Four (4) Types of Correctional Violence
December 27th, 2009
When an officer recognizes the type of violence he is facing, he can customize his tactics for de-escalating it on the spot. By taking a general strategy and customizing it to specific tactics, he meets the needs of the moment. In doing this he greatly increases the odds of the situation being resolved without violence. However, not all situations can be resolved non-violently as some may preach. An inmate may want you to place your hands on them for various reasons one being; they think you can’t take them. Though we always attempt to resolve situations without violence and attempt to gain voluntary compliance we have to understand the environment we work in and that violence, intimidation and pain are a reality. Read more…
Remember that one little question on your application process that stated, “Are you able to work mandatory overtime” and you marked yes because you were excited to get into the system and started on your chosen career? Looking back do you ever wish you would have marked NO? In no other profession is there such a high turnover rate requiring so much forced or mandatory overtime on its personnel. It was not uncommon for the entire third shift officers to be mandated to stay for the entire first shift 5 days a week making for an 80 hour work week. 40 plus hours of overtime a pay period was the normal not the unusual and after a while you began to hate telephone calls after 4:00 in the morning. I always wondered what the effects of the daily stress and forced overtime did to a body. 
Thinking Errors are thoughts people exhibit or demonstrate during irresponsible behavior. This thinking leads to and brings on self-destructive behavior. This self-destructiveness leads to and brings on criminal behaviors. Remember, we have all demonstrated these thinking errors at one time or another, so we must keep them in perspective. For example, although everyone has fear, what is at issue is the nature of the fear and how we cope with it.