Complacency is a dangerous thing in our line of work. Correctional Officers work in one of the most dangerous settings in the world. We often don’t have the best tools for the job, and backup could be minutes away, that is if you’re able to radio for them. One moment of inattentiveness can be just the opportunity a malicious inmate — or group of them needs to get the upper hand.
Here are three ways you can avoid complacency and hopefully stay alive on the compound.
1. Treat every action as a new one. Repetition often becomes monotonous, especially when the outcome never seems to change. Perform every check, every count, and every escort as if it’s your first one. Don’t cut any corners or ignore any safety measures. Nothing changes until it does, and things can take a deadly turn very quickly.
For instance, I once responded to an “officer down” call, where the officer was cell front, speaking with an inmate, when another inmate slipped through his tray port that had been left unsecured. The officer noticed someone behind him, but thought it was another officer. He later said that he ignored his surroundings because, “the inmates didn’t have a reason to hurt [him].” His complacency almost got him killed.
2. Play "What If." Always assume that the worst can happen (because it can). Come up with ways that things can go wrong and what you'll do in those instances.
We’ve all seen how innovative inmates can be. They can easily defeat locks, create hiding places nobody thinks to look, and make tools and weapons out of damn near anything. Learn all you can, and try to predict what they’ll do next. It’s a fun internal game that will keep you on your toes and out of a hospital.
3. Variation is king. Walking the same route to do your checks and counts at the same time every day sets patterns that not only inmates notice, but your brain does too. You can easily be lulled into a false sense of security, because you grow used to the same old routine. Vary your times, routes, and activities enough to force yourself to notice things that you may have missed.
Sometimes I start my checks at the bottom, cell number 1; and sometimes I start on the top tier, far back corner. It’s a small change, but it keeps me alert and keeps inmates guessing.
Every day you come to work, you notice a baseline — the default conditions for the environment you’re in. When it’s hot, loud, and smells like body odor and smoke, you notice those things. They become the expectation. And when you’ve had several weeks or months of quiet, easy, mundane shifts, you come to expect those as well. And those are the dangerous ones. It takes a conscious effort to combat complacency in an environment where you’ve unconsciously decided it’s safe. But you know better, so don’t let yourself get hurt getting comfortable in a lion’s den.
Wake up, get your head on a swivel, and try not to become tomorrow’s Daily Cluster.
-D. Mathena
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