117: We Rewind 2025 And Share What’s Coming Next

Five years in, the mission feels sharper than ever: equip correctional professionals with tools, mindset, and purpose that hold up under real pressure. We look back on a year of travel and training, thank the partners who help us serve, and pull together the most impactful moments from conversations that changed how we read risk, teach skills, and define what a good day on the tier looks like.

Greg Williams and Brian Marren break down human behavior pattern recognition in a way that clicks on contact: master the baseline, spot the deviation, act before escalation. From the “watching the watcher” concept to recalibrating your mind at every threshold, their insights show why anticipation beats reaction and why prisons are the ultimate classroom for sense-making. We build on that with practical training talk from Myles Cook, who turns skills into a repeatable process: define the real problem, design adult-learning solutions, and leave with a pitch your leaders can approve and measure. It’s training that sticks because it solves something that hurts.

We also get grounded in purpose with Lt. Col. Dave Grossman, who frames corrections as a life of daily sacrifice in service of public safety. That perspective threads through Pete Bloodworth’s story of earning trust at USP Marion, where open bars and lever locks demanded courage and clarity, and Jimmy Cummings walks us through a can’t-make-this-up escape tale that proves the job will surprise you no matter how many shifts you’ve worked. Along the way, we share updates on my upcoming new books—The Weight of Justice and Echoes of the Ozarks

If these insights help you work smarter and safer, tap follow, share with a teammate, and leave a review on your podcast app. Your support helps more officers find tools that matter and keeps this community learning together.

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Chapters

• 1:08 A Big Year And Gratitude
• 2:52 Sponsorship And Pepperball Training
• 4:00 Teasing A 2026 Special Project
• 4:23 New Books And Family Legacy
• 7:42 Support The Show: How To Help
• 9:54 Best-Of Guests: Why They Matter
• 10:46 Human Behavior And Baselines
• 23:12 Power Skills And Instructor Development
• 26:41 Purpose, Sacrifice, And Service
• 28:54 Walking Into Marion: Hard Lessons
• 31:12 The Dumpster Escape Gone Wrong
• 32:54 Closing Thanks And Holiday Wishes

Transcript

SPEAKER_01: 0:34

Hello and welcome back to the Prison Officer Podcast. You know, 2025 has been a busy year. Um I've had the opportunity to speak all over the country from Boston, Massachusetts, Lansing, Michigan, um, Bismarck, North Dakota, to Ruidoso, New Mexico. Um and so I've got to get out, I've got to meet lots of people from corrections and interact and see what's going on in the in our world. And I'm I'm happy to report that I meet a lot of great people. I'm very excited about the level of commitment that I see in the classes and that I see when I meet people and the number of people I see out there that are that are trying to make this career better, that are trying to make this profession more respected in the public eye. So that's the really good thing, you know. I've got to travel around. I've been to several conferences this year. I've of course taught pepperball classes, I've taught command presence classes. And of course, this has been a big year for me personally as an author. So I've got to go and uh do several book signings and launched a couple of books this year. So that has been great. That's been exciting. That's been a goal of mine since I was young. So I really am uh happy about that, that things are moving on with that. But, you know, honestly, I think 2026 is gonna be even better uh than 2025, and 2025 was great. On March 28th, next year, that'll be the fifth anniversary of the Prison Officer Podcast, and I just want to say thank you. I couldn't have done it without you. I never expected it to become as big as it has, and I'm very grateful for the people that tune in and listen. But I also want to stop and take a minute because I I'm grateful for Pepperball. You know, not only I get to be a master instructor for them, but uh I want to thank them. Without them and their sponsorship, this podcast probably wouldn't be possible at the level it is. You know, during my career in corrections, I used or supervised pepperball hundreds of times. And now as a master instructor, I get to go out and teach others about the versatility and effectiveness of the pepperball system. From cell extractions to disturbances on the wreck yard, pepperball is the first option, the first thing I reach in my correctional toolbox and bring out. The ability to transition quickly from area saturation to direct impact with non-lethal Pava projectiles gives officers a wide range of options. And I love going out and teaching them about that and showing them how that works in a correctional environment. And you know, when the use of force is over, decontamination is easy. No oily residue on the walls or floors. Another thing I love about pepperball. To learn more about pepperball, go ahead and go visit them at www pepperball.com. Pepperball is the safer option first. What's 2026 going to be like around here? Well, I can't talk about it, but I have a special project that you're going to be very excited about when I can. Uh, I'll be announcing that sometime in the second half of 2026. It's something I've been working on this year, and uh I can't wait to share it with you guys, but I can't do that right now. Some of the stuff I can share with you. One thing I've been working hard in the last couple of weeks, and I will be releasing two books early next year. One of them, of course, is uh corrections oriented, and it's uh it's a book I've been working on for a long time. You may have heard me, if you were at the book launch for power skills, I read a little bit of it. But it's called The Weight of Justice, and it's Leadership Lessons from the Gray Line, a correctional officer's journey. And that book is it covers most of my career from walking into this career blind, or what I saw, you know, the same as what you guys see working in some of these prisons, the good, the bad, I guess the ugly. So I cover all that, and then I bring the leadership lessons that I did learn over a career. I I do believe I became a better correctional officer and absolutely a better leader, and hopefully a better instructor over that time. So I share a lot of that in there, and I'm really looking forward to getting this out there. It's in the editing process right now, so I'm thinking uh a couple of months, and we'll have it out there and I'll let you guys know. Another book that isn't about corrections, but it's just as important to me is called Echoes of the Ozarks. It's a family legacy of timber, words, and art. I have a great, great, great uncle who built a cabin in the Ozarks when they came here from Tennessee. That cabin is still there. It's part of the Mark Twain National Forest. It's called the Falling Springs Mill. So if you go there, you can see the mill that my family built. You can also see the cabin. But that's only the first part of that story. The second part of that story is my great-grandmother who kept journals when she lived in the Ozarks. She was an amazing woman who saw the Ozarks and saw the birds and the animals and the flora and all everything that was in the woods and in nature. And she wrote about that. She wrote poetry, and I think that's where I got some of my ability to write from. And then finally, my grandmother was a painter. She painted in oil, and she painted a bunch of the mills, including Falling Springs Mill, the first mill in our family. But a lot of the mills in Ozark County and around Missouri, she painted those save the history by doing that. And so I I talk about that also. And then finally, I think it was 2010, add in the paper, and uh is part of the Passport and Time Pit Project with the National Forest Service. And I signed on to do that because they were rebuilding that cabin that my great-great-great uncle built uh in 1851. So I got to be part of that for a week and I tell that story in there. So it's really a family story, but it talks about how long the Ozarks and the Mills and the rocks and the stones and the words and the art and how that built my family and how it has stayed in my family. So that's the other one I'm going to be releasing this year. And if things go well, I'm also working on what will be my fourth children's book. I just did a book signing last week. I'm really excited about how well these children's books are doing. I don't think that was ever in my plan, but it has been a blast doing the book signings, going out and seeing the kids, watching kids enjoy what I wrote and read it over and over again. So that's been really special for me. Now I don't do this very often, but I am going to take just a minute and I'm going to ask you to do a few things to help me keep this podcast going. And before you get scared, not everything involves money. If you would like to donate to keep the podcast going, you can of course go to www.theprisonofficer.com or go to the YouTube channel for the Prisonofficer.com and you can follow the links to Buy Me a Cup of Coffee. And it gives you some options there where you can take a few dollars and give it to the podcast to buy me a cup of coffee and show your support. So if you'd like to, that's a great way to do it. Second, on YouTube, if you would click subscribe or like, we're getting close to 500. I'd really like to get that goal because that goal helps us meet, you know, helps us monetize the channel and move up on the ratings. And so we've got that goal for the podcast. So if you could subscribe or like when you're listening to our podcast, I would really appreciate it. And if you listen to Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, or any other platform, clicking like or subscribe does make a big difference. It makes a difference in where we're seen in the lists. And then finally, if you've purchased one of my books, please take a moment and leave a rating or review on Amazon. I'm not telling you it has to be a five-star rating. Tell me the truth. I'm my feelings are okay. I was a correctional officer for many years, so you're not going to hurt my feelings, but leave me a leave me an honest review. Those reviews mean a lot to a published author, especially a self-published author. You know, we have to do a lot of that work ourselves. And those ratings directly affect how much Amazon promotes our books when you see it in ads, when other people see it in ads. So if you can go and leave us a rating if you've bought one of my books, any of them, the children's books, power skills, keys to your career, any of those books, if you would leave us a rating, that would be wonderful. So thanks for being patient with that. I really do appreciate it. I appreciate everything you guys do for the podcast. I appreciate the emails. I appreciate the notes on LinkedIn and Facebook, and I appreciate the interaction that I get to have with you guys. So now, as I looked back over the year, I realized that we had an incredible lineup of guests this year. When I started this podcast, I never imagined that I would get to speak with some of the people that I spoke with this year, or that I would get to that I would get to learn at a level. I know you guys learn from this. I know you love hearing from the leaders, but I I started off doing this so that I could learn. So I could learn from people who had done it. Leaders, directors, wardens, great instructors. Those are the people I wanted to engage and learn how to make what I did better. And so I've put together some of our best conversations from this year. No, I didn't get to everyone. But the links, I'm gonna go ahead and put links in the show notes. In case you missed one of the episodes this year, you can go to the show notes and you can click a link there in case you missed one of them. But I did highlight a few here. So let's start with uh Greg Williams and Brian Miren from Arcadia Congregati. That always takes me just a minute. Um, you know, they are the premier instructors uh worldwide when it comes to human behavior pattern recognition and analysis. I love listening to them talk. So much of what they teach has to do with corrections and what we do, and they help us they help us put a name to a lot of the instinct, the what we call it instinct, but it's not. It is human behavior pattern recognition. And so I had them on the podcast, they were on podcast number 100. Uh, these guys have literally wrote the book on this subject, and so let's listen to what they have to say.

SPEAKER_00: 10:54

I'll I'll say his name because everybody knows him. Old Smitty. I got old Smitty that said, Don't touch the radio, don't touch the car keys, and don't wake me up. And that was it. You know what I'm saying? It's like, okay, so we sat behind the fire station and I watched the stars go by because I was like, man, there's all those wonderful radio runs. Can I be out there? Nope, because I was with the wrong guy. But what your guy told you is a scientific principle, and I want you to think about that. Don't watch the watcher. So let's just talk about that one thing that he said, Michael. Okay, so your brain is set up with your eyes looking to a visual field of your environment. Okay, your eyes have a six-degree or an 11-degree functional field of view, boy or girl. And when you scan your environment, you're looking for light motion, n edges, things to attend to, right back to attention. So that person that's watching is a lookout. So what you do is you draw a T, okay, making the T go across his shoulders and down from his head and orient what he's likely looking at. Now you draw your six or 11 degrees out from that, looking from overhead, and you go, okay, he's watching out for the guards, he's watching out for the other gang, he's watching out for the person delivering whatever, okay? So who's watching the watcher? Who's paying attention to that person and what's going on where he's not oriented to? Because that's where the people are hiding in plain sight. That's where they're building the shift, that's where they're hiding the bootleg liquor or the drugs. And so what we do is exactly the same thing that you do. We just do it in a different baseline, in a different environment. So our baseline can change anywhere. It can be in a room, like an interview room, it can be in a factory, it can be in a vehicle bay, it can be out in the rest of the world or on an airplane. Well, that's no different from you. You've got uh people that are in charge of transferring prisoners to court, a back and forth, two different prisons, in and out of a jail cell to, for example, the infirmary. And what happens is each time you go from one threshold to the next, you have to recalibrate your brain and go, okay, now I'm on the floor. Now I'm in general population. Now I'm coming into an office setting. Because if you don't, what's happening is you're not preparing your brain for likelihood, those things that likely could occur. And that's just being alert and aware. But your whole body is fighting that. Your whole body is saying, go lay down, have more food, go to sleep. Now you hear that alarm, don't worry, it'll go away soon. So, so to be that good person, to be at the top of your game, you have to fight what's hundreds of thousands, if not millions of years, of the sedentary mindset that you're in and embrace what all humans have been given, and that's the ability to alert to certain cues in your environment. So, Brian gave you one. We're wired to look at other people and feel their emotion uh through our mirror neurons, okay? Which means that if you're happy, I'll be happy. If I want you to be happy, I should be happy and you'll be happy too. Okay, that's great. But you know, the other side of that same coin is danger. We've been given the innate ability to sense danger in our environment and we talk it away. We say, Oh, the hair in the back of my head stood up. Oh, I got this hanky feeling. Brian mentioned it, the spider senses. Look, I'll bet you you talk to all the people that you work with routinely on in prison officers and staff and administration, and everyone will be able to tell you a story about how they knew the crap was about to go sideways because of a sound or a sight or a smell. So you said earlier about when it gets real quiet back to the wall. I'll tell you, you want to predict an ambush in combat, radio is gonna either go absolutely dead or it's gonna spike. It's gonna be all this rapid transmission, you're not gonna understand it. And that's gonna be the atmospheric shift just before the ambush, or it's gonna go dead quiet, and everybody's gonna go, hey, did you hear that? Yeah, exactly. And now you're gonna get the ambush. So it's the same human behavior rules, let's call them, and it's the same interaction with humans, it's just on a different baseline level. So you, I would agree with Brian, you've got it much harder because you've got less flash to bang. You've got it much harder. We give the gift of time and distance, which means the more time you have to observe, the farther you are away from the incident, the better you have it. So you're actually right up close and personal almost all day long. So I also know that you have surveillance units. So that's how you can offset that, right? By watching and listening. Because I'll tell you one thing I'll I'll tell you before I'll end my rant here, Michael, is that coppers on the street have the red and blues. They also have a siren, and that gets them into more trouble because you know what they do? They race into a situation without giving it enough time for the brain to consider what might be happening. Your folks, even when you go to you know, hands-on or less than lethal, at least you can sit back for a minute, take a look, and assess what's going on, and say, I can compare that to this person's previous behavior or to that wing at that time during the day or night or something with with with uh uh uh police work on the road, that tends to be a little more random. Do you understand where I'm going there?

SPEAKER_01: 16:01

Absolutely. Yeah. Um and we also have the ability, you know, most of these big prisons have a thousand cameras.

SPEAKER_00: 16:09

Right.

SPEAKER_01: 16:10

So I've got guys who are intelligence specialists who are watching the camera and can give you information while it's going on with a whole different viewpoint. Right. So let me uh ask this, and and and Brian, uh on your website, and he it kind of leads into what Greg was talking about, you talk about humans have devolved. And I think prison, we get to see some of that. Can you talk to us about how humans have devolved?

SPEAKER_03: 16:38

So, what we kind of mean when we say that is um, you know, our our ability to sense make and problem solve, our ability to understand and read and interpret the environment has devolved. And and that's that's over the course of human history. It's a it's a slow process, it's been accelerated by newer technology, uh staring at a phone or screens and stuff like that. Meaning there's less sort of human interaction out in the world today, you know, even with like kids, you know, and so we don't learn as many of the lessons that we do anymore. And so we're kind of so used to now is there an app for that or is there a technology for that that we're missing a lot of cues right in front of us? Now, take that to a prison, a little bit different, uh um, in a sense that now you're all reliant on on just that, on just how someone looks, how they walk, where they walk, who they go and associate with. That's that's how it kind of all used to be done, right? In a sense, like in how tribes and humans and cliques and groups would interact with one another, right? We we we look for familiarity and so we we find comfort in familiarity. And so we're always going to look for something that it's just part of the reason why humans, all humans set patterns. So every person, whether you're an inmate or you're a corrections officer, like you're gonna set a pattern. You can't not do it. It's what your brain wants to do, it wants to burn less calories. So it's gonna consistently do the same thing over and over again once it finds a way to do something by burning the least amount of calories. So what we look for is like, okay, you're gonna set that's a that's just baseline behavior, and then you kind of if there's deviations from that, there has to be a reason. There's there's some catalyst that caused you to do something different today. No one just randomly goes about their day in their business, like you know, unless there's like you know, mental health or or drugs or something involvement, meaning, meaning it we all set those patterns. So what you know, specifically what we talk about with a with a prison is like it's like it's that petri dish. It's that it's that science experiment because there's only so many things you can do. There's only so many things you can do during the day, or so many places you can go, or or and there's different, you know, informal rules in prisons, you know, all over the place of what who can hang out with who and and and what who belongs to what group. And you know, they don't might not have a lot of say about that when they come in, but it's gonna it's gonna formalize very, very quickly. And so that creates its own ecosystem. And so what a lot of people try to do is say, here's some things to look for, you gotta watch out for this, or you gotta watch out for that, or here's some some some pre-event indicators, or here's some threat indicator, or here's something, and that that's all good. But actually, you go back to even what your your story from when you first got there and someone showed you, it's like get really, really good at what's normal, what's typical, what should I expect to see? The better you get at that, the better you get at reading and understanding a baseline and knowing what normal is, the easier it is to spot what those deviations are. You may not know what it is, right, or what's going on, but you'll be able to recognize it. So, like when I'll go with different groups, whether it's like a task force or police officers doing whatever, or a military unit, you know, and they're going, okay, well, we got this, we kind of look for these things. And I'm always like, Well, stop, hang on. Don't don't tell me what you guys look for. What should I expect to see? Right? We're out on the surveillance thing, it's two o'clock in the morning. These are the people, like, what should they be doing right now? What's normal for them? And they go, Well, normally they're doing this, normally doing this. Okay, great. Because now I can spot, well, that's not normal, because you said that, and they're going, shit, that's right. There you must be up to something over there. I didn't even see that. It's like because you get so used to looking for all of these different things, like you, you kind of there's some cognitive biases that that will take over, and now you start to see things that may not uh that might not actually be there in a sense. But what you have there with that ability, especially in the Daily routine is like, and Greg was kind of talking about this earlier, is your brain wants to know the answer before you get to the it wants to know the rest of the sentence or the paragraph before you get to the end of it, right? So it'll fill in words. It doesn't want to be surprised. So it'll, it'll, you know, write things off or you know, not attend to certain things because it's like, nope, I know this. I've been in here a hundred times, you know, I I've got this. So what we try to really get people to focus on is sort of that anticipation, right? So you go, all right, what before I walk out here, what should I expect to see? What's normal at this time on this day, you know, whatever's going on? It's because two in the afternoon is different than two in the morning, Monday's different than Saturday, whatever. Like you have to just know what is typical, what should I expect to see? And then once I place myself in the environment, the things that aren't typical, they're gonna just pop out to me right away. And now I can start to determine, okay, well, why is that? And I can start to uh sense make a little bit and try to put things together and go, oh shit, this is now escalating. That person never sits with that group. Uh, hang on, they should be over there. And you know what? Wow, now that guy, he never stands over there. He's always over there with that group. Okay, I'll stop right now. Now we have something before it escalates into whatever's coming next.

SPEAKER_01: 21:53

Wasn't that great? Yeah, absolutely. I was also thrilled to have Miles Cook on the podcast. Now, Miles and I work together at Command Presence Training. He's I love listening to him instruct. I'm a huge fan of his classes and the way he reframes problems to turn them into challenges. I've learned a ton from Miles. So I had him on here. Miles is the training coordinator at uh Walters State Regional Law Enforcement Training Academy. He's a member of the Tennessee Corrections Institute Board, TCI, which does amazing stuff for Tennessee. And he's also a competitive shooter. So this guy lives and breathes training. Uh, in this conversation, we we're gonna talk about what he learned in corrections that help shape the rest of his career. Thank you, Miles.

SPEAKER_05: 22:38

When I got there, yeah, I was fit. I had a formal education, I was ready to roll, or I thought I was ready to roll, and uh, I get uh into into working into corrections. And all right, first thing I remember, I remember vividly, I remember the guy's name and everything. It's uh all right, you know, we're gonna we're gonna search search this guy out before he goes upstairs, you know, the whole squat and cough. And uh that that whole kind of that whole kind of thing he was about six foot six, gangly, you know, and uh, you know, had been stabbed in the throat, had some metal in there. And I got very nervous and I figured out very quickly the skills that I was missing in talking duty. And it was a real awakening moment for me uh in corrections and then into my into my patrol and law enforcement career, I I was not as ready as I thought I was. And I have always held the belief, especially in Tennessee with the sheriff's offices locally, where corrections and patrol visions are shared. That if you want to learn to get good at those power skills, like the book behind you, there is no better world than corrections. Absolutely, and so I know for us, you know, in and in some ways in our in in my instructor development, that's what you're gonna develop the problem, then we're gonna work on a problem statement, right? I don't care. I don't care if the problem is I want my line of shooters to be faster firing your handgun, or I've got a cultural problem, or how do I get the older people in my agency to get excited trained? If I'm burnt out and I'm ready to quit, how do I feel? I I don't care what the problem is, right? It's not mine, it's yours. So I'm I just want to kind of help you look at it differently or see if we can find an answer. And we and we were able to do that. And I do think taking obviously what they need into account is important. I know for our for that instructor development, and I'm sure you set through a ton of them. I know I have a lot of times, you know, the end is a five-minute presentation on whatever you pick, and it's you know, how to apply a target or you know, maybe something with hyperbolt, right? And so you you kind of deliver that for us in our in our instructor development class, when you sit through the leadership and you sit through the problem solving and you sit through the verbal and nonverbal communication, we have some really killer exercises for that that are just amazing. And you sit through all these things. What you're working toward is actually solving the problem, then you go through a day trying to solve the problem, and then your exercise at the end is a 15 to 20 minute presentation based on how, based on adult learning, based on all the things we went through, how you plan to fix that problem. And so what you leave with is a packaged 15-minute pitch to your administration on how to actually fix the problem. So it it it's worked really well for us, but you know, I I don't think it's just training. I think there's some good examples and world. We want to reduce foot pursuit. That sounds great. I would ask you, is that the actual terminal objective? Well, the the actual real objective is probably to reduce the liability associated with foot pursuits. Well, that's gonna that's gonna end up in a different answer.

SPEAKER_01: 26:02

Another highlight for me this year was Lieutenant Colonel Dave Grossman. Now, Lieutenant Colonel Grossman is an author. He's a trainer who conducts seminars on the psychology of lethal force. Okay. He's also a retired lieutenant colonel in the United States Army. I've read several of his books. I love them all. I learned a ton, and I don't know that I have expected to have him on my podcast. So I was absolutely thrilled to have him on the podcast. In this episode, he speaks to the role of corrections as a public servant and why what we do truly matters.

SPEAKER_02: 26:36

You know, have you ever heard if you truly love something, let it go. If it comes back, it's really yours. Yep. That's how much God loves us. He loves us enough to let us make our own decisions. That means a lot of people make really bad decisions and a lot of really bad things happen. When I say, God, why don't you do something? He said, I did. I send you. You are his agent. You are truly God's agent to do good in this world, to give people a second chance, to take care of people off the streets. You're truly a public servant.

SPEAKER_01: 27:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 27:06

And and I and I talk in my presentations about the opposite of evil. What's the opposite of evil? The opposite of evil is love. Evil is absence of love, just as darkness, absence of light. And Jesus said, Jesus said, greater love is no one than this. That they lay down their life for their friends. But listen, here's the key. There are many ways to lay down your life. There are many ways to lay down your life. And sometimes the greatest love is not to sacrifice your life, right? But to live a life of sacrifice. And that's what corrections is. Nobody's in this job to get stinking filthy American dream rich, you know.

SPEAKER_01: 27:45

No.

SPEAKER_02: 27:46

Nobody's in this job to be a famous celebrity, at least not legally, you know.

SPEAKER_01: 27:50

Right.

SPEAKER_02: 27:51

When he chose this profession, he really chose to a certain degree, he chose a life of sacrifice.

SPEAKER_01: 27:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 27:56

And we must believe you're sacrificed for a noble and worthy purpose. And so we began by talking about facing violence and how most people are not wired to do that. Right. But when you face that, you say, I faced that violence today, so my children didn't have to.

SPEAKER_01: 28:15

Another one of my guests this year was retired Bureau of Prisons Associate Warden Pete Bloodworth. In this discussion, Pete tells us about what it was like walking into one of the toughest prisons in America, Marion, Illinois. So he's got a great story here. And by the way, Pete and another guest from this year, Chris McConnell, have started their own podcast called Corrections Unfiltered. So be sure and go to YouTube and check them guys out. But here's Pete.

SPEAKER_06: 28:40

Yeah, and it was a jump because I'm coming from, I could just told you, where they hug it out, shake it, shake hands, and swear they'll never talk mean to each other again. You know, Marion, uh, Marion is an institution where they've had they had three tragic murders of staff members, and two staff members were murdered in the same day. And the staff members who were there, if they weren't there in 1983 when that happened, they knew they were carrying the baton for those staff members. And so when you got there, they didn't disrespect you, but you had to earn the respect and show that you were there for the right reasons. Right. And only until you prove that would they embrace you with caution. Because you came in as a leader and they knew that you could come in and disrupt a lot of things. And there was it wasn't it wasn't anything other than the fact that you had to believe that you were there to safeguard not only them, but the BOP because that's where the top tier of bad guys were at. Unlike the ADX, you know, it still had the open bar concept, it still had the old locks where you had to select the doors and pull the levers. It wasn't push button and stuff like that. You didn't have sally ports at every cell to protect you from when they came out of the cell to a cuff port. It was you're right there with them. So if they didn't like you, things came flying your way. Uh and that was brought to me one of my first nights there. They called me down in segregation and said they had a guy who was a little upset. Can you come talk to him? I get there and I'm like, What's going on? They said, Well, he's down that way. And I like cell 17 of 18. So I walked past all these open bars to get down to the cell. And there was a guy, and he was, I had seen Rage before, but not like this. And when he threw his radio at me and it was a good size, it was a wood box radio, and that thing disintegrated and just came flying by me, and he let me know that he was going to kill me. There was no doubt whatsoever in my mind he could make that happen right there.

SPEAKER_01: 30:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06: 30:29

And I realized, you know, I'm in a whole different place now. Okay.

SPEAKER_01: 30:34

And finally, one of my favorite guests this year was Jimmy Cummings. Now, Jimmy spent a lifetime working in corrections with the United States Marine Corps, and he has the stories to prove it. What you're about to hear is one of those stories, and it also became a viral hit for the podcast. So I hope you enjoy it.

SPEAKER_04: 30:51

Bad luck. And then he had another inmate because we had the two prisons. So this one inmate gets out through the mess deck and he jumps in a dipsy dumpster. You know, you know what Dipsy Dumpster is? The dipsy dumpster is those big metal things that they throw garbage in and everything. Big enormous garbage can, you know, with thick metal and stuff. And they have to use like a they have to use a special dump truck that comes down. It's got like a forklift and it lifts the dipsy dumpster up and dumps it into the into the garbage truck. So this inmate, he literally gets in the dipsy dumpster because he knows the garbage gonna the guy's gonna come. He's in the dipsy dumpster, so the the garbage truck comes in, it puts the the forks in, lifts it up, dumps it in there, and now the guy that's driving the garbage truck, he pushes the button to compress it. Now this guy's in the back there, right? And he's compressing, he's lucky he didn't compress it all the way, but he's crushed in there with all the garbage. So he leaves the gate, the compound, but what does he do? The garbage truck goes to the other brig. Goes to the other brig, pulls into the compound. By the time this inmate works his way through the garbage to get out, he jumps out and he starts running to find out that he's in the compound of the other prison. It's a lifetime of stories there. Oh, there's you, yeah, you you two.

SPEAKER_01: 32:15

You guys got such some some stories. Well, that's it for this year, folks. I hope you enjoyed it. I wish each and every one of you a Merry Christmas and a happy, healthy, and prosperous new year. I know several of you are going to work those holidays, and I appreciate the fact that you're there. Be safe. Watch out for each other. And most of all, just the reason we have this podcast, I want you to remember that what you do and how you do it matters every day.