possom813
Member
I’m sitting here this morning after working my first 4 day set on nights. I got off Sunday morning, but slept most of the day and have been up a few hours as of now.
Time drags on a little slower overnight than it does on days. You have a lot more time to listen to what’s actually going on around you. In a prison environment, it’s a constant machine with something always happening. If you pay attention, you just might learn something.
I was walking the runs the other night and inmate hollered out to me. I work in the Administrative Segregation area of the prison. These guys don’t get to come out of their cells unless they’re in cuffs. So when he hollered I walked up to his cell door to see what he needed.
There’s a term that floats around the academy when you’re learning how to do the job, ‘Correctionally Aware’. It means what you think it does, always be aware of your surroundings.
When I walked up to his door, he stuck a paper pole through one of the quarter sized holes in his door and poked me in the chest. It was nothing lethal, or really worth mentioning, other than it leads up to the following random thoughts. Luckily the inmate was one that had just been moved onto the wing prior that day and I knew who he was. He was just playing, saying hi, or whatever you want to call it, but still, it could have been much worse.
His light wasn’t on in his cell, so I couldn’t see who he was. I didn’t have a bedbook to know that he was there. So I was basically walking blind up into a known felons front door. It could have been bad.
It’s familiarization. I work in this area every day. The people(inmates) know who I am and what I’m capable of. I know the inmates by there name on a piece of paper and a codes that tell what they’ve done or attempted to do. I don’t know them, or what they’re capable of doing.
But all the doors look the same, and they all get treated the same. After a while, everything looks the same, all the doors, all the runs, all the inmates, all the bosses, everything just starts running together and it’s all one big motion.
This familiarization can kill you. It’s not about if you work in a prison, jail, or other high risk facilities that you can get familiar with. It’s your everyday life.
Everything you do will eventually become familiar to you, you will get a routine down and follow it. I know there are a few that disagree, so be it, but the majority will know what is meant by the routine.
This is just a random thought that popped into my head after the fact. Every once in a while you need to change up your routine a little bit, get a different perspective on what you’re familiar with.
That may involve something as simple as coming home on a different route or leaving a little bit later.
It becomes completely unnerving when you realize you could have changed one aspect of what you did on one day and everything would still be fine.
I’m not saying any of this from experience, just the way that my brain works and what I realized after I walked up to the cell door of an inmate that could have hurt me bad had he wanted to.
Just think about people, and be prepared, whether that means additional security measures for your house, or getting your loved ones trained in the use of firearms and basic self defense.
That’s all I got for now.
-John
Time drags on a little slower overnight than it does on days. You have a lot more time to listen to what’s actually going on around you. In a prison environment, it’s a constant machine with something always happening. If you pay attention, you just might learn something.
I was walking the runs the other night and inmate hollered out to me. I work in the Administrative Segregation area of the prison. These guys don’t get to come out of their cells unless they’re in cuffs. So when he hollered I walked up to his cell door to see what he needed.
There’s a term that floats around the academy when you’re learning how to do the job, ‘Correctionally Aware’. It means what you think it does, always be aware of your surroundings.
When I walked up to his door, he stuck a paper pole through one of the quarter sized holes in his door and poked me in the chest. It was nothing lethal, or really worth mentioning, other than it leads up to the following random thoughts. Luckily the inmate was one that had just been moved onto the wing prior that day and I knew who he was. He was just playing, saying hi, or whatever you want to call it, but still, it could have been much worse.
His light wasn’t on in his cell, so I couldn’t see who he was. I didn’t have a bedbook to know that he was there. So I was basically walking blind up into a known felons front door. It could have been bad.
It’s familiarization. I work in this area every day. The people(inmates) know who I am and what I’m capable of. I know the inmates by there name on a piece of paper and a codes that tell what they’ve done or attempted to do. I don’t know them, or what they’re capable of doing.
But all the doors look the same, and they all get treated the same. After a while, everything looks the same, all the doors, all the runs, all the inmates, all the bosses, everything just starts running together and it’s all one big motion.
This familiarization can kill you. It’s not about if you work in a prison, jail, or other high risk facilities that you can get familiar with. It’s your everyday life.
Everything you do will eventually become familiar to you, you will get a routine down and follow it. I know there are a few that disagree, so be it, but the majority will know what is meant by the routine.
This is just a random thought that popped into my head after the fact. Every once in a while you need to change up your routine a little bit, get a different perspective on what you’re familiar with.
That may involve something as simple as coming home on a different route or leaving a little bit later.
It becomes completely unnerving when you realize you could have changed one aspect of what you did on one day and everything would still be fine.
I’m not saying any of this from experience, just the way that my brain works and what I realized after I walked up to the cell door of an inmate that could have hurt me bad had he wanted to.
Just think about people, and be prepared, whether that means additional security measures for your house, or getting your loved ones trained in the use of firearms and basic self defense.
That’s all I got for now.
-John
