If he neither respects or fears you then let the sheepdog come out of you. That kind of inmate will eventually offer the just opportunity to put into action your training. Don’t waste it and do not let yourself or co-worker get hurt.

sits quietly in his cage Ugh Ugh Ugh….. Banana!!!!

This is the norm. I honestly would have ordered him to drop the weapon then told him less than lethal force will be used. I have yet to use any less then lethal item at work because the inmates know from dealing with me in the past. They know when I say something like “Stop where you are and show me your hands or I will spray you.” They do just what I order because if they do not I will not hesitate. This is why when I work locks that other officers cannot control I have little to no issues. I am reminded of a bit of wisdom told to me by a very wise old man. There is a thin line between fear and respect. If a man cannot be made to respect you make him fear you. If a man will not fear you make him respect you.

Well sadly we are in the times of inmate entitlement and that’s how the game is being played. When “quality of inmate life” is being pushed down your throat and negotiations are the norm there will be a lot of backlash from the corrections side of the house. You can’t have your all of the “bad people” locked in 1 place and expect smooth sailing.

Personally I blame all of the hippies. We now live in a society where the wussification (PC) is almost complete. Don’t say do or think anything that will offend someone else, because we’re all just so damn sensitive now.

There are times and places when the sword is not only mightier than the pen it’s the only option. Some of us that are considered neanderthals see the writing on the wall. We’ll stay in our cages until you need us, let’s just hope it’s not too late when you call…

True story: An inmate had a shank and was running after another inmate. The officers cornered him and gave him several direct orders to drop the weapon. At the same time the other officer was calling for assistance. The inmate was threatening to cut both officers. When the captain got there he ordered the pepperball gun, the less than lethal shotgun, and the situation bag (containing the grenades).When it was delivered the captain began to talk the inmate into giving him the weapon. He gave the inmate his word that there would not be a hair on his head harmed. The inmate gave up the weapon and that captain escorted the inmate to the hole to make sure that no harm would come to him and no force was used, which is good.
But my question is: What message does that send to every other inmate in the block? That they can threaten an officer with a weqpon and no harm will come to him? You know that every inmate in the block was watching this happen and this inmate was rewarded for bad behavior…. What are your thoughts?

Inmates will take every inch given to them and then some. The environment they live in forces them to be all about themselves and have no regard for anyone or anything other than themselves. When people feed into this it will only make the monster grow. Currently the administration where I work are starting to see what can arise from this. I hope the swing back to security comes swiftly and holds for longer than it did last time.

Commander, can you please speak with me off board? I understand you’re retired, maybe I have something you’d be interested in.
We can exchange # via email.

George Booth
George@fortvna.com

Welcome to the kinder gentler side of “rehabillitation” and corrections. Remember ladies and gentlemen, No farting in the chow hall.

Shakeyjake, no offense taken here, it sounds like we are on the same page. Good humor is key to survival.

Canusxii…… Agree I do you with I see. Take it with a grain of salt.

Oops,same with administrators .misspelled.Do the best you can.I am a catholic,before I go to work,I pray “lord don’t let me screw up”.F the rest of them….

Nothing to forgibive shakeyjake ,going on 9 years,is being damn if u do,damn if u don’t ,there are consequences for what u do wrong,but lately to many supervisors are book smart but not floor smart,same with supervisors.
I grow up their are consequences for what you do wrong ,is difference now.
Be safe,be careful.

Most of my post are mainly in jest of the whole thing with corrections, I’ve been carrying a badge for 32 years, 20 of them as a C/O. So please don’t take things I wright to serious..well maybe if I say your to take a certain post seriously you can take as being a serious post. I strive to be on the lighter side of corrections, because there is to much negitive crap floating around and I fill I have to equalize it a bit.

Plus I misspell alot so forgive me for anything that may offened the grammer police.

Shakeyjake, I agree with what you stated in your post. If I sounded bitter in my post, I would like to make it clear that I’m not. My opinions are purely based on what I have observed for more than 20 years, and for the most part I accept the changes as they come, I just don’t agree with all of them. As far as climbing the ladder is concerned, I’m just not interested.

RCJ, welcome to the front line of corrections, and if you don’t like the changes, then try to move up the ladder and be a change maker yourself. Knuckle dragger has a few ideals that may make your trasition to the top a little easier. Look at his post in one of the other rooms.

Yea, it sure would be a shame to offend an inmate. Things sure have changed and not in the CO’s favor, we are being forced to adopt the hug a thug mentality. All you can do is just do your job and grin and bear it.

VADOC27………..It’s a refusal to work or to follow a direct order. It should be discipline including segregation and loss of good time. Looks like SGT. friendly is on the take or just plain scared.

With us Kitchen work is classed as great privilege. Refuse to get out of bed when they were told to go to the kitchen and they would be sacked on the spot. Plenty more inmates more than willing to take their place.

Wow….what I would call the inmates calling the shots.Sad,It would only get worst.
Where we at,dorms,we wake them up.They don’t want to go to work,well,only gets bad for them.anything to,interfering with the 4am count,getting loud with them;example waking up the rest of the dorm.
Ultimately,they either work with us or get fire from their jobs. Just really shock about what you just posted.It will only get worse.
Be careful.

I’ve only been in the Virginia DOC for 6 months and the level of catering to inmates(Offenders in Virginia) is horrible. On my second day of being a certified officer, I lost all respect for this agency. We have a major problem with getting our 5am kitchen workers out of my building on time. They refuse to get up and dressed in a timely manner, which was holding up our 530am kitchen count. Their reasoning was the control booth officers didn’t wake them up early enough by shaking there doors. Which is not the duty of the control officers per DOC policy.

While escorting my responsible workers to the kitchen i was met on the boulevard by the perimeter supervisor who sent me back to my housing unit to get the stories of those who choose not to show up. Upon getting to my housing unit i had to stop my building supervisor escorting the offenders who thought time doesn’t apply to them. I informed my supervisor that kitchen count has already stared and they need to return to there housing units per SGT. ####.

My building SGT then proceeded to tell these inmates, who were 30 minutes late, that “This is my failure and the failure of my officers. We failed you and i’m going to fix this. You did nothing wrong and i’m going to fix this with your supervisor.”

You can search a cell without trashing it. A CO searching a cell can start with one wall, move to the back wall, toilet, sink, shelving then leave the bunk beds for last. A seasoned officer knows what the facility will allow and what is excess property or contraband. I always removed the sheets and blankets from the mattress just to see if they were hiding something.

Or third option they rule with an iron fist and the inmates really just don’t want the hassle of having their property tossed around in the property vault while they sit in seg.

You can write all the tickets you want to and I believe that most supervisors wouldn’t critique you on that because management tends to like officers who enforce the rules (even to excess). I suppose in some ways an officer who writes a ticket on everything is despised by the inmates and other officers might be of the opinion that the officer is feathering their own nest. That scenario of course is in stark contrast to an officer who never writes a ticket unless he or she is forced to do so by a supervisor. Either they don’t want to waste their time writing reports or they are oblivious to violations happening on their shift which is not a good thing at all.

I for one know fellow officers can do various things that they shouldn’t out of fear or greed. I know that there are some officers that would have my back no matter what. Then there are officers who would try to get you fired for picking your nose on shift because it is dereliction of duty. I remember when I first hired in we had a very strong shift. The whole shift was family we would bowl together and arrange to bring in goodies for everyone and take turns doing so. Now that does not happen anymore. I tend to stay to myself and do my job while having a working relation with my fellow staff. I know I have their backs every inch of the way though I know there are some who wouldn’t have mine. I tend to avoid those people and stick tot eh groups and people I know I can trust. It is very sad and I hope that I will never have to rely on someone I can not trust.

If I had that option commander trust me I would. Even if I bought all my military time back I’d still have to long to go. Now I don’t feel a need to go around being hardass 24/7, but when I’m getting pulled in to speak with the supervisors over how I talk to an inmate who breaks the rules tells me corrections has no sack anymore. I’m not talking about dropping f-bombs every 10 seconds, or yelling childish insults but just a good old school ass ripping. Why? cause I give them a choice for small stuff. Take the chewing and correct your behavior or take the write up and go to the hole, arguing with me isn’t an option. Funny thing is it wasn’t even the inmates complaining, it was other staff that didn’t like my methods. End of the day I’ve always gotten more respect from the inmates by being the DI type than the massive ticket writer.

Now if I had to take a guess commander I’d say I’m probably right about the 3rd shift officer in question. Usually when I got held on 3rd I’d end up K or J side. For some reason me, 3rd shift and good posts never seemed to go together lol.