Complacency ~ the Evil Influences on Correctional Officers

Complacency ~ the Evil Influences on Correctional Officers

By Carl R. ToersBijns

 

Correctional Officers today are well trained and professional in demeanor and performance. To a great extent, they are representative of a law enforcement professional in modern day penology that emphasizes on self-confidence and self assertion to be able to perform their job that is dangerous and unusual to say the least. 

Their role inside prisons characterizes moral as well as political thoughts but carry with them traditional sound and ethical moral ideals and social forms that continue to seek a safe and secure environment as well as proper custodial care of our humanity.

Every day these men and women walk this most perilous beat as they go inside these gates of Hell with thoughts of “trust thyself” and maintain the integrity of their own minds as they were trained and how you carry their moral values.

Working within a prison means living side by side with the Devil. A demonic spirit that reigns in this man-made Hell-hole and that refuses to submit to the perfected ideals and principles to do the job with the intent to be fair, firm and consistent with those that live here in Hell.

Thus it can be said that working inside this Hell-hole is in fact a rebellion against sanity and God’s sovereignty as it is quite wicked in here and temptation is abound. In addition to its darkness, it is quite real and demonic in existence and pride that emphasizes wrongful deeds and dishonored thinking.

This is the sentiment to overcome as you walk through those gates to Hell and leave all the sanity and reality behind as the heavy metal gates shut you in until it is time to end your shift. 

As you walk through these gates of Hell your voice inside your head tries to reassure you that all is well and you are ready to face yet again a fresh challenge with evil lurking around every corner of this place.

For this and other reasons you focus on your safety as well as the safety of others. Taking “the six” and backing up your teammates carries with it a tremendous amount of responsibility that exceeds all others for the next eight hours or so. Working inside this Hell-hole has serious consequences and being lax is unacceptable under any terms or conditions.  

 

Your mind is focus on every move and deepest threat from within. Working with pride and self confidence are basic ingredients that allows you to walk the beat with self assurance as you battle the afflictions of the “demon of acedia” because this is the most dangerous evil one of them all.

“Acedia [Latin] or the “noonday devil”” is most common inside these prison Hell-holes and thrives on the souls of those that have submitted to the seven sins of heaven and have become careless and without care how they perform their jobs and responsibilities.  Some blame fatigue while others blame the need for power and greed.

 This “noonday devil” brings you nothing but pain and sorrow as it cites your ideals and moral values into new conceptual traditions that allows the devil to rule and misfortune, harm, violence and death to exist. While under the influence of this “noonday devil” you will feel sadness or idleness in your purpose and submit to his evil ways without thinking about it twice.

 \For all practical purposes, this complex and spiritual state of mind defies all simplicity in content and context as well as mindset definitions. Because this demonic influence fosters a lassitude and despairing mood, it overwhelms your own spiritual and moral capacity and feelings and transforms your performance into stages of idleness and laziness that also creates a dullness of the soul.

Your heart becomes dry, with a sense of bareness that creates tasteless decision making as it bares your soul. It induces you into stages of waning confidence and produces a lack of motivation that leaves you in a state of mind resembling an attitude of “what’s the use” and “it is what it is” and allows you to dip into temptation to not do your job and lift you into a stage of thinking what you are doing is pointless and futile to say the least.

This ““noonday devil”” phenomena slips into your mind as you begin to tire and feel a lack of commitment, support and despair about why you are busting your heart out to do a job that has no real self serving purpose or gratitude from those you serve.

Thus you will slowly or eventually  succumb into a stage of temptation and decide  to relax a little and let things go with the flow that in fact threatens the safety and security of where you are as well as those you are sharing ground with while being here in Hell.

Acedia, then, is a real threat, a deadly sin doing its deadly work in the presence of those who trust you and respect you.  Its demonic presence can be detected rather clearly in the way you are acting and the way you are working inside this most demonic culture that has no remorse or sanity attached to it.

It breeds contempt for rules and following instructions as well as truthfulness and routine ethical decision making. It separates you from your cultural context and evolves into an irresponsible culture and morality that establishes critical distance between right and wrong.  You no longer worry about your own beliefs and practices that would normally stand for human decency and moral rectitude as it now all seems silly and pointless.

In most cases, the basic strategy of instruction is to step back and allow your normal ethical and honorable judgments to return back to normal through patience and meditation. It is important to clear your head and realize that you have to be doctrinally consistent with policies and procedures as well as unified in thought with those working around you.

You can’t let the negative influences of this “acadia” events overwhelm you and corrupt your thinking; you must resist any negative preconceptions to foster or continue to exist inside your head. At the same time you must reach in deep of your own soul and heart and allow your passion to bring you back on track and keep you focused on the possessions you attained through diligent training and positive experiences as you prepared yourself for this most challenging job.

 

You have to break this cycle of change and step back without stepping back from your inherited duties and responsibilities as well as the oath you took when you accepted this job. How you undertake these responsibilities will decide how long you will last in wearing a badge of honor within this man made Hell-hole called prison.

Your general commitment while at work is to ensure public safety and reduce the chances or opportunities for others to commit additional crimes or misconduct. Your job is to prevent the infliction of needless or preventable pain or harm by predators seeking the weak and making them submit to the evilness around you.

The final assessment to this phenomena call “acedia” is that if you choose to accept this as your new chosen standard of care and your moral code to perform you are in fact discarding all of your own moral and social standards that existed before you walked through those gates.

In fact, you have allowed the devil, this ever present evil spirit to invade your soul to set a new standard for your moral and social standards now considered by you as a virtue rather than what you once thought was evil and wrong.

 

December 7, 2012

The Noonday Devil

Beware the Noonday Devil

By Carl R. ToersBijns

The Church's monastic tradition sees as one of the most dangerous enemies of the spiritual life what the psalmist calls "the noonday devil" (Ps 91:6). The monks took this phrase as an apt description of the lethargy or fatigue they battled at about midday. Today this phrase can lead to thoughts of how corrupt public leaders have become wrongful influences in our lives and morality.

These noonday devils preached a “what’s the use” attitude that precipitated apathy and pointless bickering. This approach is designed to tire you out and wear you down as you are worn down to conforming to the devil’s wishes. We all know when you are exhausted, you begin to compromise and compromise leads you to defeat.

Thus this is a plea to stay awake and be alert of the noonday devil. Don’t listen to his words as he corrupts your mind and heart. Ask for strength to resist his words and evil deeds as you face temptation and to fall asleep mentally.

This noonday devil preaches hate, discontent, laziness and sloth like manners. It desecrates the value of life and brings death as a normal situation to be in as all that live will eventually die.

This devil brings sadness and sorrow. There are many side effects that are too numerous to bring about but nevertheless a reality we must face each day of our lives.

Remember God’s goodness and don’t become bored with God’s wisdom. Do not respond to the noonday devil and his evil ways. Instead respond to God’s love, wisdom and goodness as His works are wonders of this Earth.

Do not fall to the symptoms of laziness and fall into the pit of fire because you made no effort to heed this spiritual warning. Fill you time with the goodness and not the evils of life. Face the world with optimism and hope that all men are created equal and deserve the pursuit of happiness as we focus on the important things in life.

Do not rush into the devil’s arms by being unaware of these evil pitfalls and surround yourself with those who are going to lift you higher. Surround yourself in a culture that embraces the good things in life and have faith in what you believe in.

Most of all, do not be so busy that you are asleep to the very things that mater. Don’t ride the fast lane of life and forget all that you have been taught about reflection and thoughts that bring hope and happiness to those that seek the word that is so divine.  Do no avoid the reality as it exists to avoid giving your heart and soul to humanity and not what is evil.

 

Help wanted - Apply here

A laundry list of prison failures

By Carl R. ToersBijns, former deputy warden, ASPC Eyman, Florence, AZ

 

Ever notice how the director of the Arizona prison system always declines to appear on television to refute or deny any wrongdoings reported by the media in the last three years?

Do you think that this is a deliberate tactic to assassinate the public confidence in our prison system?

Knowing how arrogant and tenured this man is, I am surprised he has not taken advantage of his public image to respond to the number of failures occurring while under his watch. It almost appears as if he has waved the white flag of surrender or pushing the fact that he doesn’t care enough about these flaws to respond to them in a most constructive and competent way. As it is, he is the only man in Arizona that can actually tell all of us the truth and what is really being advertised as a failed prison system today.

That being said, you must be aware of the impact of such an apathetic attitude and how this is impacting his credibility and leadership qualities. His refusal to address all matters in a public forum is one of his basic calls as a public leader and explain the appropriate action is being taken to correct all these flaws.

Perhaps he is relying on the department’s actions to speak for itself, however, that would be a fatal mistake for the public perception and opinion of his leadership has been dwindling quickly over the years.

It is logical this era must end soon. It is also rational that mistakes have to be corrected and failures must be reversed into success stories. It seems today, everything is wrong with Arizona prison management as the list is too long to print and historical data is revealing failure after failure since 2009.

Subvertly, he has eluded that things are wrong but refuses to address them specifically and publically. Shifting his policies constantly to address these shortfalls, his reactive approach is being noticed by lawmakers and law breakers.

Today his challenge should be clear. Repair those issues on this lengthy laundry list that need fixing.

This is our challenge for the next two years he should focus on:

• Controlling spending and stop private prison growth in Arizona
• Reduce the prison population and make the officer to inmate ratio safe again pre-2007
• Take proactive assessments to protect the public from escapes, disturbances, excessive liabilities and needless costs incurred because of negligence or poor performance
• Focus on staff safety and public safety and make them priority one
• Restore staffing patterns and correctional officer positions in maximum custody lost since he took over in February 2009
• Cut the political power, intimidation and fear factors of his administrators and reduce the administrative size of his agency
• Reduce prison deaths and suicides as well as natural deaths
• Restore sound and practical medical and mental health care in practice and delivery of services
• Reduce prison bed expansion growth and false bed space projections for more maximum custody beds in the future
• Restore the classification system for inmates to be housed in their appropriate custody levels and limit overrides to accommodate bed space and eligible transfers to private prisons
• Restore the promotional and disciplinary policies for all employees to allow career growth and opportunities
• Restore the human resource policies that allows employees to remain classified under grade 20 and not uncovered making them subject to willful termination or dismissal for political reasons
• Open up a respectful and meaningful relationship with the media and allow transparency to exist to demonstrate compliance with rule of law and departmental policies and procedures
• Open up a respectful and mutual relationship with organized labor and allow input and feedback to be included in executive decision making
• Expose detrimental practices that incur the loss of life, limb or danger to all that work or live inside a prison

There are other actions required to bring these failures to the front of the agenda. He must work with the legislature to develop and organize an independent oversight committee to track prison business and transactions as well as changing these corruptive policies in place today.

He must turn the tables on the politics and tacit approval that exists within this culture of death now infested inside this prison system and take the opportunities for these “lessons learned” and turn them around.

He can do all this and still turn loose the dogs and appropriate use of force on those that challenge his changes in every way possible. Eradicate the gang controls that exist today and make prisons safer than ever before.

December 6, 2012

Symbolism is sometimes truthful like in this video

The Chair