Ask a Corrections Officer

[Excited Penguin]

My favorite memory is the time I had a kid swallow meth in my intake lobby before anybody could search him. It caused him to have a massive seizure and we had to group tackle him to stop his head from slamming into a wall. I had to be sent out with him in the ambulance. When the EMT cut his shirt off we saw that he had a really crappily done tattoo of the Superman Crest on his chest. When he started coming around and opened his eyes at us I went "Hey Superman. You swallow some Kyrptonite today?" We all shared a laugh. Not him though, he had to be paralyzed and hooked up to a breathing machine.

Um. Um. Uh.
This is creepy.
Are you a psychopath?

[brewer]

He didn't make the kid swallow the meth. Think boy think.

[Chad32]

I would imagine that being raped, especially if there's bleeding, is about the worst thing they could do to me. Aside from killing me. What else is there to threaten me with? It's already torture, and being dead would be better than being raped for the next few months or years.

[InsomniacMike486]

My favorite memory is the time I had a kid swallow meth in my intake lobby before anybody could search him. It caused him to have a massive seizure and we had to group tackle him to stop his head from slamming into a wall. I had to be sent out with him in the ambulance. When the EMT cut his shirt off we saw that he had a really crappily done tattoo of the Superman Crest on his chest. When he started coming around and opened his eyes at us I went "Hey Superman. You swallow some Kyrptonite today?" We all shared a laugh. Not him though, he had to be paralyzed and hooked up to a breathing machine.

Um. Um. Uh.
This is creepy.
Are you a psychopath?

Something you learn about jobs like that are that your humor will change and you will find that there are members of the public that will not view what you consider funny to be...well, all that funny. The kid lived, and has since been in and out of the facility. Not learning a damn thing.

---

I would imagine that being raped, especially if there's bleeding, is about the worst thing they could do to me. Aside from killing me. What else is there to threaten me with? It's already torture, and being dead would be better than being raped for the next few months or years.

Part of my training involved being taught what was going to happen in the event that I was taken hostage. The short of it is that I am beyond screwed.

The negotiator is one of my Lt.s. His job is to get me out of the situation alive. That being said, it has been well documented that the odds of surviving a hostage situation are extremely low if a rescue team comes in guns blazing to save me. So that option is a last resort if it looks like they are going to kill me anyway or if they have already killed another hostage.

I was specifically told that if I was being raped, nobody was going to come in after me to stop it. In their mind it is better for me to be raped and gotten out alive than for me to be killed because they burst in without negotiating for me. I was told that my best bet to live was to just let it happen.

Needless to say that this prospect did not sit well with me.

[Chad32]

So if I was in the situation I should think of it more like being a hostage than "He boss, my roommate's being a dick. Can you get me a new one?".

[Pyrrho]

...

I would imagine that being raped, especially if there's bleeding, is about the worst thing they could do to me. Aside from killing me. What else is there to threaten me with? It's already torture, and being dead would be better than being raped for the next few months or years.

Part of my training involved being taught what was going to happen in the event that I was taken hostage. The short of it is that I am beyond screwed.

The negotiator is one of my Lt.s. His job is to get me out of the situation alive. That being said, it has been well documented that the odds of surviving a hostage situation are extremely low if a rescue team comes in guns blazing to save me. So that option is a last resort if it looks like they are going to kill me anyway or if they have already killed another hostage.

I was specifically told that if I was being raped, nobody was going to come in after me to stop it. In their mind it is better for me to be raped and gotten out alive than for me to be killed because they burst in without negotiating for me. I was told that my best bet to live was to just let it happen.

Needless to say that this prospect did not sit well with me.

I can see that you are a very different person from me.  If I had gotten that far along in the training, being told that would have persuaded me to immediately quit and look for other work.  I would rather work in a fast food restaurant, especially given the pay you have mentioned.

If it were up to me, I would want them to come in guns blazing if I were getting raped.  Even if that meant I ended up dead.


(Also, you are very different from me, because it would not take me a couple of years to visit the local art gallery.)

[InsomniacMike486]

...

Part of my training involved being taught what was going to happen in the event that I was taken hostage. The short of it is that I am beyond screwed.

The negotiator is one of my Lt.s. His job is to get me out of the situation alive. That being said, it has been well documented that the odds of surviving a hostage situation are extremely low if a rescue team comes in guns blazing to save me. So that option is a last resort if it looks like they are going to kill me anyway or if they have already killed another hostage.

I was specifically told that if I was being raped, nobody was going to come in after me to stop it. In their mind it is better for me to be raped and gotten out alive than for me to be killed because they burst in without negotiating for me. I was told that my best bet to live was to just let it happen.

Needless to say that this prospect did not sit well with me.

I can see that you are a very different person from me.  If I had gotten that far along in the training, being told that would have persuaded me to immediately quit and look for other work.  I would rather work in a fast food restaurant, especially given the pay you have mentioned.

If it were up to me, I would want them to come in guns blazing if I were getting raped.  Even if that meant I ended up dead.


(Also, you are very different from me, because it would not take me a couple of years to visit the local art gallery.)

My next weekend I am going to make a commitment to go. I do love art, art history, museums, literature. Workings 60+ hours a week has made it hard.

[robvalue]

Excellent answers Mike, thank you! It was very interesting reading them all.

I really admire anyone who has the balls to do a job like yours and do it cleanly, like you appear to. I would be a gibbering screaming mess in about 5 minutes.

I would love to see prison be more focused on rehabilitation, the reoffend stats are scary. I'm sure that's much easier said than done. I totally agree about the drug addicts, they need a very different environment.

[Salacious B. Crumb]

Thanks for sharing your experiences. It has been an interesting thread for sure.

After reading the gang rape story, I don’t know how any one of you theists can possibly justify a god’s actions of letting this go. How can a god sit there and watch that happen? If you believe in an interventionist type of god, you may want to do some serious reconsideration of that belief. How do the words omnipotent and omnibenevolent fit into that scenario? And, if you think that is god’s will, you and your god are royally fucked, in the morality department.

How is this possible in The United States? This is the shit you’d expect from 3rd world dictatorships, that don’t give a shit about anything, but themselves. But, maybe it isn’t that much different, and maybe, it has nothing to do with being 3rd world. Practically, everyone in Washington, is looking out for themselves. Yeah, they take care of their people in certain ways, but their main concern is themselves. How this can actually go on today, blows my mind. The amount of funding the prison system gets, there should be cameras everywhere. If they don’t have enough money, don’t buy the murderers multimillion dollar sports facilities; Cutbacks could be made for videocameras recording at all times. This would prevent this kind of monstrous, heinous behavior! The cops would have proof, and a severe punishment to everyone involved, should be executed immediately. I’m not a death penalty advocate because of the jury costs, and the possibly the person is still not guilty, but I’d reconsider, if this was all on camera. At the core of my morals, I feel, that this is deserving of death. Quick, cheap, painless, and over with. Slowly these fucking gruesome pieces of shit, would be eliminated, and the people that actually want to get along with each other in jail, or want rehabilitation, have a much better chance at it. You’re not going to rehabilitate many of these assholes in the prison system. They don’t give a shit. They’re supposed to be serving a sentence, but actually have control over groups of people, and it seems that shouldn’t be going on. It’s like a field day for the scum of the earth. Someone that gets brutally raped, should be able to speak up without an ounce of hesitancy or consequence. Arrangements should be made, that the victim should never have to be in another situation with them again. Make more solitary confinement cells, so they have no contact to intimate anyone. There’s cutbacks to be made, to accommodate for these situations, but I guess the government doesn’t give a fuck. Shocker..

The justice system is fucked. The prison system is fucked. Separate the violent offenders from the non-violent ones. Let the violent ones beat the shit out of each other and have sex all they want, and let non-violent ones be. Which brings me to my next point, drugs. Many of these people that are getting raped are first time drug offenders that are in their teens or early 20s. Drugs shouldn’t be illegal, period. Fuck your laws on that! You own your own body. You can make it illegal to drive intoxicated, but seriously alcohol should be outlawed, because it causes many accidents everyday. No one wants that taken away, why don’t you leave people alone if they want to smoke a joint. If they’re smoking a joint at home, should that sentence include getting raped and harassed a decent amount of the time you have to serve. If people have drugs in their pocket, they’re not a threat to society in a way that a murderer or a rapist is. I could go on and on, but I’m sure it’s been done before. It’s sad what goes on in this country..

I hope you can get out of there as soon as you can

[InsomniacMike486]

Update: I got the job at the residential facility. I'll be helping people complete their probation and rehab programs to stay out of prison. For once I'll be doing what society as a whole should be doing instead of mass incarceration. Thank you all who took such an interest in my story. Hopefully I'll have some more stories of an inspirational nature in the months to come