I have a friend who is a corrections officer in upstate New York at a medium security prison. He tells me that when it comes time to using force against an inmate, standard protocol is to have at least 4-5 guards present, any less and the potential for serious injury is very real.
Most folks don’t realize just how difficult it is to physically take down someone who doesn’t want to comply. In the video above, you see an 18-year-old psych ward inmate at the Lower Buckeye Jail in Phoenix, Arizona, illustrate this point.
The inmate refused to leave a room that he was not authorized to be in. When he was confronted by the first two guards, he started swinging. It took roughly 12 men to bring down the inmate, but in the process three of them were injured. And one was hospitalized with broken bones in the face and brain bleeding.
[H/T: Real News365, Guns.com]
A couple of hefty boots to his ball bag area would have dropped him like a bad habit.
The MAIN COMPONENT of an action such as this is the fact that the “Officers” have a mandate that injury to the inmate is to be avoided as much as humanly possible, hence the presence, much more today than in the past, of the “all-seeing-eye video camera to “keep the Officers” honest at the threat of losing his or her livelihood!! Anyway, THIS FACT is HEAVILY responsible for injury to the Officers as they go about their task they are sitting ducks most of the time for the inmate who, by the way, has NO SUCH MANDATE to comply with.
The doctrine of using several officers in a takedown or forced cell move is largely psychological. An inmate, even one psychologically disturbed, is less likely to fight if confronted by overwhelming force. Some do, but there are fewer staff and inmate injuries this way.
I am a retiree. I took a tour of a couple mental facilities once and was asked to comment. I said I was glad I worked in a prison where the inmates understood that actions have consequences.
The inmate should have been the one going to the hospital………….or a whipping post.