Complacency

Working in the corrections field for over a decade now, it still amazes me to this day how some officers become so complacent throughout their career. Why in the world would you go into a job like the one that we have and become so comfortable with our surroundings?

We say that safety is always on our mind, yet some officers are far from safety conscious in their everyday dealings with offenders. I have seen officers that leave personal belongings laying around where offenders have easy access to them. Others don't pay attention to what is around them. There is a fine line between confidence in doing your job and arrogance that nothing will happen to you. Probably what gets me the most is that when you address it with the officer (and you are the supervisor) some of them tend to get an attitude about the situation. And for those of you thinking about it, yes, sometimes the supervisors are the worst at it for whatever reason...

Within the last couple of months I was faced with an unfortunate situation, not for me, but for the officer that was working the cellblock. We have established procedures for everything that we do. This officer decided to bypass the procedures and as a result, the officer was sliced on the hand by an offender that had been involved in a use of force not even 2 hours before. This offender also has a history of assaulting staff. The only thing that came to mind was that the officer was complacent. This is just one example of the many things that we tend to see every day, and luckily for us, they are not all this serious. It just goes to show what complacency can do for you.

I asked officers working in the correctional facilities in the area why they do not wear any type of kevlar gloves. The answers that I got astonished me. I received answers like "what is that??", "I dunno", "They are too hot", "I don't know where to get them", and other answers along these lines. I also ask them if they honestly believe that nothing will happen to them. The younger officers reply "they are going to mind!" and the older officers say "I know that something can happen, but I have been lucky so far." Some are completely honest and say that they know very well something can happen at any time. Others, however, are all lip service and say one thing and yet their actions are totally opposite to their words.

This does not apply to all officers that are working in our correctional facilities throughout the country, but a good part of them have let complacency take over the way that they do their job on a daily basis. Let's all try to save them before it is too late...

Feel free to either agree with me or disagree. I would love to hear your thoughts on this.