PRISONER EXPRESS

One of the most basic facts that many officers tend to forget or just simply do not understand is that they represent a bigger entity, whether that be the State, Nation or whatever. An officer's whole purpose is to serve, protect and secure assets for this bigger entity. People are included within these assets. To me, good officers will do their best to "represent" the entity they are employed by.

Many officers, when dealing with prisoners, have a tendency to take things to an all too personal level. For instance, I witnessed a lot of verbal animosity from fellow prisoners toward officers. Some officers will let it go in one ear and out the other, knowing it's nothing personal, just anti-social behavior (a form of release for prisoners, even if they don't understand it's wrong) from some caged up human beings. Then, some officers will even jest back and forth trying to make fun or light. Trying to get their two cents in on the verbal melee--again, nothing personal. But, some do take it personally and respond in various ways from writing infractions to outright retaliation/harassment at a physical level.

The idea of Departments of Corrections definitely implies the correcting of society's wrongdoers or people that need to be guided towards rightful behavior if they don't already know how to act in a civilized and sociable manner. The officers that interact with the prisoners on an up front and personal level must be the example to follow and learn from. Otherwise the result is all too familiar--the vicious cycle that is clearly spinning furiously within the "system". Officers are supposed to represent a more decent side of humanity as opposed to the ones they are "controlling". A good officer is sociably decent, somewhat tolerant, understanding fair and most importantly responsible. Being firm, of course, goes hand in hand with authority, but respectability goes hand in hand with how that authority is respected from the other side. That respect is something an officer earns, they aren't given free rides in here because of the fact that so many start abusing power if given that option. And so the ritual of putting the new officers through the test for attitude and personality is usually conducted within the first few months on the job---by the prisoners and other officers and ranks as well.

Understand that officers are human, just as are prisoners, they're entitled to their own individual personality, but a line has to be drawn somewhere between that and their duties/responsibilities. As part of training an officer, the main issue to be focused upon should be the stress level involved in dealing with the prisoners on a daily basis. Officers should furthermore be encouraged to be honorable enough to recognize and deal with any "out of control" feelings or urges they may have that will do a disservice to both the uniform they wear and the prisoners they control. Officers are very susceptible to the feeling of having power over other humans and as soon as they are angry or just in a bad mood they can begin to abuse that power they have. Training officers to recognize this and also award incentives to officers that help keep the abuse from happening or continuing when first witnessed would be number one priority on my list of what makes a good officer-- that is incentives to "correct" themselves.

To sum this up I would like to coin a phrase that should help to put in a few words what this is all about: "How good can a corrections officer be if that officer isn't behaving correctly or can not even correct each others behavior?"