100: Discover the Secrets of Human Behavior - Interview w/Greg Williams & Brian Marren - The Prison Officer Podcast

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
In more than 28 years of corrections, I have used or
supervised Pepperball hundredsof times.
Now, as a master instructor forPepperball, I teach others
about the versatility andeffectiveness of the Pepperball
system.
From cell extractions todisturbances on the rec yard,
pepperball is the first optionin my correctional toolbox, with
the ability to transitionquickly from area saturation to

(00:24):
direct impact with thenon-lethal PAVA projectiles.
Pepperball provides me with arange of non-lethal options for
cell extractions involvingnon-compliant inmates and when
the use of force is over,decontamination is easy with no
oily residue on the walls orfloors.
To learn more about Pepperball,go to wwwpepperballcom or click

(00:45):
the show notes below.
Pepperball is the safer optionfirst.
Well, welcome back to the PrisonOfficer Podcast.
My name is Mike Cantrell.
This is the 100th podcast forthe Prison Officer Podcast, so
I'm really excited and besidesit being the 100th podcast, I
feel like I've got two of theguests I've been waiting to talk

(01:06):
to for a very long time.
They're masters in their fieldand I am just dying to hear
their take on corrections, andwe're going to talk about human
behavior, performance and theanalysis of that.
So my first guest is GregWilliams.
He's the president and founderof Arcadia Cognorati.

(01:29):
Did I say that right?

Speaker 2 (01:30):
You said it perfectly .

Speaker 1 (01:32):
Okay, arcadia Cognorati.
It's a consulting firmspecializing in assessing,
developing and conductingtraining and education to
address urgent safety andsecurity needs in some of the
most challenging environments onthe planet and absolutely I
consider corrections achallenging environment.
And I also have with us todayGreg Marin.

(01:54):
He's a multi-conflict,full-spectrum operational.
He has operational experiencewith conventional and special
operations forces, lawenforcement professionals and
other agencies.
He was the architect of the USMarine Corps' highly successful
and life-saving combat hunterprogram, which I think many of
you have probably read, the bookLeft of Bang.

(02:15):
I have recommended it on hereas one of the biggest books for
a correctional officer to read,and that book came out of a lot
of this stuff that these guysput together.
So we're going back to thebeginning, uh, before the book,
and hearing uh from the peoplewho, uh, you know, got this
stuff set down.
I'm going to kind of, you know,set up this and a lot of

(02:38):
correctional officers are goingto look and say why do I need
this?
And correctional officers knowthis, they do it, they're taught
it.
They just may not realize it.
Because I'm going to tell youguys, and you're going to
recognize this immediately, oneof the first things one of the
old rookies or one of the oldheads, is going to tell you when
you walk in, you're going to bestanding chow somewhere.
And uh, he's going to look overat you and he's going to say,

(03:01):
if it goes quiet in here, getyour back to the wall.
And that's exactly the kind ofstuff we're talking about.
It's recognizing, uh theanomalies in our environment.
So, um, I'm going to turn itover to uh Greg and Brian, if
you guys will take a minute andkind of tell us what human
behavior, human behavior pattern, uh recognition and analysis is

(03:24):
.

Speaker 2 (03:25):
Yeah, yeah, easy.
And Brian, if you don't mind,I'll start.
And Michael, honored to be here.
Brian and I are both fanboys.
We follow you on LinkedIn.
We also listen to the PrisonOfficer Podcast.
You'll notice I'm always givingyou the thumbs up and support,
and to be on the 100th episode,that's also an honor.
And to be on the 100th episode,that's also an honor.

(03:51):
So we work in an environmentthat's military, first responder
courts, corrections, andcertainly we have a long, rich
history of working in the prisonsystem.
Brian is an inmate sometimes, Ithink, but more so.
I want to tell you that even atthe beginning stages of my
career in law enforcement, I wasinculcated into corrections in
a place called DeHocca, theDetroit House of Corrections,

(04:15):
and one of the things that Imade sure that I understood when
I was a survival instructor atthe academies was the different
environments that were faced bywhat was going to be the jail
depths that were going throughthe same training that I was,
and, being a master instructor,one of the things is you got to
understand the environment.
I need to understand whereyou're going to work, what a day

(04:35):
in the life is like, what arethe types of challenge that you
face or I can't draft asuccessful curriculum.
Second part of that is when wewere working to build Combat
Hunter back in the day, the veryfirst iterations were called
Urban Hunter and I was workingwith the Marine Corps
Warfighting Lab and then othergroups to try to build Combat

(04:55):
Hunter from the human behaviorand human performance standpoint
.
And one of the things of thebig three that were killing
people in combat during thattime insider threats, ieds and
snipers we actually went to andfor non-attribution I'm not
allowed to tell you theCalifornia correction systems,
with the assistance of and theblessing of the California

(05:17):
correction system, so we couldtake the people that were
ultimately going to work onthese programs and show them
what it looked like when we werelooking at groups inside of an
environment, because, if youthink about it, it's exactly
what they were about to face inIraq and Afghanistan and
everywhere else.
This person, this is their homeand this is their set and their
group that they run with, andthese are the tribes and the

(05:41):
arguments that are going to comeup within those tribes and
these are the ones that aregoing to come up within those
tribes and these are the onesthat are going to come up
between the tribes.
So being able to go to anenvironment like a prison and
sitting with our binos andspotting scopes and watching
that as flies on the wall weretremendously important in
building the program.
The only thing I'll tell you isthat Left of Bang is an

(06:01):
incredible after action reviewand if anybody reads it they're
not going to be dumber.
But the idea was that it waslike somebody following me
around.
It was a couple of youngMarines that were Marine Reserve
lieutenants that followed mearound, wrote down everything I
said and printed a book.
Well, good for them.
But the idea is remember that'snot the end of your training,
that's the beginning of youreducation.
Certainly, every story in thereis true, because they're mine.

(06:24):
But you can't just read a bookand go into the corrections
environment and be safe.
You know what?
There's a lot of time you gotto shut up and watch and there's
a lot of time you got to justsit back and smell and feel the
environment, because yourtraining has to be based on
instinct and intuition, justlike in law enforcement, just
like a traffic stop.

(06:44):
Everything's different everyone of them.
There's no two days that areexactly alike.
And the final thing I'll saybefore I hand it over to Brian
Marin, because I met Brianduring those periods in time.
Brian's a decorated Marinesniper scout veteran of the
intel community.
I'm honored and lucky enough tofind him along the way and he's
been greatly instrumental andhelpful for Arcadia.

(07:05):
But the idea of taking all ofthe stuff that you do in a day
and understanding that the twomost dangerous times in
corrections are going to be whenyou're bored or when you're
overwhelmed so when everythingis coming at you all at once
you're going to make yourmistakes, and when nothing's

(07:25):
coming at you and you're yawningand you're thinking, man, time
to put my feet up on the desk,that's when the crap is going to
hit the fan.
So I think we're in the sameenvironment, I think we talk
about the same thing.
We're no strangers to havingyour folks that are working in
the facilities that you're veryfamiliar with attend our courses
.
Brian Maron.

Speaker 3 (07:48):
Good facilities that you're very familiar with,
attend our courses.
Uh, brian merrick, good, yeah,so I would say that, um, you
know, when it comes to what wedo hbpr day, human behavior
pattern recognition analysis um,everyone inside the prison,
both the the officers and theinmates uh, have PhD in it.
And what I mean is you get alot of tacit knowledge and
experience, but you don't get alot of the training that goes

(08:12):
along with it, or we don't get alot of the analysis, or comes
from reading a book or trying tofind more.
And, like Greg said, that'sgreat and maybe it's helpful,
but you really got to look at itfrom a training perspective.
It's helpful, but, but youreally got to look at it from a
training perspective.
And the way I define HBPRNA is,if you know, you go back to when
you were a little kid and nomatter who raised you mom and
dad and uncle, grandma, grandpayou knew when they walked in the

(08:34):
room, before they ever said aword, whether they're happy,
whether they're sad.
You know my case I got to gorun and hide because you know
I'm about to catch a whoopingfor something that I did.
Right, you understood that, andactually all humans can and
we're sort of born with thisability.
I mean we literally.
If you want to get into theneuroscience of it, you have

(08:56):
mirror neurons in your brainthat allow you to mirror the
brain state of another humanbeing.
So if you've ever walked in andseen you walk up and one of
your buddies is kind of lookingangry and staring at at someone
and you're like you're like hey,what's up man, what's going on?
Now you're all of a sudden likeangry and staring at someone
before you even know what thesituation is Like, your brain
can mirror that stuff.
So what you get in there,especially in a prison, is great

(09:18):
because, um, it's, it'sbasically a lab.
I mean, you're in a controlledenvironment and so there's only
so many outcomes, there's onlyso many things people can do.
You know it's not like achaotic.
You know, out in the streetthere's an event going on where
there's a little bit more freeplay, like it's a controlled

(09:38):
environment.
And the other thing is, youknow, but what you also see,
what I've always loved anytimewe've had corrections officers
or I got to speak to them orthey're in our class is that you
know, you guys see some of themost amazing stuff when it comes
to behavior, because all thoseinmates, they got a lot of time
on their hands and they got moretime, I mean, so they come up

(09:59):
with the craftiest stuff you'veever seen.
They can work on something fordays, weeks, months, because
they've got nothing.
And so you get this level ofingenuity and creative thinking
that you don't, you don't, noone has to do, they don't have,
you don't have to innovate whenyou're out on the street, I'll
just go rob someone or stealsomething or do whatever.
Like when you're in prison, youkind of got to be innovative so

(10:21):
you only have access to so muchstuff.
So it's just a fascinating sortof lab of human behavior and
you're constantly in thisenvironment.
That's in flux a little bit andeverything can change quickly,
but there's only so many thingsthat can happen.
Most of those things aren'tgood, right, and if things go
bad, but.

(10:41):
But I just love talking tocorrections officers because
they really do see some of thewildest stuff that, like you
know, people are like no waythey did that, like oh yeah,
they did, and so, and like Gregsaid too, it's a great
observation, it's great fortraining, observation and so to
recognize different things goingon and to put a name to it and

(11:03):
to put a word to it and then getbetter at it.
Because what we try to do at abasic level is first with
everyone, is just like cultivatecuriosity in your environment,
find things that are interesting.
What a lot of people do is tryto look for like what they'll
call like threat indicators orthis, and it's like that's great

(11:24):
, you's like that's great.
You may see that, but you alsomay not, and that's kind of too
late in the game.
We try to do everything like thebook.
You know, left of bang.
How do you be proactive andpredictive?
Like you just said, you know,all of a sudden, the what?
If things go quiet, get yourback against the wall, like
that's an atmospheric shift.
That's all of a sudden.
You don't know what happened,but you've got that, what people

(11:45):
call that spidey sense right,you're.
You're.
The hair on the back of yourneck stands up.
Well, there's there.
There's no such thing as asixth sense.
That's actually just a a sortof a cognitive game that your
brain is playing and it'ssensing your environment and
your unconscious awareness, likeif you've ever just suddenly
had that feeling.
You don't know why.
That's your limbic system,that's your survival brain

(12:07):
saying hey, pay attention, dude,something's about to go down.
So you have this unconsciousability.
So what we try to refine is likeall right, let's take some of
that stuff that's happeningunconsciously, let's learn about
it, let's get to a betterunderstanding of it, and then
let's get even better atutilizing that, what your own
innate knowledge and ability is.
And when you can do that,that's when you get really good

(12:30):
at going hey, you know what?
Today's the day I thinksomething's going on.
Let me figure out why I'mseeing these indicators, let me
put these together so we canintervene before something
happens.
So I don't have to wait till.
Oh, here we go, we knew thiswas going to happen.
It's like well, if we knew itwas going to happen, then we
should have done something aboutit.
And so there's still that delay, a little bit of denial, but

(12:50):
but that's what we get folksreally good at.
And we like working with youknow if you're especially if
you're, you know, a correctionsofficer, and your day is like
can become obviously it's veryroutine.
So you fall victim to yourbrain and how humans are wired.
We're wired to be lazy or we'rewired to burn less calories
because it's about survival, sowe start to miss stuff.

(13:12):
But you're also like, so you'reat a huge disadvantage from a
cognitive performance standpoint.
Like you got, the deck isstacked against you.
However, you do have, like Isaid, because it's a prison,
because it's a controlledenvironment, you got a lot going
for you too.
So it's like you know you'rethere's a lot up against you,
but hey, there's a lot of thingsyou actually can do too.

(13:33):
So, um, that's what we enjoytraining people to get better at
.

Speaker 1 (13:40):
Absolutely.
Um, I I think, um, you know,the training has changed.
When I came in, we didn't haveas much formal training.
We had old officers and Iremember they would take me up
to the top tier and, like yousaid, it was a lab, you know,
and they would have us.
You know, tell me what's goingon over here.

(14:01):
Look at that over there, seethat guy standing outside that
cell.
What's he watching for?
I remember one of the thingsthey told me was uh, don't watch
the watcher.
If you see a watcher, figureout what he's watching, you know
.
So it was those little thingslike that that I first came into
.
And, uh, you, you touched onanother thing, which is
complacency, and one of thethings I found fascinating on

(14:24):
your guys is you had a podcastspecifically about that and you
talked about complacency asself-satisfaction accompanied by
unawareness, and nobody wouldthink that you'd walk into a
prison and get comfortable, butwe do.
We're absolutely comfortable inthat environment.
So how do we overcome that?
What's going on there and whatcan we do to?

Speaker 2 (14:45):
be less complacent.
That's such a great question,so let's dial it back just a
little bit and say so.
Why do we become complacent?
We become complacent becauseit's a coping mechanism, it's a
survival strategy.
We came from environments where, all of a sudden, we walked out
of the cave and we had to fightfor our lives.
So we're constantly evolved tothinking that that's always a

(15:08):
heartbeat away, that's a breathaway.
So our body wants to retain allof our fighting skill and our
calories and our acumen for thatdangerous encounter that we
fear is right around the corner.
And because we put all our eggsin that one basket, we want
downtime.
We want to make sure that we'reup in the bed all day and we're

(15:30):
not doing anything to be readywhen we have to spring into
action.
So those scales were built solong before our human
consciousness developed to whereit is now that we have to fight
that literally every day.
It's hard to go to the gym.
You know, the funny thing is,once we go to the gym we feel
better all day.
It's hard to eat a good diet.

(15:51):
It's easier to eat crap food.
But you know what, once westart eating a good diet, we
crave that.
So we have to train ourselves,like Brian and I were just
before this call.
We were talking about attention.
You're only given so muchattention and when you use
attention you need sleep.
I mean, a third of your life isspent sleeping.

(16:12):
Why?
Because this thing at the topof your skull needs attention.
It needs to be able to relax inbetween all of its time of
sampling your environment.
So what I loved about your storyis that was the old FTO, before
the FTO program.
Because, remember, some of usare old enough to remember when
there wasn't a thing called theField Training Officer Program

(16:33):
and what they did is they gaveyou either the fire cracker that
person on the street that wasthe best at what they did and
had the highest arrest recordand was always the crap magnet,
or they stuck you with the guythat was, you know, five years
past, retired He'd alreadyretired in place.
And I remember I got that guyI'll say his name because
everybody knows him Old Smitty.
I got Old Smitty that saiddon't touch the radio, don't

(16:55):
touch the car keys and don'twake me up.
And that was it.
You know what I'm saying.
It's like okay.
So we sat behind the firestation 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 thewrong guy.
But what your guy told you is ascientific principle and I want
you to think about that Don'twatch the watcher.
So let's just talk about thatone thing that he said, michael.

(17:17):
Okay, so your brain is set upwith your eyes giving you a
visual field of your environment.
Okay, your, your eyes give youa visual field of your
environment.
Your eyes have a 6-degree or an11-degree functional field of
view boy or girl and when youscan your environment, you're
looking for light, motion andedges, things to attend to,
right back to attention.
So that person that's watchingis a lookout.
So what you do is you draw a T,making the T go across his

(17:41):
shoulders and down from his headand orient what he's likely
looking at.
Now you draw your six or 11degrees out from that, looking
from overhead, and you go okay,he's watching out for the guards
, he's watching out for theother gang, he's watching out
for the person deliveringwhatever.
Okay, so who's watching thewatcher?

(18:01):
Who's paying attention to thatperson and what's going on where
he's not oriented to?
Because that's where the peopleare hiding in plain sight,
that's where they're buildingthe shift, that's where they're
hiding the bootleg liquor or thedrugs.
And so what we do is exactly thesame thing that you do.
We just do it in a differentbaseline, in a different
environment.
So our baseline can changeanywhere.

(18:23):
It can be in a room like aninterview room, it can be in a
room like an interview room, itcan be in a factory, it can be
in a vehicle bay, it can be outin the rest of the world or on
an airplane.
Well, that's no different fromyou.
You've got people that are incharge of transferring prisoners
to court, back and forth todifferent prisons, in and out of
a jail cell to, for example,the infirmary, and what happens
is, each time you go from onethreshold to the next, you have

(18:46):
to recalibrate your brain and gookay, now I'm on the floor, now
I'm in general population, nowI'm coming into an office
setting.
Because if you don't, what'shappening is you're not
preparing your brain forlikelihood, those things that
likely could occur, and that'sjust being alert and aware.
But your whole body is fightingthat.

(19:07):
Your whole body is saying golay down, have more food, go to
sleep.
You hear that alarm.
Don't worry, it'll go away soon.
So to be that good person, to beat the top of your game, you
have to fight what's hundreds ofthousands, if not millions of
years, of the sedentary mindsetthat you're in and embrace what

(19:28):
all humans have been given, andthat's the ability to alert to
certain cues in your environment.
So Brian gave you one.
We're wired to look at otherpeople and feel their emotion
through our mirror neurons.
Okay, which means that ifyou're happy, I'll be happy.
If I want you to be happy, Ishould be happy and you'll be
happy too.
Okay, that's great.
But you know, the other side ofthat same coin is danger.

(19:49):
We've been given the innateability to sense danger in our
environment and we talk it away.
We say, oh, the hair on theback of my head stood up.
Oh, I got this hanky feeling.
Brian mentioned it the spidersenses.
Look, I'll bet you, you talk toall the people that you work

(20:09):
with routinely in prisonofficers and staff and
administration and everyone willbe able to tell you a story
about how they knew the crap wasabout to go sideways because of
a sound or a sight or a smell.
So you said earlier about whenit gets real quiet, back to the
wall.
I'll tell you, you want topredict an ambush in combat.
Radio is going to either goabsolutely dead or it's going to
spike.
It's going to be all this rapidtransmission.

(20:31):
You're not going to understandit and that's going to be the
atmospheric shift just beforethe ambush, or it's going to go
dead quiet and everybody's goingto go hey, do you hear that?
Yeah, exactly, and now you'regoing to get the ambush.
So it's the same human behaviorrules, let's call them, and it's
the same interaction withhumans, it's just on a different
baseline level.

(20:52):
So you I would agree with Brianyou've got it much harder
because you've got less flash tobang.
You've got it much harder.
We give the gift of time anddistance, which means the more
time you have to observe, thefarther you are away from the
incident, the better you have it.
So you're actually right up,close and personal almost all
day long.

(21:12):
So I also know that you havesurveillance units.
So that's how you can offsetthat right by watching and
listening.
Because I'll tell you one thing,I'll tell you before I end my
rant.
Rant here, michael, is thatcoppers on the street have the
red and blues.
They also have a siren and itgets them into more trouble
because you know what they do.
They race into a situationwithout giving it enough time

(21:36):
for the brain to consider whatmight be happening.
Your folks, even when you go toyou, know hands-on or less than
lethal.
At least you can sit back for aminute, take a look and assess
what's going on and say I cancompare that to this person's
previous behavior or to thatwing at that time during the day
or night or something, withpolice work on the road that

(21:59):
tends to be a little more random.
Do you understand where I'mgoing there?

Speaker 1 (22:06):
absolutely, yeah, um, and we also have the ability.
You know, most of these bigprisons have a thousand cameras,
yeah, so I've got guys who areintelligence specialists who are
watching the camera and cangive you information while it's
going on with a whole differentviewpoint, right?
So, yeah, let me uh ask this,and brian on your website, and

(22:31):
he it kind of leads into whatgreg was talking about.
You talk about humans havedevolved and I think prison we
get to see some of that.
Can you talk to us about howhumans have devolved?

Speaker 3 (22:43):
so what we kind of mean when we say that is, um,
you know, our, our ability tosense, make and problem solve,
our ability to understand andread and interpret the
environment has devolved, andthat's that's over the course of
human history.
It's a it's a slow process.
It's been accelerated by newertechnology staring at a phone or
screen and stuff like thatmeaning there's less sort of

(23:04):
human interaction out in theworld today.
You know, even with like kids,you know, and so we don't learn
as many of the lessons that wedo anymore, and so we're kind of
so used to.
Now is there an app for that oris there a technology for that
that we're missing a lot of cuesright in front of us now and
take that to a prison.
A little bit different in thesense that now you're all

(23:27):
reliant on that, on just howsomeone looks, how they walk,
where they walk, who they go andassociate with.
That's how it kind of all usedto be done, right, in a sense,
like in how tribes and humansand cliques and groups would
interact with one another.
Right, we look for familiarityand we find comfort in

(23:48):
familiarity, and so we're alwaysgoing to look for something.
That is just part of the reasonwhy humans, all humans, set
patterns.
So every person, whether you'rean inmate or you're a
corrections officer, like you'regoing to set a pattern.
You can't not do it.
It's what your brain wants todo.
It wants to burn less calories.
So it's going to consistentlydo the same thing over and over

(24:09):
again once it finds a way to dosomething by burning the least
amount of calories.
So what we look for is likeokay, you're going to set that's
a, that's just baselinebehavior, and then you kind of
if there's deviations from that,there has to be a reason.
There's, there's some catalystthat caused you to do something
different today.
No one just randomly goes abouttheir day in their business,

(24:29):
Like you know, unless there's,like you know, mental health or
or drugs or something involved.
That meaning meaning we all setthose patterns.
So what you know, specificallywhat we would talk about with a,
with a prison, is like it'slike it's that Petri dish.
It's that you know informalrules in prisons.

(24:54):
You know all over the place ofwhat who can hang out with who
and and and what, who belongs towhat group, and you know they
don't might not have a lot ofsay about that when they come in
, but it's going to, it's goingto formalize very, very quickly,
and so that creates its ownecosystem.
And so what a lot of people tryto do is say here's some things

(25:16):
to look for, you got to watchout for this, or you got to
watch out for that, or here'ssome some some pre-event
indicators, or here's some athreat indicator, or here's
something, and that that's allgood.
But actually you go back to it.
Go back to it even what youryour story from when you first
got there and someone showed youit's like get really, really
good at what's normal, what'stypical, what should I expect to

(25:38):
see?
The better you get at that, thebetter you get at reading and
understanding a baseline andknowing what normal is, the
easier it is to spot what thosedeviations are.
You may not know what it isright or what's going on, but
you'll be able to recognize it.
So, like when I'll go withdifferent groups, whether it's
like a task force or policeofficers doing whatever or a

(25:59):
military unit, you know andthey're going okay, well, we got
this, we and we kind of lookfor these things, and I'm always
like, well, stop, hang, stop,hang on, don't.
Don't tell me what you guyslook for.
What should I expect to see?
Right, we're out on thesurveillance thing, it's two
o'clock in the morning.
These are the people like what,what should they be doing right
now?
What's normal for them?
And they go well, normally,they're doing this, normally,

(26:19):
doing this.
Okay, great, because now I canspot, well, that's not normal
because you said that andthey're going oh shit, that's
right there, you right there,you must be up to something over
there.
I didn't even see that.
It's like because you get soused to looking for all of these
different things like you kindof there's, you know, cognitive
biases that will take over andnow you start to see things that
may not, that might notactually be there in a sense.

(26:41):
But what you have there withthat ability, especially in the
daily routine, is like and Gregwas kind of talking about this
earlier is your.
Your brain wants to know theanswer before you get to the.
It wants to know the rest ofthe 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,

(27:02):
write things off or, you know,not attend to certain things
because it's like Nope, I knowthis, I've been in here a
hundred times, you know I, I'vegot this.
So what we try to really getpeople 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 onthis day?

(27:24):
You know, whatever's going onit, because two in the afternoon
is different than two in themorning, monday is different
than Saturday, whatever, likeyou have to just know, like,
what is typical, what should Iexpect to see.
And then, once I placed myselfin the environment, the things
that aren't typical, they'regoing to just pop out to me
right away.
And now I can start todetermine, okay, well, why is
that?
And I can start to sense, makea little bit and try to put

(27:46):
things together and go, oh shit,this is now escalating.
That person never sits withthat group.
Hang on, they should be overthere.
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 itescalates into whatever is
coming next, and so if I getreally good at recognizing those
things, I can kind of intervenesooner.

(28:08):
I can change the situation, Ican manipulate it, I can move
where I'm standing, I can, youknow, change up the routine and
maybe that's just enough tochange the trajectory of the

(28:31):
outcome of the situation.
And that's what a lot of timesyou see, is like you are first
sort of file fold.
Our first response to things alittle bit of denial.
When we see something out ofplace or we hear something out
of place, okay, that doesn'tmake sense, that's probably
nothing right, or I get caughtup.
So if I'm looking at like I wantto influence the environment
that I'm in and I want to takecontrol, doesn't mean I have to

(28:53):
tell people what to do, doesn'tmean I have to be you know, yell
at people or do your takecommand.
It might just be doingsomething that they didn't
expect me to do.
So now they're going wait aminute, hang on here.
I wasn't expecting this.
So now I have to figure out.
Now they have to figure outwhat's going on.
You know, greg does this a lot.
We call it throwing the rock inthe pond, where he's like a

(29:17):
kind of loud, gregarious big guyand he'll just walk up to a
situation and completely changethe dynamic because he's just
asking questions and, you know,playing dumb in a sense.
But now everyone's going.
Wait a minute, who?
What's going on here?
I didn't expect this.
So those are.
Those are kind of ways to testand sample your environment at a
low calorie level, and you'realso sort of engaging your brain

(29:38):
.
Um, your brain likes games,right, it likes you know fun
things to look for to keepthings novel.
But once you've seen somethingenough times, it no longer
becomes longer, becomes novel.
Well, that's a great way for meto hide in plain sight, right,
if I I can.
If you're just so used toseeing something, you're never
going to look at it again.
So I can use that to myadvantage if I'm trying to get

(29:58):
away with something.
So just trying to create someof that novelty is it may.
It just keeps you more engagedand actually you get to use your
full attention that way.

Speaker 1 (30:11):
Absolutely, and I think you're right on what I did
an episode not too long agoabout being predator or being
prey when you walk in there, howyou walk in that room sometimes
makes all the difference.
If a guy walks in there, anofficer or a female, and they
walk in there, they're confident, they know what they're doing,
the inmates know what they'redoing, things stop.

(30:32):
But if you're that complacentguy who they're just waiting for
you to pass on through so theycan go back to what they're
doing, so that's kind of thatrock in the pond thing that
you're talking about.

Speaker 3 (30:42):
Exactly and you can use that use that use that with,
like, with, with, with you know, you have the ability to always
enlist the aid of others in asense where two is is always
better than one, right?
So sometimes I can go be like,all right, hey, I'm gonna go do
this, michael, I want you towatch to see, I'm gonna go be
the rock in the pond, I want youto see where the ripples go and

(31:03):
see what happens, right, soI'll go in and do something and
then you're gonna go whoa, go,whoa.
These guys over here, dude,they took off, they moved around
the corner, they went over hereas soon as you walked up.
So now I know, because me inthe situation I can't see
everything right, but if I'vegot that overwatch, maybe that
person on that camera to go.
Hey, when they went through,all couldn't in the situation,

(31:33):
you've got too much going on,but that's where you get really
good, uh, what people callsituational awareness.

Speaker 1 (31:35):
That's when you really understand kind of a
who's who in the zoo and what'shappening.
Yeah, I, uh, I had a captain,and this was very early on and
just exactly what you're talkingabout before we had cameras,
before we had any of that.
And he calls me over.
He said go stand over there bythat stairwell and cuff whoever
comes down the stairs.
And the guy had worked atMissouri state pen for like 35
years and he just took off andI'm like he didn't tell me to do
anything except for that.

(31:56):
No, no, setting it up ornothing.
And sure enough, here comesthis guy and I said come here.
I cuffed him up and just stoodthere.
Here comes the captain.
He knew if he walked this thisway, this guy would grab his
stuff and come down the stairs.

Speaker 2 (32:08):
And we had it and that's amazing, the knowledge of
your, your area michael, thatthat knowledge is so critical,
because nuance is everything andand that's baseline comparisons
are where it's at.
So I'll give you an example hasanybody, uh, other than me,
ever seen the Andy Griffith showwhere Andy was the sheriff in

(32:31):
Mayberry?
Have you ever seen an episode,michael?
I'm hoping Okay, so one of thethings is Andy used to have his
pant leg out of his boot and Iwon't break it for the folks
that are watching now, butfigure out which pant leg it was
and then find out why.
Because that was a message.

(32:52):
That was a message to peoplethat watched Andy Griffith, the
actor on that show, because hewas portraying a membership of a
group and, depending in thattime and that place, whether you
had both pant legs out or onepant leg out, or if it was right
or left, or the type of bootyou wore, that made a message
about where you were and we callthat social media.

(33:14):
Now, okay, that was the versionof social media in the 60s for
that show, but they wereactually trying to show the late
40s, early 50s America.
So if you understand thatsometimes actors and television
and movies portray nuance for usto get excited about, well,
only imagine what real life islike.

(33:36):
It's robust, it'sfidelity-filled.
So how do you do what we do?
Well, the first thing is youunderstand that not all words
are meaningful unless you put abunch on a yellow pad.
So Brian said anticipation andI look at anticipation as an
important word, but I also lookat that as curiosity, because I

(33:57):
have to go around and look forthose things that I anticipate,
to see when are they right now,what's going on?
So a great game for your folksto play would be to say what's
the baseline, and pick an areaand hold it with your hands like
you're looking through a cameralens, and go, okay, on the
floor right now in the cafeteria, right now, from this row to
that row what's the baseline?

(34:17):
And have your folks yell outcertain things that are going on
.
Well, it seems calm.
Okay, calm.
Describe that.
Well, nobody's getting agitatedand excited.
There's not a lot of yelling,okay.
Well, what was it likeyesterday at that same time?
Well, every day at the sametime.
Usually this is a raucous,noisy environment.
Okay, so what about the players?
Are there a lot more peopletoday or not?
What's happening is, by playingthese games with your brain,

(34:39):
you're elucidating, you'reputting a magic marker around
those things that should beimportant in your environment.
So now, what do I look for?
Now that I got the baselinegame down?
I look first for incongruentsignals.
Incongruent signals happen allthe time and they don't always
lead to danger.
Incongruent signal iseverybody's walking to the right

(34:59):
and you got one guy walking tothe left, everybody's standing
up looking and one guy's seated.
Those are incongruent signals.
Now, if you get enoughincongruent signals in that same
baseline, you know what you got.
Now you got an anomaly,something that's either above
that baseline or below it.
If it's above that baseline,I've never seen it before.
If it's below it, hey, whyaren't those people going over

(35:20):
there for the free candy thatthe guy from the fire truck has
thrown at the parade?
There's a reason.
There's a reason for everythingthat's happening in that
environment.
And so, by anticipating what'slikely and then being curious,
you're constantly involved withyour environment and it's a fun
game.
Why?
Because hypervigilance isunsustainable.
You can't always be on thecamera, you can't always be on,

(35:45):
you can't always be tuned in towhat's going on.
So what you got to do is yougot to balance it.
And I'll end by saying Brian'spoint of enlist the aid of
others.
Hey, if you're giving mesomething that I don't know
about my baseline, somethingthat's hiding in plain sight, or
something I don't know about,that, that suspect or inmate,
whatever you call them now, I'msure they're I'm using an old

(36:05):
term but maybe that one prisoneris like me.
You know, I'm in my 60s, so Iain't got a lot to lose.
So you mess with me.
You're going to get the hornright.
But maybe that newer persondoesn't know that.
Maybe they haven't anticipatedthat this is a common way to
gain your confidence, to get youclose enough for me to urinate

(36:27):
on you or to try to stab you ortry to punch you.
Why was that important?
And guess what?
That's one thing we do.
One thing we do is show you howto build a baseline, and you
can do that every day.
You don't need Brian and I tocome in and show you how to
build a fidelity-filled baselinewith all these things, because
you're the expert.
You're the subject matterexpert in that wing, in that
prison, in that environment.

(36:47):
So that's a great game that youcan play and it's going to make
you smarter and harder to kill.

Speaker 1 (36:54):
Yeah.
So these inmates, most of themhave grown up in neighborhoods
and areas where manipulation isnormal Okay, and a lot of.
I mean, I came from a smalltown, so my first day in
Missouri State, penn, was justlike crazy.
I had not experienced peoplethat violent, people that

(37:16):
manipulative.
So how do they use?
It's basically using humanbehavior analysis against us.

Speaker 2 (37:25):
What's some of the stuff?
How do they do it?

Speaker 1 (37:26):
and what's some of the stuff we can do to you know,
yeah.

Speaker 3 (37:36):
So, brianrian, do you want to start?
Yeah, I'll go.
You got please.
Yeah, I'll go, I'll go ahead.
Sorry, we got a got a little bitof a delay, but, um, yeah, so
you think of everything, um, interms of survival, because your
brain, that's what is alwaysfirst and foremost and it's
always something that's there,even as comfortable as our lives
are today, compared to peoplewho lived in the past, wherever
like, we don't have to worry.

(37:56):
You know, I think more peopledie now from eating too much
than eating too little.
You know what I mean?
The idea is we're still wiredfor survival.
So if you grew up in anenvironment like that maybe a
poor area, maybe you're a roughpart of town, whatever, or you
had really bad parents and youhad a shitty upbringing or bad
life, whatever you are primedfor survival and that's how you

(38:20):
learned to survive.
You had to manipulate people,you had to get around, and I
don't use that in really anegative way in terms of the
term manipulation.
It was just a, it was just afunction of you having to
survive in your environment.
So you're actually especially,you know, in a prison system.
They're, they're very muchprimed for survival and so

(38:41):
they're always thinking aboutthat and always thinking about
what?
What can I gain?
How can I gain the advantage?
Where?
Where's my next meal comingfrom?
Where's my next cigarettecoming from?
Where's this come from?
How can I get this, how can Iget that?
And that's all they.
They have, you know all long.
You know all day long to thinkabout that stuff, right, and all
night long to think about thatstuff.
You don't right.
You have a shift, you have afamily, you have vacations, you

(39:03):
have administrative things youhave to do.
You got some training, you gotnew policies and procedures that
are coming down.
You got all of these otherthings to think about that
capture your attention, right,where all they need to think
about one thing, and that'smaking it to the end of today.
And then the next day they getup and how do I make it to the
end of today?
And so it's not something mostpeople are typically looking at.

(39:28):
They don't view the world thatway.
Well, that's their whole world,right, but it's kind of your
world in a sense too right,meaning, even as a corrections
officer, you're completelyoutnumbered, right, you only
have so many resources.
Things could gocatastrophically wrong, so it's
sort of a bit of a survivalsituation, sometimes for you as

(39:51):
well.
And so if I start to look at itthat way and try to take that
perspective of how do I survivethe situation One, I turn it
into a very important factor inmy brain.
My brain starts to prioritizethings a little bit differently
and it starts to then see theworld from a little bit
different perspective.
Right, if I don't have thingshanded to me all the time, then

(40:14):
I got to figure out how to do itand otherwise I'll die.
Well, all the best innovationcomes from survival.
I mean, that's that's whyhumans are so prone to
technological advancement andinnovating, because that's how
we've survived as a species forso long.
Otherwise we don't.
We all would have died, right?
So so, understanding that theyjust have that more time to

(40:35):
think about that stuff is theyhave a big tactical advantage in
that point, right, they don'tneed to worry about any of the
stuff that you're worrying about.
They just got to get throughthe day, so that gives them a
lot more time.
So when you're understandingthat perspective can can be hard
to do.
I can try to do that.
But if I look at it as what isthis person doing to survive.
And again it goes back to thepattern recognition.

(40:56):
Every, all humans set the samepatterns for the most part, and
then, individually, we get intoour own little habits and our
own little things that we do,and once I find something that's
successful, I'm going tocontinue to do it that way.
Right?
So if I find something thatworks, my brain gets a little
hit of dopamine and goes, ooh,I'm going to do that.

(41:18):
You know again, that's whypeople will like rob the same
place every time, or orsomeplace that looks like that.
That's why I like when peopleare running from the police, you
know where they run to home, orsomething that reminds them
home.
Like literally, like yeah, that, but or somewhere that's
cognitively close to somethingthat reminds me home.
Like me, like I'm a city boy Igrew up in chicago.
Like, yeah, I had a lot offield training and stuff and

(41:41):
literally from the military andthen with my friends.
But like, if you put thepressure on me, I'm running to a
city, city, because I know, Iknow where I can hide, I know
where I can go.
Like I have some friends thatare like dude, put me out in the
country, because you're nevergoing to find me Right and I
would be lost out there.
So we always constantly lookfor familiarity.
So if I know a little bit aboutsomeone, if I know what they

(42:02):
like to do, what, what, whattheir likes are, what's familiar
to them, it kind of helps meconduct a little bit of
predictive analysis about whatthey're likely going to do.
Right, if they had a successfulthing that they did in some
location, they're going to usethat same location or something
that's cognitively close to whatit is.
So that's kind of how we'rejust constantly looking for

(42:23):
familiarity.

Speaker 2 (42:26):
I would add this, if I can Michael I've spent a lot
of time working with felonsalmost 50 years and I've never
met a felon that wasn't a mastermanipulator.
I never met a felon that wasn'ta legal scholar.
Guilt or innocence is relevant.

(42:48):
Legal scholar Guilt orinnocence is relevant and
violence is a language.
And violence is the simplestform of language for a felon,
because if you don't understandme, I'm going to hit you harder
until you do so now, if we havethat you know.
Of course there's white collarcrimes out there.
Never met one.
But if you have been raised inan environment where you've got

(43:12):
to tip the scales, then what Iwould say to anybody that's
working on the other side,whether you're LE or working in
courts and corrections alwaysplan on listening to what Brian
just said about patterns andimpeach a person's testimony.
What do I mean by that?
Everybody sets a pattern, andthe idea is that that pattern

(43:34):
sets up a modus operandi howyour brain responds to certain
stimulus from the outside, andthat's all based on drug
interactions, whether it'sdopamine or cortisol or any of
the other endorphins that aregoing on, or cortisol or any of
the other endorphins that aregoing on.
So learn enough by standingback and not making a decision.
Look an extremist when thefight's on.
You got to do what you got todo.

(43:54):
But if you've got the time andyou can be patient, then build a
file folder for each person andwhat nuances they do.
They like to smoke.
They're right-handed, they likethe tats.
This person likes the Bible.
Whatever those things are iswhat that person's strong suit
is.
So you're either going to playinto that strong suit or you're

(44:16):
going to play away from thatstrong suit.
And what I mean by that is, oncethat person lays out what's
important to them to getsomething, they're going to
return to familiar territory.
They can't constantly bouncearound, because if they bounce
around, they're not sure whatthe outcome is.
And they've thought about thatlikely outcome a good long time.
They've thought about thechance of going to jail, of

(44:36):
going to solitary confinement,of having their room searched or
be shackled or less than lethalforce, and they've considered
what's likely going toprecipitate that If I touch you,
if I talk back to you, if Ipoop on my tray and try to fling
it at somebody or whateverthose things are.
So if I understand that this isthe likely catalyst, this is

(45:00):
the thing that's going to get methere.
And then I look at the personthat's in front of me and I say
what's their story?
Because every one of us wantsto control our story.
There is nobody in the worldthat watches a Jack Reacher
movie and pauses the movie andlooks in the back and goes you
see that janitor back therethat's cleaning up that vomit in
that cafeteria, way back in theframe.
That's who I want to be.
Nobody aspires to that right.

(45:20):
So let a person tell theirstory.
It's his or her story.
Let them show you what'simportant to them.
And then, after a while, what'sgoing to happen is those things
are going to either form abaseline for normalcy and I mean
clinical normalcy or they'regoing to become anomalous.
Hey, you never said that before.
Or hey, wait a minute, whyisn't he doing these things?

(45:42):
And those gaps, those gaps inthat biorhythm and that heart
rate that's going by, that'swhere your trouble is.
Look, no different thanchecking somebody's pulse or
checking a brain scan on an fMRI, where the seams and gaps are.
That's where I should beinterested, not necessarily the
words coming out of your mouth,because everybody, including
most of the people you work with, have the gift of gab and have

(46:05):
a line of shit that they'regiving to get out of the
situation or to move thingsalong or to.
Oh yeah, buddy, hey, just in aminute, just give me a minute,
right, we all have that.
You have to learn that as a cop, or the world wouldn't spin
right.
But the idea is how efficientlyand effectively?
Because, look, when you'rereading me, I'm reading you and,
and so that's a give and takeand listen.

(46:26):
Uh, if you want to build trustwith the prisoner, if you don't
care about building trust, thendon't listen to the podcast.
But if you really care aboutthat, building trust means
operating at the speed of trust,which means it's less dangerous
for both people playing.
Now, are you going to get that?
One person that doesn't care isgoing to go for the jugular all
the time?
Yeah, but guess what?
They're no longer an anomaly,it's part of the baseline now,

(46:49):
right, but you're not going toget fooled as much If you let me
go, give me a little time toskate and then just observe me
in my environment, then I'llunderstand what you're all about
.
And guess what?
Even actors, even the bestactors in the world, can't keep
it up for very long.
Even those most well-trained inthe prison system can't keep up
that facade for very long.

(47:09):
So maybe it's a week, maybeit's a month, but it ain't going
to be a year, it ain't going tobe six months.
Sooner or later, you're goingto poke holes in that mask that
they're wearing, and we all wearmasks.
Every one of us wears masks andwe change them all the time.
So change the word mask forbaseline and then change
curiosity for anticipation oranticipation for curiosity, and
you're going to be smarter goinginto that environment.

Speaker 1 (47:35):
Yeah, absolutely, you know, we I mentioned watching
the inmates, watching what theydo, but one of the things I've
been trying to teach lately isyou have to engage, you know
leadership is influence.
And if the first time you talkto an inmate is when there's a
problem, you have no influence.

Speaker 2 (47:53):
So how is that different, michael?
You're so on board.
Look, I went to a police agencyone time and the police agency
said, hey, do me a favor,describe the cop that works our
area.
And we had a sketch artist dothat.
And every single one that wassketching it was a sideways view
of their head and they had amustache or not, or they wore a
hat or not, okay, and it wasnondescript.
And I go why are these allsideways?

(48:14):
And they go.
All we do is see them drivingby.
They've never stopped and gotout of the car and asked what
was going on.
Now, all of a sudden, there's acritical incident or a school
shooting, and show up and go oh,by the way, I'm your resource
officer.
Hell, no, you, brian's rock inthe pond analogy You're the rock
, okay, or you're the frog onthe lily pad that's getting hit
by the wave, but you're part ofthat baseline and by interacting

(48:37):
with people, the more Iinteract with you, the less dead
space there is.
So now I see what a pattern oflife is like in you, in your
cell, on your wing or your block, and that's hugely important to
me.
Look, if you're just showing upand punching in the card and
making your money, then you areassuming more risk than I am

(48:58):
being proactive, and if you wantthat, that's fine, but don't be
on my shift, because whatyou're going to do is you're
going to get me killed, and I'mnot going to accept that.
You know so.
So how do we change that?
We understand the gift of timeand distance.
We constantly educate ourselvesand we force our agency to send
us to training.
The more training that we have,the better look.

(49:19):
The whole goal is to make ussmarter, faster and harder to
kill.
You know and, and and we wantthat for our kids in our
community too.
And and you're no differentthan I am when it comes to that,
because I hear the stuff you'reputting out there and I watch
your podcast and that's what'simportant to you too.
But it's not all aboutsympathetic and parasympathetic
reactions and normal humanreaction time and edge weapons

(49:40):
defense.
You have to be tacticallysmarter than the inmate.
You have to be more cognitivelysound than that group of people
in the cafeteria.
And you know what?
If you're not, then you're justa security guard and one day
you're going to get kidnapped orpunched or stabbed.
I mean, let's do that, becauseI say that same thing to cops in
the room.

(50:00):
What's your difference betweenanybody else in the world?
You're assuming all this riskand you think, because you've
got a gun, that you're going tobe somehow different or the vest
is going to stop all the danger.
You know better than that.
It's your brain that's going toget you into or out of the
situation.
Your brain because you're toosedentary, or your brain because
it's probing your environmentand it's going to lead you to

(50:22):
safety before that danger hitsright, right.

Speaker 1 (50:30):
So we've talked a lot about individuals and how we
see the anomalies, and I knowthat the combat hunter program
uh, that was for the military,and you were taking them into a
new culture and you wereteaching them how to see the
things that happen in a culture.
Well, for us, in corrections, Ithink there's a correlation
there, because we're talkingabout gangs, you know.

(50:51):
So here's this group of peopleor this culture of people.
What's some of the things youknow that on a, you know other
than just the individual?
What's some of the things welook for, you know, as a group,
when we're watching groups.
Does that make sense?

Speaker 2 (51:06):
Yeah, absolutely Great question.

Speaker 3 (51:20):
You can, you're right .
So one of our basic principlesis that sort of people yeah,
absolutely, great question livethis type of life, growing up I
don't know.
Oh, my gosh, it's all new to me.
It's like, no, it's not new toyou.
Yeah, you haven't seen thatbefore.
But guess what?
People still have to establishrelationships, they still have
to belong to a group, they haveto be part of a tribe, they have

(51:53):
to be part of a team forsurvival purposes, right, and if
they're not, it's harder for meto get along.
You know, everyone talks aboutlike I'm a loner, I survive by
myself.
It's like, no, you don't,because if you were really a
loner, no one would ever knowyou or see you, because you'd be
out being a loner somewhere,and so we still have to have
this interaction.
So, when it comes to differenttypes of group dynamics, there's

(52:14):
still hierarchies there.
There's still formal andinformal ones, right, and
there's people that are the shotcallers and there's people that
are in charge, and there'speople behind the scenes and
there's the young guys who maybegot to earn their way in or
whatever.
So we all establish theselittle hierarchies and groups
and so you can start todetermine sort of, we would say,

(52:36):
like who's who in the zoo?
Right?
Who's really pulling thestrings here?
Who's really doing that?
Who's the one that's behind thescenes, that's making all the
calls, but you don't actuallyever see them doing it.
Who are the ones actually doingit?
And the better I understandthose group dynamics.
It helps me in that sort ofpredictive analysis and to
understand what might be goingon in the yard today.

(52:57):
Right, are we going to have agood day or are we going to have
a bad day?
Right, and if I can really getgood at that, it doesn't
necessarily matter.
I mean, what they're doing,it's how they're doing it, how
are they organized, and it's thesame sort of dynamics that you
have.
It's just not a formal chain ofcommand, it's just done a
little bit more informally.
But think about that, evenwithin, let's say, a corrections

(53:21):
officer and the organizationalchart you have, you can point to
the organizational chart andsee where everyone's at, what
everyone's rank is, who they'rein control.
But there's also an informalone where there's always the one
officer that everyone loves.
Maybe they're not in charge,but they have a lot of
responsibility and people lookup to them.
Well, that person has a lot ofinfluence.
Well, that group in that prison, that gang, it's no different.

(53:42):
There.
You might have the one guy incharge, but then the one person
is really popular, but thatmight create kind of a weird
dynamic.
Popular and now, but that mightcreate kind of a weird dynamic.
But that would create a weirddynamic or or or occasionally
difficult dynamic within.
You know, the correctionofficers were lying how we got
this guy's in charge when peopledon't really look up to him,
respect them, and that kind ofcreates issues with the one that

(54:02):
really is in charge thateveryone does listen to.
Now there's well, that's thesame thing with their group.
So, rather than than looking atit as completely different, I go
well, how is this the same towhat we do?
How is it similar?
And what that allows me to dois sort of use what I know in my
world.
Maybe I've never been in thatworld, maybe it's my first day
or first week on the job andI've never seen any of this

(54:24):
stuff before.
I have all this stuff that Ican lean on and I can say how is
that similar to what I do know?
And from there it just sort ofhelps me understand, like, oh
okay, that's their captain,that's their chief, that's their
you know, whatever that's theirsergeant.
You know what I'm saying.
And if I look at it as thatsimilar rank structure, it helps
me go well, what would I expectto see then, if that's their

(54:45):
rank structure, who's in charge?
Because that helps me buildrelationships with the right
people.
It helps me not waste time withsomeone who's like dude, like
you're, you're talking to me allthe time and you're, but you're
, you're jamming me up here, butlike you're, you're no one
where this person if I can, if Ican establish trust with
someone, uh, who is important,maybe that is that background

(55:06):
influencer, maybe that's goingto give me some leverage.
Maybe that's going to be theguy that says, hey, stay out of
this area at this time today andyou know, depending on what it
is like, it might save your life.
But in in knowing sort of, Ialways say is like just just
learn the rules of the game,right, there's informal rules to
every game that you're in everysituation.

(55:27):
Like we, we work in a lot ofdifferent areas, so we don't
just work with like lawenforcement, we work with like
private sector and universitiesand churches, and it's like to
me the human behavior stuff andeverything that we do is
universal.
That's why we get to do it.
But my thing is anytime we gointo one of those places, like I
just got to go, what are therules of the game here?
How are things done here?

(55:48):
And I can equate that to what Iknow, and I can use my own
terminology, like, like you know, greg, and I'll do that.
We're like, oh yeah, that guyhe's the shot caller or or he's
the shadow governor.
Well, that was a term fromAfghanistan we would use to go,
all right, you're the governorof this province, but there's a
shadow governor too who's reallyrunning the show.

(56:08):
Well, that's no different.
And so we'll go to a place andI ask people and I'm like, ok,
well, who's the shadow governor?
And they're like, oh, that's soand so over there it's like
cool, now I know who's who inthe zoo and how to, how to
operate in that environment.
And then it's just, you knowgetting what you want.
Like I, you know establishing,you can establish trust and
transparency with anyone, right,because they'll know.

(56:31):
Like, all right, like hey, youknow what?
Yeah, I don't like Michael,cause he's.
He's the corrections officer,but I know he's a good guy and I
know he's not going to screw meover.
I know he's only going to bringdown the hammer if I do
something stupid or if it's myfault, like you know what I mean
.
So there is an establishment oftrust and transparency with
that and it allows you to justoperate freely and you're always

(56:53):
going to have your percentageof people that they're just
always going to be the problemchild, like it doesn't matter
what it is, that's how theyexpress themselves, but then,
like Greg said, that sort ofbecomes their baseline right.
So now you know that about thatindividual.
So I want to know each personas best as I can and where they
fit into the hierarchy.
And man, those conversationsthat you guys have with each

(57:16):
other on break, before shift,after shift there's so much more
power and information in thoseconversations than we even think
.
Right, there's a lot happeningjust sharing that.
What you know.
Those little conversations likethat's where you put something
together, that's where you getthat network of people to go oh,

(57:39):
wait a minute, hey, something'sgoing down today.
Then we got to you know what wegot to do all stop, or we got
to change the way we're doingthings.
So those informal conversationsI always tell people to to have
, because those are where youfind out the best information.

Speaker 2 (57:52):
So, michael, let me give you one.
That's a game, that's also apractical application scenario
for free that you can use withyour folks.
Anybody that's a prison officerhere can do with their folks.
So come up with a song or abook or a film and then assign
that to two different people inthe group.

(58:14):
Say, ok, you're group lead hereand you're group lead here.
Let's assume we got three orfour people that are doing it
and say, ok, now write thesedown Folks that are listening to
this podcast right now.
Write down logo art.
Write down tattoos.
Write down clothing designtattoos.
Write down clothing design.
Write down commercialadvertisement.
Write down graffiti.
Write down music, you know, andgeography, whatever.

(58:39):
Okay, now we have thesecategories, now, each one of
those.
You have those on a card rightNow.
Everybody's got them on their,their their phone at home or
right now on their yellow pad.
Now, this is the goal, michael.
We have a public event that'scoming up and at that public
event you're in charge ofrecruiting people from the
audience.
Just average everyday peopleout in the audience to come to
your side.
So they're part of that music,that song, that book, that movie

(59:03):
that you're trying to recruitthem for.
So, first thing, you have tobreak down what's the logo art
of that Dixie Chicks song thatyou assigned, okay, well, what
would those folks have as atattoo to show that they love?
Uh, uh, the chicks, I guessthey're called now.
And what kind of clothingdesign?
Would that be more western oris it more urban?

(59:23):
Okay, and how do they advertise, you know, and then you can
change that to Taylor Swift or arap group or you know whatever
you want to do.
What type of graffiti would youlikely see if they were going
to do that?
And then how would they behaveat that public event?
Would they do a bake sale?
Is that common to that groupthat we're talking about?
Or would they have a boxingmatch or a wrestling match or a

(59:46):
musical concert?
And if so, what kind of music?
Well, that game that you'replaying.
What you're really doing isdoing an internal, external
baseline.
Stop looking for what I sawwhen I was growing up and start
looking for what he or she saw.
Stop looking at what'simportant in my environment and
try to think what graffiti theywould put on a bus.

(01:00:06):
Stop to recruit me, becauseevery gang that you're dealing
with in prison has something tofit into those categories and
what you've created is thiscolander where not everybody
fits.
So now the things that fallthrough that colander, that
sieve that you created, all of asudden they become more
important.
Then, after you've done thatexercise, go back in your

(01:00:29):
environment and assign them acell block or a cell or a group.
Now look, I can learn moreabout you from doing a trash
poll than you'll ever understand.
I can get a search warrant, Ican get an affidavit for an
arrest warrant or a searchwarrant and get a judge to sign
it, just looking at the shit youthrow away.
So imagine what I could do if Iwas a little bit patient and I

(01:00:50):
looked at these differentcategories of my environment.
So these are games to make uscognitively more aware of our
surroundings, and that situationawareness is a tool.
It's like if we were goingfishing on a cloudy day in murky
water, would you use the samebait that you've always used?
No man, you've got to changethat stuff up.
So being a Cognorati, being anArcadia Cognorati, means that I

(01:01:12):
anticipate the environment, Iunderstand more before I set
foot into the environment, andthen I leverage that knowledge
to to turn information intointelligence and that
intelligence becomes actionableyeah, I love that.

Speaker 1 (01:01:31):
I love the way you talk about filtering or running
it through a colander and thenyou don't have to look at the
whole place, you're just lookingat what falls through precisely
because you can't, you, youcannot I want to not have the
bandwidth.

Speaker 2 (01:01:44):
You're exactly right yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:01:56):
Um, brian, you mentioned uh, maybe a mental
health.
You know an outlier and and, uh, of course, I worked in a
mental health uh institution.
The thing about that is, oncewe start engaging with those
inmates, we start watching thoseinmates.
Even mental health inmates havea baseline and they come up in
a above and below it.
I used to play a game with them.
I had a the worst of the top 40worst mental health inmates in

(01:02:17):
one unit and every night whenI'd come in and feed at four
o'clock, I'd just come up with aquestion what's your favorite
Elvis song?
And I'd ask each one of themyou know, as I went through
there and it was just thislittle game and some of them
really got into it.
Some of them told me to F off,you know, but when I got done
feeding I had a baseline forwhere each one of those guys was

(01:02:39):
that night.
You know little stuff like that.

Speaker 3 (01:02:40):
That's exactly what we're talking about.
And so that you know what whatthat does is, um, like you said,
setting that baseline is that.
That's what allows you toconduct predictive analysis.
That's what allows you to saywhat's likely going to happen
next.
What is this person likelygoing to do?
That information and plus it'seven if they keep telling you to

(01:03:03):
F off.
Well, you do a differentquestion every day, you might
actually, and then find outsomething that that person likes
, that the guy who's beentelling you to F off every
single night goes oh well, youknow, I actually like that.
And then you go oh, now I havean in, Now I've built some sort
of rapport, Now I've built arelationship.
You know, it's just thoselittle things and you know you

(01:03:24):
actually don't ever know whatthat's going to lead to.
But all of those things are thethings that matter.
Like what that's going to leadto, but all of those things are
the things that matter.
Like your policies are going tochange, your tactics are going
to change, your tools are goingto change, your uniform might
change, but those establishingthose relationships allow you to
kind of implement other changeseasier too.
Because, like we keep saying,like humans look for familiarity

(01:03:46):
and we don't like uncertainty,right?
Humans do not like.
When things are uncertain andyou're not sure what happens, is
your limbic system, yoursurvival brain, kicks in and
goes I don't like this.
What's going on?
So you immediately go.
Your first answer, especiallyin a prison, is like I may have
to be violent, right, you?
You automatically go to thatbecause of that uncertainty.

(01:04:09):
So the more I can start to,more I can create that certainty
for people, the morecognitively comfortable they are
, in a sense, right, so itallows them to relax.
It allows me to turn down thethermostat a little bit, turn
down the pressure, right?
Because if I start throwingthings in and I change things up
, a lot, people do not like that.
So if they have a goodrelationship with me, they're

(01:04:32):
more likely to accept that.
It's like, hey, if I'mdelivering this news to you and
hey, there's something new thatwe have to do, and now you're
not going to get this.
Well, at least I have somefamiliarity with you, Michael,
and I got a little bit of trustbuilt.
It might not be much, but it'sbetter than nothing.
And so that's all it is is likethose small, small wins over
time, those small.

(01:04:52):
You know, it's like the, thebaseball analogy.
Look, we just want base hits.
Get on base, get on base, geton base.
And then every once in a whileyou're going to hit a home run.
All right, Get on base, get onbase.

Speaker 2 (01:05:08):
It's those small hits .
That that's all I'm not killing.
And if we're discussing things,you get what I'm trying to say.
We're not writing.
That's the whole.
Idea is that you're trying tobuild a form of conversation,
and if we talked about violencebeing a language, we certainly
don't want it to degrade to that, and that's what we were
talking about, with humansdevolving, humans devolving.

(01:05:35):
Social media didn't make ussmarter.
It's a tool, and if we relyonly on that tool, we're never
going to be able to communicatewell with the person next to us.
So your communication skills,your trust with your team and
then your trust with your inmatepopulation, man, that's huge,
and you know training is theanswer there.
Education is great, buteducation is like putting a sign
on, you know.
So the idea is that we've gotto make sure that we learn

(01:05:58):
skills and you've got theperfect place to rehearse them.
Every day, as a field trainingofficer, out on the road, I have
to pick and choose a trafficstop or a burglary alarm.
You have the opportunity toinfluence your environment every
single day and get better andbetter at it, or leave it like
an experiment and see whathappens.
Well, I would venture to guessthat if you left it alone for a

(01:06:20):
while, it would become Lord ofthe Flies and you guys would
never be allowed back on thefloor.
So the idea is that how do youget the person to be a rule
follower?
You enlist their aid in showingwhat the difference is.
This is more fun.
This is easy.
You got to do the time.
This is an easier way of doingthe time and both of us get what
we need out of this arrangement.

(01:06:40):
That's not wrong.
That's okay to do that.

Speaker 1 (01:06:48):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, um, so the I guess the
downside to human behavior,performance and analysis, uh and
you guys have talked to a lotof military, a lot of law
enforcement, and I'm sure thatthey have the same thing how do
we keep from becoming so hypervigilant?

Speaker 2 (01:07:07):
because it's a problem with correctional
officers.

Speaker 1 (01:07:09):
You get so nervous about somebody going to stab you
all the time, that when youwalk outside you can't turn it
off.

Speaker 2 (01:07:16):
Yeah, yeah, exactly, brian, I'll let you go first.

Speaker 3 (01:07:20):
So, yeah, what we try to do is, you know, informed
awareness, all right,hypervigilance is one it's
unsustainable, you can only dothat in short bursts is one it's
unsustainable, you can only dothat in short bursts.
And two, if you're constantlyhypervigilant, you may actually
be making yourself a little bitdumber.
In a sense.
You're less likely to noticethings, because what happens is

(01:07:42):
you're sort of training yourbrain to go as long as I stay in
this hypervigilant state,nothing's going to happen to me
and you'll miss things.
You will absolutely miss thingsin your environment.
So that's why we always sayjust you take a step back and
understanding things a littlebit better.
So I, you know, establishingrelationships, understanding the
baseline of what you should seeand what you should expect to

(01:08:05):
see, and knowing what thosethings are and the differences
leading up.
How is this different thanyesterday?
How is this different than thelast interaction I had with this
individual?
How is this different?
Or how is this the same?
And you're kind of doing what'sthe most likely, what's the
most dangerous course of action,right?
So in our head it's like okay,you've got something that's
going on.
I see something.
All right, well, likely, it'sjust this.

(01:08:26):
Well, what could it be, if it'sdangerous what I'm doing, that
I'm actually creating that sortof balance to go all right.
Yeah, it could be an ambush I'mwalking into, but what else
could it be?
And then do I see, and where'sthe evidence leading me to?
Is it leading to everything'sgoing to be fine, or am I seeing
something else that willcontribute to, you know, some

(01:08:48):
chaotic situation?
And having that balance allowsme to do that.
And one other thing and Gregmentioned we actually just did a
whole podcast on it is where wetalked about violence being a
language.
It's a way to communicate.
If I don't have the words, if Idon't have a way, if I'm not
feeling heard, if I don't feellike I'm getting through to you,
I'll use violence, becausethat's what I know, especially

(01:09:11):
in your prison population.
Look, this is what I know.
This is a, it's a form ofcommunication.
And if we look at it that wayand it's hard to do this when
people say like, oh, you can'ttake things personally it's like
, yeah, that's really reallyhard to do when someone's
yelling at you or talking shitto you or whatever, like it's
very difficult because they'regood at getting in your skin,
but the better I get at managingthat and understanding like,

(01:09:32):
okay, this person doesn't havethe ability to bargain, they
have nothing, they're in jail,they have no leverage, they have
nothing.
So this is how they're using it.
If I start to look at it almostlike scientifically, like what
is this person teaching me?
What are they trying to tell me?
Not what the actual words areno-transcript, all they know.

(01:10:20):
So if I get better at like,okay, what's really going on
here?
What are they trying to tell me?
Because sometimes they'retrying to tell you, hey, I am
angry at you and I'm going toattack you.
Sometimes they're telling you,no, I'm just angry because
something else happened and I'mjust trying to get it off my
chest Right and you're the onlyperson I can do that to.
So just trying to approach itthat way, rather than just
saying, hey, don't take itpersonally, like that's, like

(01:10:42):
that's really hard to do, I mean, it's very difficult.
So that's how I would kind ofexplain it, but I'll let Greg
kind of go into detail.

Speaker 2 (01:10:49):
I would add this Brian, I would say and Michael,
you'll understand thisimmediately the inmate controls
the narrative, but I control thetimeline.
So the idea is that I have touse tactical patience to my
advantage every single time andas a team, operationally, we
have to use tactical patience.

(01:11:10):
Should we pounce now or shouldwe delay?
Do we wait to get additionalgear or personnel?
Do we just lock it down andtime it out and try to talk?
Because the idea is, if you'reconstantly worried that you're
going into an ambush, sooner orlater you're going to be right
and that's again going to skewyour internal baseline, because
you're going to be walking oneggshells with a pillow duct

(01:11:31):
taped to your ass all day longand that anxiety is going to
tear you apart.
You're going to have a heartattack, you're going to shoot
yourself, you're not going to behealthy when you go home to
your family.
So what you got to do is yougot to go.
Ok, I give it to you, you'llcontrol the narrative.
You know you're writing thebook every day in your cell or
out on the block or in thecafeteria.
But you know what.
I control the timeline here.

(01:11:53):
So I'm only going to move oract when I'm absolutely ready,
that we have the tacticaladvantage and the strategic
advantage and operationallywe're ready to go.
If you think that way, thenwhat you're going to do is slow
time down, literally andfiguratively.
Slow time down.
So time is a tool that you canuse to be safer and smarter, and

(01:12:13):
you know what.
This is such a greatconversation, but you and I know
, michael, without attendingtraining on these things, it's
going to be in one ear and outthe other.
Are we going to do some goodtoday?
Yeah, are people going tolisten, and I hope that they're
interested enough to follow yourtraining guidelines and come to
some of our training.
But the realism of thesituation is you have the rest
of your life to get better atwhat you're doing and it's

(01:12:35):
incremental.
It takes you going out andseeking out that training that
will expand your brain, soyou're not hypervigilant.
Brian said it and I'll say itagain it's unsustainable.
And I know more cops that arein the grave because they had a
heart attack or shot themselvesafter they left work, and every
one of them wanted to, you know,go to the beach.
Every one of them wanted to gohunting and have these wonderful

(01:12:57):
safaris, and they're allpushing up daisies now because
they didn't take care of theirphysical and mental health, and
we can't allow that.

Speaker 1 (01:13:06):
Absolutely, yeah, absolutely.
So, since we're there, go aheadand ahead.
Tell me, what do you guys havecoming up?
What, uh?

Speaker 3 (01:13:14):
how can they uh, you know, get some, find some of
your training yeah, so you canalways uh sign up at our website
at arcadia, cogneraticom, um,and and I always push out uh
every few weeks like kind oflike a update hey, this is what
we have coming up.
Uh, you can always reach out tous.
We can always come in and dotraining.
Um, there's, there's, there's awe've got some courses coming

(01:13:35):
up.
If anyone's out on the Eastcoast at Virginia and Liberty
university, we have one nextmonth.
That's actually free.
If you're in law enforcementcorrections, you just got to get
to the training.
Um, I can send you the links tothat stuff as well.
But but you know, there's we'vegot training kind of popped up
all over a lot of lawenforcement and we also do some
private sector and stuff as well.

(01:13:55):
But it's just easier just tokind of like if you want to sign
up.
We have obviously the humanbehavior podcast where we talk
about a lot of the stuff real indepth and try to give some good
takeaways.
We have our Patreon site aswell where people can learn more
, where we do little breakdownstuff and give out little
tidbits here and there.
So you just got to kind ofcontact us and stay connected.

(01:14:17):
I always tell people too.
Like LinkedIn is actually agreat way for us to get a hold
of folks or people to followalong with us and ask us
questions.
It's super.
I mean, that's where we met youand we've actually, despite it.
It's just another social mediasite.
You know it's Facebook foradults, I say, but like it's
actually really if you useLinkedIn for the purpose it was

(01:14:38):
designed, it's actually reallygreat for networking and stay in
touch and, you know, meetingand talking to other thought
leaders or people in thebusiness and finding out about
different training and what todo.
Like that's actually a greatplace for for that.
So I always tell people connectwith us, follow us on social
media.
Uh, reach out with questions.
We're easily accessible.
I get to everyone's questions.

(01:14:59):
Eventually, um, I do thepatreon folks first because
they're they're paying for it,but, um, you know that's how it
is.
But in terms of training, wecan always come out and we can
do training.
We like to do regional trainingwhere officers from different
agencies can show up.
Those are always some of thebest courses anyway, because
then everyone gets to kind oftalk about different things they
see and you get kind of abetter awareness of what's just

(01:15:21):
not just what's happening atyour specific location, but
what's happening kind of allaround the area.

Speaker 1 (01:15:28):
Sure, sure, and we'll put all those links in the show
notes so anybody wants to lookup those, that'll be there in
the show notes for you and yougo straight there.
Um, I can't tell you guys howexcited I am to finally get to
talk to you.
Uh, I've followed you onLinkedIn.
That's how we met and LinkedInis great.
That's.

(01:15:49):
A lot of my guests come fromLinkedIn because it gives me
access to people who I'd neverhave access to otherwise.
And, uh, you, you guys are acouple of them and I'm follow
all your stuff.
Yeah, if you haven't been there, go to their website.
The podcast is amazing.
Uh, there's a bunch of stuff onYouTube also that you guys have
out there and, uh, they postedon LinkedIn and on LinkedIn.

(01:16:09):
And, yeah, just thank you.
That that's so.
Corrections often getsoverlooked, you know, sometimes
so, and that that's my goal hereis to bring in some of the
stuff that law enforcement andthe military get and bring it
over to corrections, becauseit's important to us also.
So, thank you guys, greg, brian, thank you so much.

Speaker 2 (01:16:29):
I appreciate it.
Greg Brian, thank you so much.

Speaker 3 (01:16:31):
We're just honored to be on the show as well.
I appreciate it Michael.
And for what we do and for whatwe do I like the corrections
officers, and then also when youget down to Customs and Border
Protection, those folks whereyou're kind of at the same
location, you build up moretacit knowledge than you even

(01:17:00):
realize.
Like I'll go down and like orsee something or watch someone
and I'm like man, these peopleare really good, like you're
those things that you do everyday.
If you learn to unpack that,that's where that subject matter
expertise comes in.
And what happens is we don'toften do that and it's like,
well, you just got to get theexperience where I just had a
hunch.
It's like well, that's great,because you're in a prison or

(01:17:20):
you're at the board patrol, soyou they don't like you kind of
get to do whatever you want, andit's not meaning like they have
a lot less rights right there,but like versus a police officer
on the street going like, oh, Idid a hunch, so I pulled him
over.
It's like, well, that's notgoing to stand up in court, but
either way, it's the same thingis that like I look at unpacking
what you do know or what do Iknow, instead of worrying about
what I don't know or trying tofigure it out and what's typical

(01:17:42):
, what's normal.
Get in that the easier it is tospot the new TTP that they're
using, the new thing that'sgoing on, because there's always
going to be some new way ofdoing something, a new way of
smuggling something in a new way.
They're constantly innovating.
So don't chase those TTPs andsay, all right, here's what

(01:18:03):
we're seeing now, here's whatwe're seeing now.
Just get really really good atvanilla, get really really good
at normal, at typical, and thenthose little deviations from
that baseline will stand outeven greater.
So I appreciate what you guysdo and what your listeners do.
It's a really tough job.
Like you said, you getoverlooked a lot.
I think hopefully some ofthat's changing and some of the

(01:18:24):
places I have seen it's gettinga little bit more funding and
training and stuff in someplaces, and you know always need
that and how we go aboutcorrections.
But it's a really, really toughjob and there's a lot of
complexity in it and so Iappreciate what you guys do and
you guys are really good at it.

Speaker 2 (01:18:41):
So yeah, and my closing remarks will be brief,
michael, we've been listening toyou for a good long time.
We've had this on the calendarfor over a month.
We've both been excited aboutactually physically breaking
that barrier and being able totalk to you one-on-one like this
, rather than remotely.
And somewhere somebody that'slistening to this podcast, be it

(01:19:03):
an administrator or just a lineofficer, is saying the same
thing we don't have time forthis kind of training or we
don't have money for this kindof training.
And I will tell you, you'llhave all the time and money in
the world when you're answeringthat lawsuit or when you're
preparing for that prisonofficer's funeral.
So you decide what yourpriorities are and go out and

(01:19:25):
get that training, because ifyou don't, nobody's going to
bring it to you.
You're going to have to, you'regoing to have to actively seek
it out and you're going to haveto sell it to your folks.
So, michael, we're honored.
We'd love to do this againsometime and we'd love to bring
your honor, you on our show oneday.

Speaker 1 (01:19:41):
Sure, yeah, yeah, absolutely.
And I'm going to say one morething, because, you know, I
realized that I was doing someof this stuff, but listening to
your guys's podcast andlistening to reading your
articles and stuff, I real yougave me the language.
Nobody ever taught me thelanguage, you know.

(01:20:01):
I I knew what it was, but Ididn't know why I was doing it
or why I was seeing this stuff.
So that's I got and that's whythey need the training, so that
they can identify and put thisplace or put what they're seeing
in context.
Yep.

Speaker 2 (01:20:17):
Right and you're exactly right.
Thank you guys for doing that.
I mean, that's what you've donefor me, Testifying everything
that's going to improveeverything.
Michael, your spot on buddy.

Speaker 1 (01:20:27):
Everything.
Thanks again, guys.
Everything.
Thanks again, guys.
Brian, greg, have a great dayand we'll talk to you next time.

Speaker 3 (01:20:32):
Thank, you so much.
Thanks a lot, michael,appreciate it.

Speaker 1 (01:20:35):
I would like to take a minute to thank one of our
sponsors that make the PrisonOfficer Podcast possible.
Omni RTLS is a company thatI've been working with for the
last year.
I am proud to be part of thisteam of correctional
professionals who have developedthe best real-time locating
system on the market today.
With Omni's real-time locationtechnology, you automatically

(01:20:55):
know the accurate locations andinteractions of all inmates,
staff and assets anywhere inyour correctional facility, and
you have this information inreal time.
Omni is cutting-edge softwarefor today's jails and prisons.
It is the only way to monitorevery square inch of your
facility while still being PREAcompliant.
Go to wwwomnirtlscom for moreinformation and to make your

(01:21:20):
facility safer today.
That's wwwomnirtlscom.

All Episodes

100: Discover the Secrets of Human Behavior - Interview w/Greg Williams & Brian Marren

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

Stuff You Should Know

Dateline NBC

Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang

.css-15opob5{left:0;position:absolute;top:0.8rem;} All Episodes

.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}100: Discover the Secrets of Human Behavior - Interview w/Greg Williams & Brian Marren