Wallow in the Mire - a brief analogy of the darkness around you

Wallow in the Mire

One would think that after so many years, life and the kind of work you have chosen to do should or would be getting better. Even with all the endless time spent in society’s forgotten and forsaken hell-holes they call jails or prisons, you have chosen to work in to make a living. Certainly, you are possessed with passion and determination to do a job that is one of the most difficult in the law enforcement world.

It is with a certain degree of knowledge that you never thought that you would wallow in the mire and get your feet stuck as the negativity slurps your soul and tears your heart down to reach the levels of evil while grasping at every chance to drag you down and compromise your own morals and values.

Your idea of a career, a  profession or a challenging position brought you illusions of adventure, respect, and satisfaction. Somehow, that is not how it works when you chose to become a detention or correctional officer inside a large jail complex or penitentiary. In fact, it can almost be said that life does not get better over time unless you choose to control your own destiny.

It has been said that perception impacts the reality and inside jails and prisons, reality is distorted like muddy water is when stirred and agitated over and over, endlessly and often with malice. Before you took this job, you never used to get mad over those little things that have begun to aggravate you to no end with very little help from anyone else.

It appeared your support base was very limited and only to those who shared your pain and frustrations. In time, you managed to dodge the anger and obstructions and turn it into positive moments.

In the past, whether you were in school or just hanging out with your friends, you did all the things that were thought to be cool and now, you have no time for those things that brought you joy and happiness like before. You have seen others dwell on this matter before.

You have seen how life had taught you what was cool and now, after all these years, you see others lose it and end up a fool because they cannot make their own destiny and find the passion they had once before their spirit was flushed down the toilet like this job has almost drained you and tampered with your inner spirit giving you a very pessimistic outlook on life and those things that make your daily routine seem worthless.

Inside your heart and mind, you knew this job was holding you down. For the past few years, all you have done is follow the rules, when in fact, you used to toy with them and see how far you could get without being caught in breaking them.Rules appeared to have taken over your life in more ways than you care to mention. But then, you broke loose and life took a new direction and turn.

Somewhere along the line, you have to admit that this journey is getting better. Although it may seem to be filled with darkness, there is light ahead as you persisted and persevered the trials and tribulations faced with daily and sometimes at your wit’s end to deal with them.

Relentlessly and stubbornly, you’ve got to admit it’s getting better. Maybe because you have acclimated or assimilated to the point where you can blend and handle whatever is tossed your way and overcome those challenges without the kind of energy it took once before when you were not so savvy on your job.

You begin to admit it’s getting a little bit better over time. It’s getting better since you have conquered the environment to the extent of controlling it better and make it your domain rather than anyone else’s.

No longer an angry person who slings out of control at what seemed to be the slightest provocation or trigger to push your buttons and make you lose control. You have learned to control your emotions and not hide your head in the sand, dealing with the reality around you and making it better.

Over time, you learned how to use your command presence, the right words and tone, shown or cultured the right way to do things and make the rules work for you instead of against you. Little by little you earned your self-respect as others respect you and your world becomes stabilized a bit to make things better.

You finally heard the praise you so justly deserved and the recognition of doing a good job with honor and esteem. You are doing the best you can and showing others that you are a strong link to the team as they look up to you as a leader and decision maker. Life is getting better.

Life used to be cruel to you as you suffered and struggled through the mire that you had to walk through a day in and day out. Now, you wallow in the mire but you are in control. You are the mud raker taking control of all those things around you. That makes the difference in your life as you feel it getting better.

Now you managed to keep your life apart and keep things personal home and deal with only the professional end of your job at work. You beat the harshness and toxicity of the job and mended fences and kept things apart and managed to maintain a sense of serenity in your personal scene and create bedlam in your professional world if it had to be done that way.

There is no doubt in my mind that you are doing the best you can and admit that it is getting better. You have worked hard to get your feet out of the mire as you watch others wallow and sink even deeper in the darkest part of the world you work in.

A sole conjecture or opine on the Lone Wolf attack in London

A Conjecture on Lone Wolf Terror incident – The London Attack

The March London attack reminds us of the fact that no man can actually act alone without some little help from friends, family or inspiration. The London attacker, who will remain nameless, was a coward and acted on this principle of hurting or killing as many people as he could by using an SUV to run over people and then stabbing a policeman as he made his way into the Parliamentary yards.

His attack was a textbook assault described in the ISIS manual of war to inflict mass injuries or casualties by the means of raw weaponry e.g. car, knife and blunt force. He knew he could get away with it but also knew he would get caught as he chose one of the heaviest guarded places in London to carry out his hate-motivated terrorist act.

What is interesting about these lone wolf acts is the action behind the scenes that creates such drama and bizarre moments of thoughts to kill others in the name of religion or other political causes. It is interesting to follow the bouncing ball and see where this ideology comes from.

In London, a city now divided by both ethnical and religious means, the problem is just starting. This act was not perpetuated by a lunatic. He was sane and cautious enough not to be detected and deterred before he committed his heinous crime.

So where do they get their inspiration from? What spurs them to act the way they do? I suspect it has a lot to do with apathy and a radical approach to political disconcerted ideas that emboldens violence and hate crimes. Of course, that is merely my opinion but I am certain there are some undercurrents within society that stokes such emotions and thoughts.

The United Kingdom is somewhat unique in background motivational thinking. I believe the election of a Muslim as the mayor of UK’s largest city has a lot to do with the boldness and violent extremes that have been prevalent in the UK region. Call it a hunch but I believe it is more than that.

Examining this Muslim mayor and his latest rhetoric that terror attacks are “part and parcel “in all big or major cities is ludicrous. His assumption basically translates into a surrender or submission on terrorism and allowing it to be part of the culture of the community. Is the mayor downplaying terrorism in his own city?

For me this is a statement of ‘surrender’ or submission rather than resistance to the matter. It gives me the impression that the mayor’s tacit approval to commit violent acts is just another part of the growing pains of big cities. That is a false perception and shows lack of depth in the manner public safety is approached.

I suspect that he is comparing London with Baghdad or Istanbul or any other major Muslim city in the world. London is not such a city, it is not yet dominated by the Islamic faith and customs and practices.

Or is it? Have the Londoners lost their paradise and surrendered the city’s parcels of land, the communities and neighborhoods to the immigration flow of Muslim immigrants?  There is room for thought on this matter and sticking to the facts, we can see a political and cultural shift happening in what was once a proud and traditional European nation.

 The mayor is absolutely a liberal and Muslim sympathetic as he himself would never turn away from the Islam religion. He doesn’t deny terrorism but claims it to be a part of living in the big city.

How false is that? Is this too ridiculous and why would you even have to ask?  Are we saying that Washington DC, Chicago, New York and Los Angeles as well as many more cities are to expect ‘terrorism’ to be part of living in the big city?  

Is he making excuses for Islamic terrorism created and carried out by radical extremist out of control and out to kill innocents in the name of their prophet Muhammad and Allah, their god? Are massacres acceptable to elected officials in the western world today?

So here is my problem. Some may say there are no lone-wolfs out there and base that on the fact that they thrive as criminals within a selected environment. An environment that is nurtured by hate and religious extremism that causes people to think differently than their neighbors or in general Muslims versus Christians as Muslims are dominantly members of the Islam faith.

Offering London as a ‘sanctuary city has offered an environment for radicalism and extreme thinking. Making London or any other city, whether in the UK, France, Belgium, Canada or the United States as a sanctuary for Muslims who preach radicalism is dangerous. Lone wolf perpetrators are products of their environment.

Can you see where I am going with the Lone Wolf theory? Do they really act alone like we think they do or are they supported by a social structure that creates them or organizes their thoughts to help carry out violent attacks?

If you or surround yourself with violence, you, yourself will eventually become violent. Mix that up with a mindset, an ideology you believe in and you are the poisoned apple looking to kill the innocent apples as they disagree with your own behaviors and thinking patterns.

This environment is not limited to where they live. It is also a reflection of where they work, where they eat and where they hang out socially. This broad spectrum of social and theological influences is limitless. It’s an infinity to deal with physically and psychologically. If you live amongst the jihadist, you will eventually become a jihadist unless you have the ability to move away from it and it doesn’t follow you. Family members are likely to be the greatest influences after the principles of the Quran and Imams in the community.

Another perspective is the fact that violence is prevalent inside prisons and there, the person committing the violence may differ a little as it is a world between prey and predator. However, they too share the uniformity of common or familiar languages or vocabularies, race, gangs or more intimate things like traditions, behaviors, codes or cultural expectations and thinking patterns.

Unfortunately, there are more predators than there are prey and that makes the case that in order to survive, you have to become a predator aka a perpetrator or a criminal of sorts. In order to survive you choose your clearly marked commonalities and stick with the numbers it gives you for your own personal safety. That is instinctively how the human reacts to dangers. Thus I agree, a lone wolf may indeed act alone but is created or morphed into a creature influenced by his or her environment.

Timing is irrelevant but it does exist as a factor. Over time, whether it be the past or present, it can cause a trigger to spur actions. The reason for that comment is that terrorism is not new and is perpetual to time. Time and space control the events that shape today and tomorrow. On the other hand, time and space of the past has often influenced the future.

Terrorism is spreading because of the environment it feeds from. Hatred is too common to find and when found, causes a rejection and often an act of rebellion or violence. This trigger, this stimulus is what sets the lone wolf off and drives him or her into a frenzy of hate and vehemence.

Intro to Solitary Confinement videos

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Solitary Confinement - The Apathy of the Concept

Book link to new PTSD book - a wrecking ball disorder

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Neglect or Deliberate Indifference?

Deliberate Indifference

Sometimes we have to ponder, what is worse than deliberate indifference? How does a billion-dollar industry like private security services survive tort claims of what some people call reckless or callously indifferent behaviors as a lesser intent of carelessness or neglect? Should it not be a higher form of neglect? For a lack of a better word, it seems that deliberate indifference is done with some sort of premeditation.

How do you address workplace conditions that run opposite of the polarity or context taught during the training process? Do you risk being vocal or file a written complaint, knowing you are a probationary employee and risk termination for incompatibility with the company? Where do we go if the standards taught are not being upheld in the field?

This sets up an attitude or behavior of what is best known in any business as ‘premeditation’ in the fact that ignoring certain workplace conditions establish a proven standard of culpability for someone in the chain of command. Some people call it ‘willful blindness’ 0r the ‘lack of will to change’ what has always been done a certain way and not worthy of a management review or assessment to make changes. In the tort law, we have a continuum that consists of negligence, gross negligence, deliberate indifference and wanton or egregious indifference.

However, technically, what is worse than deliberate indifference? What is reasonable to claim to have been ignored or put at risk because of this lack of will to make a change or willful blindness? What is a reasonable defense or rebuttal for such behavior where a higher source of authority, a judge or a jury have to decide by the preponderance of the evidence which is the most unreasonable?

If I were to research this matter in the industry, I would find a substantial amount of cases of analogous situations where people were put at risk where they were mistreated or ignored by management because of downright neglect or indifference. The problem can be solved by merely addressing the matter timely and completely.

Instead of addressing those issues at hand, management chooses to ignore or ask for an extension to look into the matter or answers with an answer and not an option or motion to change or dismiss the complaint and lastly, chose the option or motion to not change or address the complaint without looking at the evidence, documentation or even the core of the complaint and label the employee a ‘disgruntled’ or ‘problematic’ employee. I am unable to go mano a mano with the industry. In regards to my concerns, it would do me no justice or good to complain about something that others would call ‘whining’ and irrelevant to the quality or efficiency of the supervision provided by management on the job.

I know they can make me look weak by virtue of the fact that I am but a mere hourly employee and that the span of control is not within my reach or that of the person I logged the complaint with at the time. In the specific area of concerns, I need to document it without biases or discriminatory behaviors. I need to show ‘a pattern-and-practice’ and establish facts, not opinions. Hence, my reliance to show cause for concern hinges on my ability to document and show proof and truth – two elements often challenged even when overwhelmingly clear and real.