more time avoiding that kind of thing than I do condoning it.  I consider that to be the very last resort.  There's a thing called the "Use of Force Continuum" and it outlines the steps that should be taken in dealing with an offender.  The steps are:

Psychological (when just being there is enough)

Verbal (saying "Stop!" and making it work)

Soft Empty Hand (taking them by the arm and pulling them away without resistance)

Hard Empty Hand (grabbing, bending, putting on the ground, etc)

Pepper Spray (making them cry)

Intermediate (hard blows, kicks and "environmental" weapons)

Deadly (self-explanatory.  Really hope I never have to use that one)

In all my time I've never gotten past Pepper Spray.  Hope to never need to.  But I'm always prepared, just in case.  You just never know how some of these knuckleheads are going to react.  A few of my felloow staff have been hurt severely because they weren't prepared to react.  Not like I'm always "on guard" because sometimes I get caught off base and don't react in time, at least in retrospect.  That last little fracas, for example.  The one where I hurt my finger with the cuffs.  If I would have contained him a little sooner, it wouldn't have happened.  A couple of people who watched the video remarked on that and I agreed.  But hindsight is always 20/20.

The point of it is, I don't go inside every day looking to kick a** and take names.  I go in looking to go home in eight hours with all of my skin still intact.  But I also go in with an eye towards making things easier for both myself and other staff and if that includes making one of those little knuckleheads cry and maybe even bleed, then so be it.  They make their choices and we have to make ours.  I'm not going to go in and beat up an inmate just because he pisses me off.  But if he makes a choice that endangers myself, other staff or even state property and chooses to escalate or refuses to de-escalate the situation, then I'm going to do my damndest to make sure that he pays the consequences for his actions.

I just wanted to clear that up.  I'm not a violent person.  But even a pacifist will come out swinging if you back him into a corner.