Open Letter to Janet Brewer – Governor

When Prison Management go Flat Line - the Inmates get Angry & Bolder

It is very likely the Arizona governor and legislature will flat line the prison budget sooner than expected. It is today exceeding over 1 billion dollars a year and it is obvious the state can’t sustain such financial growth. The downsize of this phenomena is that state prison management, projects, programs and other prison related expenditures must be curtailed and draw back resources allocated over the past four years to ensure a rapid and aggressive growth in bed space and prisoner numbers.

It is time to stop this insane funding for more prison money as it has already skyrocketed past normal expectations and fiscal demands. Arizona must hold the line on spending and that includes holding prison growth flat over the next year or so otherwise politicians will be forced to admit their mass incarceration agenda has drowned the state of financial debt and insolvency,

Unfortunately, the current prison management team will make recommendations that end all forms of reform, rehabilitation and educational programs that include substance abuse and other self-improvement programs or studies. It will unwisely reduce prison expenses that will create a severe and potentially violent backdrafts on the state’s prison population and create more tension and violence than ever before. History will reflect this throughout our prisons systems.

Under current practices and laws, Arizona prisoners serve longer prison terms than many other state prison systems. That means more growth and more problems. Arizona has no intention of changing the good time law that mandates inmates serve 85 % of their sentence and will need to finance for more growth here in the next few months to avoid turning them away from doing prison time. Little effort has been placed on alternative sentencing and community based supervision.

Policy changes are pending and more efforts will be put on controlling the purse strings to avoid overspending and not meeting constitutional mandates for healthcare, food and other auxiliary services. Their utility bills, already out of control will mount and their ability to get credit on payment of such will be closely securitized by those providing the services. Physical plant and waste water resources are stretched beyond reasonable limits already and ready for failure. Prisons without utilities are prone to be set on fire out of protest and revolutionary thinking that puts staff in harm's way.

The policy changes that reduce prison expansion are critical, but without investing in our local public safety infrastructure, we will not likely occur within time to prevent a prison riot or disturbance of grave proportions. There is no current system in place to oversee internal prison related crimes and accountability in sustainable ways until it is too late and legislators will demand transparency and accountability after the fact and destruction.

The governor needs a bold agenda and the Legislative body needs to begin to take full responsibility for what is about to happen inside Arizona prisons this summer. It will be one of the most severe impacts on public safety as this will eventually be one of the most impactful issues the legislature will attempt to tackle.

Here is hoping they can get done before the riots start.

 

Who takes care of the mentally ill inside prisons?

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A must read story - LEO Retirement & Dark Demons Hidden

 

The Dark Demons of LEO Retirement

 

It has always been one of the most anticipated and peaceful thoughts in life to enjoy the benefits of retirement as it are certainly one of the joys of living. Life as we have known it was always a rat race and life in the fast lane that brought us success and happiness on the journey to having it all and enjoying your retirement in the sun.

There are many success stories of people retiring while prospering and doing what they want to do with their time after working but there are also demons hidden in the living style called retirement. These demons exist in the lives of those retiring from law enforcement and how they cope with the dynamics of no longer being part of what is one of the world’s largest support groups and active lifestyle occupations.

I retired three years ago. I can relate to the disconnection, the withdrawal of camaraderie and being a part of a circle of friends that had before retiring consumed your day and schedule. I would like to hear more from others and share experiences about this withdrawal of my support system and finding a new way to be independent but yet socially connected in some way different but satisfying to me as a retired law enforcement officer.

The fact is that many law enforcement officers (LEO) experience the darkness of suicides in a much higher rate than it should be. A report states it is as high as 40 suicides per year. The sudden disconnection of 20 to 40 years of service to an occupation leaves them in an “out of sight, out of mind” situation that needs to be adjusted through some type of support mechanism rarely available for many of them.  Aside from the fact that some officers poorly plan their retirement with shallow or thin blankets of security there are many other jobs they can perform after retirement in the security management business or loss prevention control departments.  However, many find this type of job unsatisfying and this creates more stress.

It would be surreal to believe that once you retire it is nothing but hunting and fishing and traveling around the country as it just isn’t so in real life. Experiencing this withdrawal is sudden and painful. It comes at the worst times and often accompanied with stress and severe anxiety. Suddenly and unexpectedly the rat race has turned into a snail’s pace and live is different all the way around. The dark demon lurking inside them is the fact there are still too many post-traumatic stress issues unresolved in their heads and mind that keeps them on the edge of life most of the time.

Retirement is often the “quick sign your papers and out of the door” experience. It has no after care or post maintenance program for your body or your mind. Retirement does not include elements of the emotional care you need when you leave your experience and your energy at the back door in this workplace where you entered it with youth and spirit through the front door.

Living the lifestyle of going zero to 60 in nano seconds changes to life in the slow lane overnight. It leads to problems never anticipated or thought of when working and productive. If it wasn’t for friends or family that could relate to my problems it would have been much worse to cope with and likely end up in a severe depression created by the void of things we did when we were working. Hence it is important that you sit down with your family and work out a productive plan to maintain relationships, friendships and find alternative goals to be productive and enjoy life to the fullest and have fun doing it. It is meant to be that way when you work hard all your life to finally enjoy the fruits of your labor.

If you are interested in to see how actual LEO suicide numbers stack up: http://www.badgeoflife.com/retirees.php?goback=%2Egde_151721_member_214342124

 

 

Hiring the Right Person for Correctional Officer

 

There have always been some risk factors involved in the selection of good men and women working as a correctional officer. Hiring the right people is very critical in any business but in corrections it is the most important element of running safe and secure prisons. Hiring and bringing in the wrong person is not just a waste of money or time spent on training them in the Academy or formal classroom but also creates a negative impact on the workplace that could result in death or harm to others that depend on this new person to acquire the necessary skills and use them appropriately.

 

As a prerequisite to employment corrections is looking for persons with formal and completion of high school diplomas in addition to some college preferred in social skills or criminal justice courses.  It is important to recognize the totality of the individual’s skills, knowledge, education and experience as it is the main factor their hiring decisions will be hinged on as well as the pre-hiring criteria for selection and hiring good officers.

 

Ideally all agencies are looking for the right candidate; someone that can follow the rules as well as customs, practices and procedures written and unwritten. Often times there are little or few to choose from in a small town or county where the demographics are rural and work is centralized and remote from the cities. You must be willing to hire locally as well as from outside the boundaries to complement your staffing pattern with a good mix of skills, knowledge and experience.

You must look for the complete package of skills, experience, abilities and education to hire the right person. You must also accept the fact that this may diminish you job pool some and ease up on the requirement to attain more qualified personnel. The less significant the requirement, the smaller of quality of personnel you have to choose from. It is best not to compromise on work habits that impact compliance with regulations, absenteeism and reliability factors. It is acceptable to lessen the educational and experience levels if they possess the skills to perform the job and adjust or adapt to the environment.

The second element of hiring good people is when you look at the complete package you include and not exclude their attitude. Having skills but demonstrating poor attitudes is a grave mistake inside prisons or large jails. Skills and knowledge are worthless when they aren't put to use. Experience, no matter how vast, is useless when it is not shared with others. The vast majority failed due to problems with motivation, willingness to be coached, temperament, and emotional intelligence. Remember you can train for almost any skill but it is impossible to re-train someone on their attitude.

The next thing to consider is the type of business correction is in reality as it carries with it volatile and potentially dangerous elements that may cause serious harm or even death under some circumstances. You need to be absolutely truthful with candidate when explaining the job and rely on this truth to decide compatibility based on reactions and suitability of the candidate for such kind of work. Not everybody is suited to be a correctional officer in a physical and mental sense or manner. Look for those that seem to have done a little homework on the job and ask job related questions when inquiring about the agency or department. Look for enthusiasm and motivation factors that will make the candidate a good employee.

Most prison complexes hire friends and family through a referral process that is often used instead of advertisement and recruitment drives in schools, colleges or job fairs. Don’t be too quick to jump at the chance to hire friends and relatives as it may come back to haunt you as a bad decision.

On the other hand, those familiar with current staff have a better understanding of the job’s expectations, cultural diversity and social impacts. They make be excellent people and you may be compelled to hire them out of your heart rather than common sense. Be prepared for interpersonal conflicts, domestic related troubles and family and friend feuds. It depends on the size of your agency and the geographical location of the workplace. Adjust policies to reflect nepotism, favoritism and ensure job assignments are not in conflict with the job requirement and sound supervision methods.

Last you must be prepared to make independent decisions regarding the hiring of new personnel. Nothing compares to a formal and comprehensive hiring process but sometimes you can use your intuition or experience of character to make up the difference when a choice has to be made. Gut feelings are appropriate in hiring and can often result in hiring good candidates not so solid on paper or testing.  Looking and recognizing dispositions, attitudes and motivational efforts is important for correctional officers that often work by themselves with general or no direct supervision most of the time they are on the job.

If you are the kind of human resource administrator that recognizes good chances than your shot of finding and hiring a good candidate are improved. Having the ability to spot the lazy or person with attitudes or poor motivational habits should be a clue to avoid them and move to the next suitable candidate for hire. Take good chances. Good chances often turn out to be your most inspired hires--and your best employees.

 

A Rogue & Scoundrel

Never once suspected of being an assassin or a cold-blooded killer, this man over forty stood tall for being only five feet ten inches in height and a little over one hundred and seventy five pounds fully dressed in his tuxedo that dressed him in a charming and most delightful trait that pleased the ladies and threatened the men.

 His charisma was bold and envied by all those that shared his presence as his piercing brown eyes distracted your attention to the fact that he was lean and muscular with the supreme physiognomies of the warrior is looked and is. Walking with a powerful gait of a human animal, he appeared well self-disciplined and smooth as a cat in his ability to tell a fable with his killer smile.

Never talking about his line of work and hammering out boldly his ambitions to become rich and famous, was this rogue scoundrel; almost everything a man wanted to be just like him since childhood. No doubt a survivor and skilled in the art of mortal combat, he could defeat any nemesis with one blow to the head as others walked around him with fear and tremble as they could sense any mistake on their part could cost them a limb or life if the reason was intense enough to trigger his silent violent nature or propensity to kill when given the opportunity to do so.

Command presence is not taken for granted as his every movement teaches other men how to walk and move with a certain deadly grace and ease of motion. Able to leap a vertical height of sixty six inches or more he was destined to be a basketball star if it were not for his lack of height and ability to share the ball with others around him making him a difficult member of any team chosen.

A personality best described as short filled with temper and the ability to engage conflict with more than one at a time, it was rare he lost his grip and controlled the turmoil and changes around him with skills developed in his subvert years in the military years ago. Cold as ice and with an emotional shell to keep him under self-control at all times, he would compensate his energy and skills to match his opponent. Not an introvert or extrovert by nature he appeared to be more of an ambivert in conversation and triggering his mannerism for either withdrawn or outgoing pleasures showing only what he wanted to show from the start.

This rogue scoundrel will not and does not allow any part of his job or nature to become too close to him as if he didn’t belong where he was. Allowing this distance between him and others as if he didn’t belong he knew when to retreat and bring his manner into conforming with the need to get close and conversational in styles that would prompt an analyst to believe he is either a dual personality or schizophrenic in mindset.

Since he was so emotionless and disheartened he would certainly not be missed if he was to be killed or assassinated by another assassin’s bullet. In fact, there would not be one soul that would mourn for him as they would not care or cry a tear and show no remorse or sorrow of his passing.

A hardened man, he was blessed despite his harsh vulgarity and profane words taking the Lord’s name in vain with every sentence spoken. He was nearly without err as a human as this was the thing that kept him alive and concealed for all these years.  

Standing rogue this scoundrel served his country well and learned the art of stealth quite well in those years of Foreign Service away from American soil. His training began at childhood with a .22 rifle his parents had bought him as it gave him the basic lessons learned and the basics for killing while defying the threat of torture or capture in a most brutally and painful world he lived in.  One must say his instincts and his levelheadness gave him the uncanny ability to keep his head calm even in the direst of situations around him or others.  Others were certainly envious of his self-composed and sensible mannerism that kept him ahead of the competition or those out to kill him. He had a hyperfocus ability that is second to none. Simply put he has the ability to focus with single dimensional precision and eliminate all distractions in the pursuit of his objective or target. Deterrence was not in his vocabulary as his aggressiveness gave him the edge on any fatal encounter from an assassin’s point of view.

This rogue scoundrel was never a quitter and defied the meaning of the word in every sense. His ability to push harder than any man could sets him apart from others as he accomplishes what he needs to accomplish, a characteristic he deems necessary to be a winner.

When it is all and said his single mindedness was created for one reason and one reason only – to survive. His mental focus and energy allowed him insights and visions beyond the normal scopes of mankind and allowed him to survive in the damnest situation faced throughout his time. His ability to withstand harshest weather lashed out by Mother Nature speaks of a man that has ways to survive under the harshest condition with no help from outside or someone. He can make things better and does his job better than anyone else he competes with in this sport of assassins and cold blooded killers.

He rarely speaks of his prowess to conquer and manipulate other people while not missing a beat of details to remain free and on the run when hunted by those claiming to be the best of the best.  A rare quality hardly ever missed by his opponents or nemesis in business is his stubbornness to resist help and his forever attitude of having a death wish as he takes the risks to excel in a particular way when it deals with a certain person place or thing.  Always having one goal in mind his only weakness is his non-existent self-doubt and his ever present gambling approach to everything he sets his mind to do or pursue.

A rogue scoundrel that acts on the order of others that pay him and pay him well. He reacts to their weaknesses and makes it their strengths. Trumping situations with his high risk taking approach in almost every situation, he gets a chance to reward himself with plentiful cash and women as he spends his time in seclusion waiting for the next order from someone up above.

So as he acts on this voice from a higher power he has no friends and does not allow anyone to get too close to him. His only allies are those he calls the tools of the trade and when the mission is clear he discards all human form of contact and focuses on the task before him with determination and logical extremism to finish the mission satisfactorily and with outright zealotry and brutal gratification of another job well done for his country or the highest bidder on this undeclared war on humanity.  His motto in life is “silence is a friend who will never betray.”(Confucious)

The five Perils of Corrections

The five Perils of Corrections

 Many people have no idea what a correctional officer endures during their career inside the walls of a penitentiary or large jail. They don’t realize that how filthy the work environment is as well as the fact you can be stabbed, infected by bio hazard liquids, abused and assaulted and sometimes shot at. Needless to say corrections is not a first choice career for those interested in law enforcement and seeking work with a criminal justice degree. I would be lying to say that it is a most glorious job to have compared to a forensic detective or even the average daily street patrol cop on the street.

Corrections is basically the end of the road career choices in the criminal justice system. That’s not to demean the position but to illustrate how it is also the most forgotten element of the criminal justice system. It is a mixture of boredom and pure adrenalin rushes entwined in a terror filled and often a complacency world. Having the power over life and death is often interrupted by a life threatening situation that requires first responders to act quickly and effectively to preserve life of themselves or others. It is a most violent world to work and live in if you are the incarcerated felon. To admit that there are times were you are scared is an understatement. These officers live with fear on duty and off duty but none compare those moments when encountered by the reality of prison work and its perils. It is one of the worst feelings an officer will ever experience and live with their rest of their lives.

The first peril is dealing with the fact that correctional officers must endure their time inside the penitentiary around a volatile population of violent and nonviolent offenders. It stands to reason that the focus of workplace dangers focuses on the violent sociopaths that prey among the weak as well as the strong. Some are more brazen than others and will rock your world if you drop your awareness even a little bit and give them an opportunity to harm you. Working with felons with no compassion and histories of being cop killers, rapists, child molesters and other violent behaviors it must stand to reason that your own compassion for their lives is often non-existent as they await a moment or opportunity to ambush you or your coworkers.

Aside from the fact that the public’s perception of these felons is often skewed or slanted there are many other issues not discussed in the public’ ear shot or eyes. For no other reasons that common sense and logic, it is basically an out of sight out of mind environment.

For the correctional officer the peril of harm or being killed relies on their skills to recognize such dangers. They must be aware at all times that at any moment they may encounter a violent predator and not hesitate to use the necessary force to stop them in their tracks. Unlike a policeman or state trooper, they are not armed and must rely on their self-defense skills, their use of Chemical Mace and the hurried responders of fellow officers rushing to the scene to assist in the takedown or restraint of an already convicted violent offender. There is no room or time for second guessing and heavily criticized by the media and nonelected politicians inside their own bureaucracy, they must face armchair quarterbacking every time they use force to protect themselves. Being a guardian of justice inside the penitentiary means to sacrifice their own feeling and their own lives to protect others.

The second peril of working inside the penitentiary or large jail is to cope with ever tightening budget cuts and staffing shortages. These topics are often on top of the list of officers that work in such an environment where the multitude of problems encountered are not just violent killers but overcoming the higher risks imposed by reduced manpower or ineffective training that is curtailed by funding. In a world where the population of incarcerated felons exceed millions or more there are severe shortages in budget with more cuts coming. It does not enhance the work environment one least bit and creates more dangers than necessary for the job. Realizing the abandonment by society’s lawmakers and budget creators, these officers don’t have time to wallow in self-pity or other negative emotional feelings as they must take care of business regardless of what they are given to work with.

The third peril related to correctional officers is the perception of those outside the penitentiaries that these officers are given the necessary tools and training to do the job. Without a doubt, the most common phrase a rookie officer will hear from the veteran is “forget what you learned at the academy” and do what I do and you will stay alive. When the need for training is sabotaged or compromised by cultural indifference to the process and practice of doing the job, there is much room for error and mistakes that are often harmful or lethal for the officer. Training is a critical element of survival and is crucial in the success of being a better than average correctional officer. Due to budget cuts, training has become redundant and boring for the officers giving them no new technology or inventive skills to improve on. There is no intensity in training and that makes it boring and for reasons as “that’s the way it has always been” there are no signs of improving these lesson plans that can help the officers do their jobs. Agencies have no incentives to find better training techniques as that would incur additional costs that are not approved in their budgets.

The fourth peril is a silent killer. This peril revolves around the stress and anxiety of the job and may lead to suicides. The mere workplace culture, customs and traditions induce the fear and paranoia that is required to stay alive. Thoughts of hostage taking, serious beatings or being stabbed are real as well as knowing that any moment you may be assaulted with HIV loaded feces or other urine of body fluids hurled at your presence by felons with no regard for life or welfare of others. Correctional officers don’t talk about PTSD as it is a dirty word and shows weakness. Officers don’t talk about wimpy subjects and not realize that this silence in fact perpetuates the problem even further. Suicide of another officer is often ignored and murder by a convicted felon is considered a legitimate reason for the stress and anxiety that fills their world. Working around considerable risky people is a risky business not taken for granted by anyone inside prison.

The fifth and final peril is being targeted or working for administrations that are hiring poor managers and out of touch management styles. These officers must endure the most common peril shared in law enforcement where the administration does not back up the officers in their efforts to perform their duties under must distress and difficulties. Administrators are often in a mode that ignore the realities of the job and therefore refuse to hear or see what is considered to be a front line problem for them. They refuse to discuss it, listen to the issues and pretend that it is the other way around and it’s the officer’s fault or problem rather than the administration’s responsibility.

This type of ignorance by supervisors and managers leads to continued stress and will never disappear or go away in the workplace. It appears to be an unnecessary evil to endure. When the administration refuses to hear or see the problems then it becomes more dangerous for all that work there. The truth is however that the prison world is not dangerous place because of evil but rather it is dangerous because often recorded and acknowledged in the history books, it is a dangerous place because the narcissist and arrogant people in charge won’t admit it was their fault and watch and let it happen again and again over and over.

 

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