91: Can We Talk?...About Mastering De-Escalation Techniques in Corrections

What if the key to managing conflicts in corrections is as simple as mastering the art of listening? Join us as we examine the evolution of de-escalation techniques, starting from the era of "verbal judo" to contemporary methods centered on active listening and emotional regulation. You'll learn why truly hearing and understanding the other person can be transformative, not just in corrections but also in law enforcement, nursing, and dispatch roles. We underscore the critical role of listening in managing tensions and preventing conflicts.

Have you ever wondered if less-lethal and non-lethal tools like Pepperball can be effective forms of de-escalation? Sometimes the mere presence of a non-lethal system or the professional appearance of a respected correctional officer is all that is needed. 

This episode weighs the effectiveness of traditional force versus modern de-escalation tactics, emphasizing the importance of attempting de-escalation first to mitigate injuries and liabilities. Discover how strategic, less confrontational approaches can be game-changers in handling disruptive inmates.

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Chapters

• 0:00 Understanding De-Escalation Techniques in Corrections
• 5:28 Understanding Non-Lethal De-Escalation Techniques
• 12:04 Mastering De-Escalation Techniques in Corrections
• 27:15 Embracing De-Escalation in Corrections

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:34

More than 28 years of corrections. I have used or supervised Pepperball hundreds of times Now as a master instructor for Pepperball, I teach others about the versatility and effectiveness of this Pepperball system. From cell extractions to disturbances on the rec yard, pepperball is the first option in my correctional toolbox. One of the most dangerous times for officers is during cell extractions. Times for officers is during cell extractions. Pepperball allows officers to respond with the lowest level of force and still be effective and ready if the situation escalates. The responding officer controls where the projectiles are aimed, how many projectiles are launched and how rapidly they're deployed. This allows the response to be tailored to the moment. To learn more about Pepperball, go to wwwpepperballcom or click the link below in the show's information guide. Pepperball is the safer option first. Hello and welcome back to the Prison Officer Podcast.

Speaker 1: 1:33

Can we talk about de-escalation? And I say that to be funny because you know a lot of times that's what people think. De-escalation is about that. It's about talking, and de-escalation has a little bit of talking but most of it is listening. And that's one of the things we're going to cover today is de-escalation and, hopefully, some listening skills, hopefully some listening skills, some of the things that you can take with you next time you're dealing with one of those incidents where you've got an inmate on the door or possibly an immediate use of force that's imminent, out on the floor where you can talk that person down. So that's a little bit about what we'll talk today.

Speaker 1: 2:13

But you know, it's changed so much. Now Almost every law enforcement agency has some form of de-escalation class. So I'm sure you guys have been through it, I'm sure you've sat through a class on de-escalation, but we've always had it. It just wasn't always used as well. I think when I started back in 1992 for the state of Missouri, we went through a class called verbal judo, which verbal judo always kind of struck me as a misnomer, right, because it implies conflict, it implies fighting, it implies a back and forth between two individuals.

Speaker 1: 2:55

And one thing you'll find as you go into corrections and as you stay there longer, as you deescalate more people truly, most of what we do is listening. I think deescalation is um more so a listening skill than anything else. But the funny thing is when you talk to people, um well, I guess first, do you think everybody's a good listener? Is everybody really good at being able to listen to others? You know, studies have found out that 95% of people consider themselves good listeners. But when they've done these studies and they've tested it, people are really only retaining 25 to 50% of what they heard. And if you're listening to try to find you know what the problem is or how we can fix this problem, how we can correct it, how we can deescalate, how we can lower the emotions of the moment, de-escalate, how we can lower the emotions of the moment. If you're only catching half or less of the conversation, you don't have a whole lot to work with, do you? So you know, I guess.

Speaker 1: 4:09

First let's start off with what is de-escalation? Well, de-escalation comes in many forms. Like I said, when I started it was called verbal judo. In later years they brought it about and called it confrontation avoidance, which was also kind of a misnomer because we weren't dealing with what was going on, we were actually avoiding it. We were avoiding the use of force is, I think, where the name originally came from. But that's not what it says. It says confrontation avoidance. Well, confrontation is going to happen, whether it's verbal or whether it's physical, and avoiding it is not necessarily the best course of action If we just avoid it, is it going to get corrected? Is it just going to come back later on? Probably so. So that is what we did for many years was confrontation avoidance. Now it's moved and we call it de-escalation. It's the law enforcement officers on the street are also getting trained in de-escalation, along with a lot of other professions that you probably hadn't thought of before. There's nurses going through de-escalation training, dispatchers going through de-escalation training, so it's not just something that corrections is doing.

Speaker 1: 5:29

Another form of de-escalation, of course, is non-lethal or less lethal de-escalation, and I found it really interesting. As you know, pepperball is one of my sponsors on the show here and I also work for Pepperball as a master instructor. So this last year we went to the mock riot out in Moundsville and one of the things I did there was walk around with a camera crew and do some interviews. They wanted some marketing, so I would go around and ask questions of the officers that were there, the team members that were there, and I wanted to find out how they, you know, worked with Pepper Ball, how it was working for them. So I was walking up, introducing myself and just asking some basic questions, and one of the questions that I asked was how's this working for you? Have you utilized Pepper Ball and how's it working for you?

Speaker 1: 6:21

And I found it extremely interesting because about 75% of the time, um, when I talked to those officers, they told me, yeah, we love Pepperball, but we don't get to use it. And I said what do you mean? You don't get to use it? They said, well, as soon as it comes out, you know, the inmate goes ahead and cuffs up, gives up, goes ahead and puts their wrist through the tray slot so that they can. You know, restraints can be applied and so we never use it. So my question to you is is that a win? A lot of staff kind of talked like they didn't feel, like that was a win. They didn't get to use the system. And my question to you is what do you feel? Is that a win? We show up with the launcher, the inmate submits to restraints, goes ahead and cuffs up, we're able to move on with the day. Is that a win? Absolutely that's a win.

Speaker 1: 7:19

That wasn't always the thought process when I started in this business. Confrontation avoidance was went more like this we had an inmate who was disruptive, banging on the door, flooding, breaking light fixtures, whatever. So we have this inmate that's disruptive. We put a team together and that was a rule back then. Once the team got dressed out, we were going through the door. We were going to do a use of force, a physical use of force, with four to five staff members to get control of the inmate.

Speaker 1: 7:51

But before that, we, with our verbal judo and with our confrontation avoidance, we said we're going to de-escalate, we're going to attempt deescalation. Well, I've watched hundreds of those use of forces where someone walks up to the door and they say inmate, so-and-so, are you going to cuff up? No, go to hell. Co. Okay, he looks at the camera and he says inmate refuses to submit to restraints. Team up, and now the team's going through the door. Did we actually try to deescalate that? Did we look at cause? Did we have any talking or listening going on? Did we take the time to get to the root of the problem? We didn't. We'd already made up our mind where this was going because we'd already invested the time. We'd already invested in getting staff off their posts, dressed out, put in gear, and now we're going to go through the door and we're going to do the use of force.

Speaker 1: 8:52

And when I was young, that was exciting. Okay, I'm the lead man on the use of force team. We're going through the door. That was exciting. But then when I got promoted, I slowed down a little bit on that because the people I was sending through the door weren't myself. I wasn't responsible for my own injuries and accidents. I was responsible now for the people I sent through the door and if they got injured, if they hit their knee on the toilet, if they fell down and busted their shoulder now I'm responsible for this. I sent them through the door and my brain started asking was this necessary? Was this necessary, or is this something that I could have slowed down or improved by taking the time to try to de-escalate? And a lot of times I was the use of force lieutenant, so I had that moment while the team was getting ready to try to de-escalate to talk to the inmate. I won't always say I was great at it, but I did try to get better at it.

Speaker 1: 10:02

Is it always incumbent upon the leader of the team to do the de-escalation? I say no. I say anyone in an official position can do that de-escalation. If you've got a counselor, if you've got a psychiatrist doctor, nurse, um, if you've got a counselor, if you've got a psychiatrist, doctor, nurse, um, food service worker that you know is normally his supervisor. Uh, can we have them attempt to deescalate if that inmate listens to them more than they listen to other staff because they have this? Uh, you know this working relationship. Absolutely, we can have those people involved.

Speaker 1: 10:39

Deescalation is especially these days. It always probably should have been, but especially these days de-escalation is where we should head for every time. Because once you pop that door, once you open that door and you send a team in or you send three officers in or whatever your agency does, there's only two things that you're going to get out of this. You're going to get the chance at liability and the chance at injury. We get nothing else from that. We regain control. But we're going to regain control. No matter what right it's our prison. We will regain control. At some point the inmate will become compliant, no matter how far we have to take this.

Speaker 1: 11:26

But what if we could deescalate it? What if nobody has to go in there and get hurt, and that includes the inmate? The inmate gets hurt. What's that cost the taxpayers? It's absolutely going to cost them to have this guy fixed up because he got smashed on the floor ran into the bed. Whatever happens, I can tell you myself I've got a shoulder that I go to the doctor and I get shots in these days because I landed at the bottom of one of those dog piles. Everybody landed on that shoulder. I've got a knee that gives me fits that I take a lot of a leave for because it's been banged into about 400 stainless steel toilets.

Speaker 1: 12:05

That's part of doing that. You get the chance at injury every time you go through that door and you're going to be engaging someone who's violent or out of control or wants to hurt you or wants to hurt themselves. So is de-escalation important? Absolutely, it's the most important thing we do, and that's not just when somebody's on the door. We can de-escalate throughout our day, in the way we carry ourselves as, the way we carry ourselves as a professional, the way we speak to each other and the way we speak to the inmates, the way we treat the inmates. All these things have to do with de-escalation. Have to do with de-escalation Because once inmates and you can look back through history of prisons once inmates are, either and I'll add this in here once they're treated poorly, or if they have the perception of being treated poorly or if they have the perception of not having their grievances heard. Those right. There are the three things that have started most riots, most disturbances throughout history. De-escalation gets rid of a lot of that. It makes people feel like they're being heard.

Speaker 1: 13:25

Listening during these times allows us to understand what the perceptions are. Whether they're real or not Right, it's still the perception. It's like arguing with a mental health inmate and he has. He lives in some fantasy world where he thinks he sees, uh, you know, things that aren't happening. You can tell him that that's not happening, but his perception is that it is happening, and you can't him that that's not happening, but his perception is that it is happening and you can't change that. So we need to understand the perception. Once we understand the perception, we can find out what's causing that, why they feel that way, and then address it and hopefully change it Right.

Speaker 1: 14:09

So what's some of the things we can do to improve our listening? You're on that door, the inmates blowed up, a use of force is possibly imminent. So what's some of the things that we can do when we approach that and we're trying to de-escalate? Well, the first we talked about is listening, and I mean really listening, not standing there letting it go in one ear and out the other, but listening, active listening. Sometimes you may want to repeat some of what they told you to make to make sure to ensure that they feel like they're being heard right. Well, the piece of chicken I got on my tray isn't as big as everybody else's. So what you're saying is you feel like you got shorted on the tray. You didn't get as much food on your tray as other people did. Is that what I'm hearing? You know that's active listening. One of the other things we can do is be curious. If you have deescalated very many inmates, which I have, it helps to be curious.

Speaker 1: 15:23

A lot of times they don't even know why they're upset. They have feelings which have turned into possibly rage, anger, but they don't always know what the root cause of it was. Just like the chicken example, I got this little bitty piece of chicken on my tray. Well, that officer gave it to me. Now I'm mad at that officer. That officer didn't pick out what size piece of chicken was going to be on that tray. For you, that was a luck of the draw, right. But now all of your anger and you're stressed, you're frustrated, you're locked in the cell. All of that anger is focused at one person and you're mad at him, but he's not necessarily the problem. The problem occurred a couple of hours ago in food service when somebody wasn't paying attention to portion size. They put it, they put the food on the trays, the trays get, you know, food gets cooked, the trays get loaded and they get sent over to the unit and now one inmate's going to get a smaller piece of chicken. Well, that didn't have anything to do with the officer that was passing it. It has to do with something that occurred outside of there a couple hours ago maybe. So being curious and asking questions might get you from I hate that officer to. This really stems from I'm frustrated because I got a smaller piece of chicken than everybody else did.

Speaker 1: 16:59

Ask questions, be curious and ask questions. That's one of the things we can do. Another thing that I find is people are scared of silence, and that's not just during de-escalation but generally, and investigators use this in interrogation techniques. You know they'll ask a question and if the suspect doesn't answer right away, they're not going to jump in with another question, they'll wait. They'll sit there and they'll wait, because what happens during that time that suspect's getting uncomfortable right and sooner or later he's going to say something.

Speaker 1: 17:41

Well, silence can work in many ways. If I've got a inmate who I'm trying to deescalate, who I'm trying to bring down, I'm asking those questions. I'm curious and I'm trying to get them to open up and say something. There's nothing wrong with a little bit of silence. Ask a question. So how are you feeling this morning when you woke up? And then you can wait a couple of minutes. You don't have to follow up with a question immediately. Give them time to think. They're not thinking rationally right now because emotions are involved. They're blowed up, they've got anger, fear, whatever else. So give them a minute to work through that when you ask those questions and see if you don't get better answers that get you closer to the true problem. One of the other challenges that I see when people are de-escalating or even myself. I was not immune to this, absolutely I wasn't.

Speaker 1: 18:46

But inmates are master manipulators. They have practiced this probably before they ever came to prison. They grew up in a, in an area or a gang or a family who manipulated each other. That's what caused a lot of their problems If they came from a family or a situation that had alcohol and drugs in it. Absolutely, they were involved with manipulation of each other. So they become very skilled in this, and when you come to the door, the first thing they're going to try to do is push a button, get you to take the bait. They want you to get emotional with them. What happens when you get emotional? Well, once again, just like them, you don't think rationally. Your brain's having feelings instead of thoughts, and that's where they want you, because if they can get you upset, they can control that conversation, can't they?

Speaker 1: 19:46

One of the things I like to read is Marcus Aurelius' Daily Meditations. There's a lot of stoic philosophy in there, and I take comfort from that and try to learn from it for myself. Keep myself calm, right. But one of the things he says in there is get inside him, look at what sort of person he is, and you'll find that you don't need to strain to impress him. So what does that mean? That means when we're on that door and we feel like we've got to be big and tough. We feel like we've got to show them right. They've gotten in our feelings, they've got our emotions amped up and we feel like we've got to show them. We're the bigger person, right?

Speaker 1: 20:36

Pay attention to who you're arguing with. You're not arguing with a person who's and I'll just say it this way Some people may not agree. I'm not arguing with a person whose opinion of me I value, right? So for them to call me a name doesn't mean too much to me if I look at who it's coming from. Now, that's not to say that I don't treat inmates with the respect that they have. Coming because of the job I have, because my job is to care for them and look over them, I will give them the respect of a human being. I don't respect their opinion and I certainly don't respect their opinion of me, their opinion of their self. If it was better, they probably wouldn't be in the position they're in. So their opinion of other people is suspect at best, right.

Speaker 1: 21:39

So when you're feeling that coming up and you're feeling that emotion and they're pushing your buttons and you feel like you're taking the bait, step back a little bit. Is this a person? Is this a person whose opinion matters to me about me? Of course not. So why am I getting upset? Why am I letting them do exactly what they want to do?

Speaker 1: 22:07

Once they get you emotional. They control you. They control the situation and take a look at your immediate and your calculated use of forces. You know this is kind of the same idea there. The reason why we don't want to do immediate use of force is because the inmate controls the timing. The inmate controls a lot of the emotions. The inmate controls first strike Surprise. A lot of these things can be controlled by the inmate in an immediate use of force. So if at all possible, we always try to back off and have a calculated use of force, because that gives us the advantage. We will determine the resources brought forward. We will have plenty of staff. We will set the time that this happens. Be careful when they're trying to bait you, when they're trying to anger you, when they're trying to get the emotions right.

Speaker 1: 23:12

This is not the time for this. This is a time for you to ask questions. This is a time for you to listen, show empathy. Wow Boy, a bunch of people just went oh my gosh, empathy, I don't have to care for them. Empathy does not have anything to do with caring for a person's feelings. Empathy is about identifying a person's feelings. So don't get caught up in the words. You can't have empathy as a correctional officer. You should have empathy as a correctional officer, you know. Have empathy as a correctional officer, you know.

Speaker 1: 23:56

Empathy is a matter of social awareness, is being able to look around and see what someone else is feeling and understand how that influences and motivates their actions. Does that make sense? So empathy is not a bad thing and we want to have empathy towards them. We can't truly do good listening without empathy on our part. It's like when you walk on the yard and you have situational awareness, your backs to the wall, you know what people are carrying in their hands. You notice if everything goes quiet in the chow hall. That's situational awareness. Social awareness is walking into an area and noticing the emotions that people have and being ready to understand those emotions and how they motivate those person's actions. So that's all empathy is. Don't get scared that empathy means you have to care for this inmate, not any more than you would in any other professional situation, but you don't have to care for them personally to be empathetic.

Speaker 1: 25:10

And finally, one of the last things you can do is a little bit of self reflection, a little bit of self-awareness and understand how you come across. It's tough for us. We get used to barking orders. Sometimes Does everything that you do come across as barking and order. How do you speak to other people? What's your tone sound like? Are you sarcastic? Are you judgmental? These are things that matter. People pick up on that. The same way I was speaking about you having social awareness, other people have social awareness about you and your actions. Your tone, the feelings that you have when this is going on go to the other person and in and those they interact with the conversation that you're having, this de-escalation conversation. If you're not genuine and if they feel like you're being sarcastic, if they don't feel like you're honest, then that's going to affect the way this goes. So I think that's about it for today.

Speaker 1: 26:28

I hope you understand that de-escalation is one of the most important things that we can do. Use of force should always be a last resort and that's not because I'm an inmate lover. That's not because of all these past things that I heard. You know they got it coming. They deserve it, this punishment mentality. They got it coming. They deserve it, this punishment mentality. The reason is is, if for no other reason, they're human and they deserve the respect of being a human being. And remember the only thing you get for going through the door on a use of force is a chance of liability and a chance of injury, and you don't need either one of those.

Speaker 1: 27:15

So next time you're sitting through a de-escalation class, hopefully some of these things will help you. Hopefully there are things you can think about, but hopefully you'll get something out of that and understand that de-escalation is something we can talk about. It is something we can embrace. When we de-escalation is something we can talk about. It is something we can embrace when we de-escalate situations, it's always a win and it serves us and our agency well. So let's go have a good day out there. When you're going to work tomorrow, walk by somebody, ask them how their day is going and then take a minute and listen. It's the most important thing we can do for each other inside is to make someone feel like they're heard, and it helps you practice listening skills. That's it for today.

Speaker 1: 28:04

I hope you enjoyed this episode. Don't forget to check us out. These videos are on YouTube. If you're listening to it audio, so you can go there. We're on 14 different podcast channels. You can go to any one of those. Whichever one you're listening from, please like and share. That's how we grow this podcast. That's how we keep the lights on. So have a great day. I would like to take a minute to thank one of our sponsors that make the Prison Officer Podcast possible.

Speaker 1: 28:34

Omni RTLS is a company that I've been working with for the last year. I am proud to be part of this team of correctional professionals who have developed the best real-time locating system on the market today. With Omni's real-time location technology, you automatically know the accurate locations and interactions of all inmates, staff and assets anywhere in your correctional facility, and you have this information in real time. Omni is cutting-edge software for today's jails and prisons. It is the only way to monitor every square inch of your facility while still being PREA compliant. Go to wwwomniirtlscom for more information and to make your facility safer today. That's wwwomnirtlscom.