a few observations from a person who worked in corrections back in the 90s and personally saw how cops dealt with minor citizens on hundreds/thousands o' occasions. admitted temporal remote.
we worked at a juvenile detention facility as a "counselor." the job title were a bit misleading as while we did counsel near constant, our main job were security/intake and j-unit staff. our j-unit were high security, housing offenders who were being held on such charges as rape and murder or including residents who were otherwise too violent to be housed with other kids. 'course calling 'em kids could be misleading as the j-unit folks were usual 'tween sixteen and seventeen and were never ceasing to amaze us just how many such kids were 6'4" and 240-300 lbs. sheesh.
each unit held, on average, 'tween 25 and 45 residents. doesn't take a math genius to figure out how many kids were held at the hall at any one time given basic understanding o' english alphabet and some simple multiplication, yes? summer were most dense populated season for the hall and we would get severe overcrowding past capacity with as many as three kids housed in a room designed for one. sidenote: more than a few kids would admit they purposefully got busted during the summer 'cause at least the hall had ac.
staff at the hall were diverse. white and male were perhaps the most represented demographic 'mongst staff, but nowhere near population levels. females, regardless o' race, were a bit underrepresented. contact sport experience were common-- many football players from local colleges. in spite o' fact there were much diversity amongst the frontline staff at the juvenile hall and probation in general, there were a noticeable skew towards white and male mongst the supervisors.
unlike cops, "counselors" at the hall were all having a 4-year degree, even part-timers such as Gromnir. were kinda standard in the area for sheriff department noobs to start at the county jail while probation department noobs started at juvenile hall.
we worked at the hall for 'tween 20 and 60 hours a week for 'bout three years while simultaneous doing the full-time student bit. we needed money.
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am thinking it would be difficult to communicate the scope o' casual brutality which is endemic in law enforcement. am suspecting there were a fair 'mount o' racism involved in the use o' violence we saw daily, but perhaps not in the way one might expect. regardless, am only imagining the degree o' valid rage the population would embrace if Gromnir had somehow secret filmed an ordinary week at the hall and then released "highlights" to the public.
again, regardless o' size, am still talking 'bout kids 'cause is a juvenile hall situation. even so, "agitation," particular once there were any kinda reasonable threat to staff or other residents, were handled swiftly and decisively. the common slang for taking an unruly resident to the ground was referred to as a "dip." as you might imagine, it were not uncommon for a resident to become injured when dipped by a cop or probation counselor during the intake process. while we never saw anybody place a knee to the back o' the neck o' a kid, we did see kids twisted up in intentional unpleasant positions until they became compliant. as a matter o' fact, our original training were referred to as pain compliance before a lawsuit resulted in changes. training didn't change much but name were altered to MAB.
sidenote: an armbar followed by a circle down to the prone position were our de facto move, but am admitting, if forced into a grapple, we used outer reap throw on more than one occasion. can google vids if you wish. concrete walls and floors in confined areas meant such moves, more than once, resulted in at least minor injuries.
but again, am talking 'bout kids. in spite o' fact Gromnir were more reserved 'bout placing hands on a resident than many o' our fellows, if you had video compilation o' every single time we dipped a kid, it would look terrible, 'cause it were terrible.
j-unit were split into two wings. why not just one big unit instead o' a "bubble" separating two? gangs. if you had nortenos and surenos or crips and bloods in same living space, they would eventual go after each other en masse. the thing is, there were just too many gangs and too many personal grievances to prevent such mass combats from happening, and happening all too often. there were dozens o' asian gangs and the peckerwoods and aryan brotherhood had a presence too. try and keep track o' all the vendettas going on outside the hall to predict when such stuff would become a conflagration in the hall were beyond the pay grade o' a part-timer such as Gromnir. nevertheless, we would be one o' the two staff, as often as not, on the floor in j-unit watching for any sign o' aggression beyond the normal level expected when you got a bunch o' killers and rapists and car jackers and l00ns on/off their meds.
we never left work w/o a serious tension headache. stressful. our stress were in spite o' fact we had a reputation 'mongst the residents such that badness were less likely to happen when we worked. a kid awaiting trial for double homicide explained it to us once when the discussion o' which staff they never messed with came up during a commercial break o' tv watching. apparently Gromnir has "serial killer eyes," whatever that means. have a person who has killed two people tell us we got serial killer eyes were... disconcerting.
we worked with a few staff who were not reserved 'bout placing their hands on residents. our easiest days in j-unit were the ones we worked with mr. B_____, an ex-college football player at 'bout 6'2" and 280 pounds. mr. B_____ were not only skilled at communicating and counseling residents, he were an intimidating presence who would not hesitate to lay hands on a resident. never seemed personal for mr. B_______, but he were not gentle and video compilation woulda' made him seem monstrous. a different mr. B_______ we worked along side were a couple inches taller and a few pounds heavier than his unrelated but near twin, but he were not near as effective a staff member. the other mr. B_______ took things personal and he were clear looking for an excuse to prove his toughness. kids became agitated in general when the other mr. B_____ were working, making our job tougher. both mr. B were black. we didn't consider valid any racial angle to the propensity for violence o' either mr. B. however, we did feel some sympathy for a few o' our white and male colleagues as they were often accused o' racial motivation for their actions by residents 'cause the kids knew it were an effective indefensible accusation.
sadly, the one thing which would get you universal %$#@ed as a staff member at the hall is the perception o' weakness or fear. this is where our whole long post kinda gets to real point. whether were cops bringing in residents or staff dealing with kids in units, you couldn't show weakness or you would never hear the end o' it. once you got a reputation for hesitancy or fearfulness, you would be mocked open and taken advantage of at every opportunity. job would become impossible difficult if you were constant being tested. most juvenile hall staff quit once they developed a reputation as being weak. so, how do you prove you ain't afraid... 'cause not everybody has serial killer eyes.
the f'ing attitude test. am suspecting has been 'round as long as there has been cops. is not specific race-based, but is in fact universal. if a suspect fails the attitude test, the ordinary cop feels compelled to act. is not written in law anywheres, but can't look weak in front o' the suspect or fellow cops neither. the cop must do something. all too often, "do something" is including violence.
intimidating men get less leeway with the attitude test. why? obvious. if a 112 pound nerdling with a pocket protector and glasses get mouthy with a cop, is there gonna be a real fear in the encounter? could' be and depends on the situation, but a large man gets less wiggle-room from attitude test 'cause is ultimately 'bout fear. is 'bout perception o' looking weak. if you fail the attitude test and create a situation where the cop needs defend his reputation against perceived weakness, chances are better than fair you are gonna suffer violence at the hands o' a cop.
yes, there is too many people who discover they like the rush which comes from twisting up another human being. unlike gd, we do not believe the nature o' the cop job is a magnet for such people. the a-hole cops who enjoy hurting others learn to love their job, and they ain't self-aware enough to recognize how a fail o' the attitude test is NOT a reasonable excuse to hurt others. the #1 factor in decreasing police excessive force complaints is educational level. call it correlative rather than causation not much matter to us. is simple fact that regardless o' race or hierarchy level, as education level increases, excessive force complaints decrease.
regardless, violence amongst US law enforcement is pervasive enough such that it is ordinary. the problem is compounded by the universal adoption by cops everywhere, to varying degrees, o' the attitude test. we got a well-armed populace which means cops, in every encounter, need be afraid for their lives. fearful and criminally uneducated is not a great combination and yet such is the norm for most o' US police. is a tough job to be finding and retaining enough prospects even with relative good pay. we always condemn wiki, so we deserve rebuke for linking, but look at list and recognize the fed has absolute no jurisdiction or authority over any o' state/county/municipal police departments save for general funding provided to State, which often has little/negligible impact on individual municipalities anyways. try and fix police violence at a national level may be required, but is actual prohibited. fubar.
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will cheese off vol, but am thinking the way to best address excessive force complaints 'gainst cops is to hire educated women to be cops. sexist? *shrug* would be legal hurdles as well, but blame on enculturation or biology or whatnot and result is in american women is more likely to wanna talk through problems than our men. our three years o' experience don't give us some special kinda insight but we did observe how women cops and juvenile hall staff were no less effective even if they were less quick to getting to the dipping. more education and more women fixes problems.... not just cop problems neither.
HA! Good Fun!