November 24, 2025 • 39 mins
The job doesn’t wait for your feelings to catch up. That’s why we unpack a clear, practical way to stay steady under pressure—using Stoicism as a daily tool for safer shifts, better decisions, and a healthier mind. We get honest about chaos on the unit, the pull to react fast, and how a few disciplined choices turn tension into control.
We break down the dichotomy of control for correctional work: you can’t dictate inmate choices, staffing levels, or last-minute OT, but you can own your tone, readiness, professionalism, and tactical patience. We explore emotional regulation without suppression, the real difference between responding and reacting, and how firm, fair, and consistent behavior lowers risk and builds trust. You’ll hear why cynicism grows behind the walls, how it erodes judgment, and the Stoic virtues—wisdom, courage, justice, temperance—that keep bitterness from becoming your baseline.
Leadership matters even more when the stakes climb. We look at humility versus ego, setting culture, keeping communication open, and using a Stoic pause before big decisions. We also tackle moral injury: enforcing policies you don’t support, witnessing violence, and carrying stories the public never sees. Stoicism helps separate what’s yours to control from what isn’t, so you can act with integrity inside your lane and protect your mental health over the long haul.
If you want tools you can use on the next shift—reflection prompts, de-escalation habits, and mindset resets—this conversation delivers a field-tested playbook. Listen, share it with a teammate, and tell us one thing you’ll choose to control today. If the show helps, subscribe, leave a review, and pass it on to a partner who needs the Stoic pause.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
SPEAKER_00 (00:36):
Hello, and welcome back to the Prison Officer
Podcast.
My name is Mike Cantrell, andtoday we're going to talk about
Stoicism and how Stoicism canhelp correctional staff get
through the day.
But before we go there, I'd liketo mention Pepperball.
Pepper Ball's been a sponsor ofthe Prison Officer Podcast for
many years now.
(00:58):
I really appreciate the factthat they do sponsor us.
It's what allows me to come andmake this podcast and
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You know, correctional officersfrequently face unpredictable
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(01:20):
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Uh, see what they offer.
(01:41):
We have a lot of launchers, alot of different uh projectile
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that you appreciate themsponsoring the prison officer
podcast.
Early in my career, you know,other staff would come to me and
they would mention, you know,that I was stoic.
And I really didn't know whatthat meant.
(02:01):
They said I had a stoic face andI was hard to read, uh, or that
I was very stoic in my decisionmaking.
And I hadn't studied stoicism.
I really didn't know what itwas.
But as I looked into it, um,read some of the works of Marcus
Aurelius, um, who was awell-known historical stoic, I
(02:23):
quickly became a fan of theancient philosophy.
Now that I think about it, Ithink corrections is what taught
me stoicism even without meknowing it.
You know, learning to keep astoic face when inmates try to
get under your skin, that'ssomething we all do.
Um, you know, you've got thosedoor warriors that just try to
(02:44):
say that one thing that'll getyou to to blow up or turn
around, and and learning tocontrol that and and not let
them pass that that facade isone of the things that we
learned very early.
Um I also learned how to respondinstead of react to things, you
know, and that's a that's a bigpart of stoicism.
(03:04):
We're gonna take a look at that.
And it also brings you betteroutcomes, you know, in an
incident, if you can respondinstead of react.
Um, I'm gonna go into just alittle bit about how stoicism
you know works for correctionalofficers and and what it is and
how it's so beneficial.
(03:25):
Stoicism is a practicalphilosophy focused on staying
steady under pressure,controlling what you can control
and responding, not reacting tochaos.
For correctional officers,stoicism offers a mental
framework that strengthensprofessionalism, emotional
stability, and personalwell-being.
(03:46):
Some of the key principles thatwe see in stoicism that work so
well for corrections is uh, youknow, the dichotomy of control.
You can't control inmatebehavior, you can't control
staffing levels, you can'tcontrol when uh use of force
happens.
But you can control your effort,you can control your decisions,
(04:08):
you can control yourprofessionalism, you can control
your mindset.
And when you control thosethings, it gives you power over
the situation.
Some more principles that comeout of stoicism, of course, are
are wisdom, courage, justice,and self-discipline.
(04:28):
Now, when you think about that,what more could you want in a
correctional officer?
If they've got those qualitiesinside them, you that's a win,
right?
So if they're studying thosequalities and they're trying to
make it better, and if they'retrying to be a better person in
those areas, that's an absolutewin.
Another thing that we, and Imentioned this, but another
(04:51):
thing that we talk about withStoicism is uh emotional
regulation.
Stoicism trains you to remaincalm and remain focused, even
when things are stressful.
Stoicism talks a lot about dutyand service.
You know, officers play acrucial role in maintaining
safety and fairness inside ourprisons and jails.
(05:15):
Stoicism aligns perfectly withthat philosophy or with that
purpose.
Um but I think a lot of peoplemisunderstand it.
Stoicism is not a philosophy ofsuppressing emotions.
It's about mastering youremotions so that you stay
grounded and reliable and sothat people can trust the
(05:36):
decisions you make and why youmake them, that they're not
reactive decisions.
You know, corrections is a worldof constant chaos for a lot of
us, especially if you're workingmaximum security or work in a
penitentiary somewhere.
But your internal world doesn'thave to match the external one.
Just because things are goingcrazy around you doesn't mean
(05:58):
that you have to be crazyinside, that you have to let
everything affect you.
And that's where many of thesestoic principles come from.
You know, one of the core stoicprinciples is focus on what you
can control.
Focus on your judgments, yourreactions, the choices that you
(06:18):
make.
Everything else, inmatebehavior, staffing, last-minute
OT, uh, admin changes.
All this is outside of yourcontrol.
You can't control whether or notit happens, but you can control
how you respond to it.
Um can you respond to itthoughtfully?
(06:40):
Can you respond to it in a waythat doesn't make it worse?
A lot of times reacting andthrowing a fit and um, you know,
getting emotional makes some ofthese situations even worse than
what they were.
So learning that is a large partof what stoicism is.
Correctional officers often burnout, but not from the job.
(07:03):
They burn out from trying tocontrol things that were never
theirs to control.
And this is a conversation Ihave with family and friends
outside of prison.
You know, we if you have afamily member, why do they
continue to do that?
Why are they still in trouble?
People make choices.
You can't make their choices forthem.
Um, the only thing you can do isdecide whether this is something
(07:27):
you want in your life and decidehow you respond to it.
Stoicism teaches emotionalintelligence, being able to
notice your emotions.
We all have emotions.
You can't you can't stop themcompletely.
Even the most uh stoiccorrectional officer who who's
(07:48):
able to put that mask on andkeep their face from anybody
knowing what they're thinking,they have emotions.
But are they letting theiremotions control them?
Or are they taking care of theiremotions?
And the first part of that isnoticing what the emotion is.
(08:08):
You know, it's okay when you uhrun up on a bloody fight to feel
scared or to feel sympathy orempathy.
It's absolutely okay to feelthose things.
Self-awareness and situationalawareness are probably the two
(08:28):
most important things that youcan do in prison when you work
in a prison.
Of course, self-situationalawareness is being, you know,
having your head on a swivel,paying attention to what's going
on around you, understandingwhat's going on around you, and
self-awareness is understandingwhat's going on inside you and
how you're responding and howyou're feeling and why you're
(08:51):
having those feelings.
Are you upset today, really,because of what's happening
right now?
Or are you upset because you hadsomething happen before you come
into work?
Your reactions could cause thething inside work to blow up,
and it could cause it to blow upto the point where you're now
dealing with a more dangeroussituation.
(09:12):
So, response versus reaction.
You know, reaction is ourimpulse.
It's what, you know, I we cancontrol it, but we feel like,
you know, I need to saysomething right now, I need to
do something right now, oftenwithout putting much thought in
it.
Whereas response is it'sdisciplined, right?
(09:34):
It's thought out.
Um it's something that we havelearned to control, what we can
control.
And what can officers control,right?
You can't control the behaviorof the inmates, you can't
control what you can't controlthe rules that come from on
high, but you can control yourtone, how you talk to others,
(09:59):
what your inflection, what yourvoice says.
You can control your mindset,how you look at the world, your
perspective, how you choose tomove forward in it.
You can control tacticalpatience.
There's times when uh it's thethe right thing to do to be
(10:25):
patient.
Sometimes we don't want tolisten to the conversation,
sometimes we don't want to hearwhat someone says, but the act
of patience, letting them talksometimes, is all that's needed
to de-escalate that situation.
Officers can control theirreadiness, right?
(10:46):
Um remove complacency from yourlife.
Is your equipment is yourequipment in good working order?
In case you do have to respond.
The other thing you can controlis your professionalism, how
you're seen, how you handleyourself.
Um this carries a lot of weightinside.
(11:12):
If we can be professional everyday, and I recently, I can't go
into it right now, I'm workingon a project, but uh I recently
saw a stark reminder of how muchpeople and inmates want
consistency.
And one of the things that theywant consistency of is
professionalism.
(11:32):
They don't want to have tofigure out what you're doing
today, how you're feeling today,how you're acting today.
They don't need, uh, especiallyin our correctional uh
environment, those inmates don'twant to try to figure this out
every day.
And then when you look at thenumber of officers in there and
they need to figure this outwith 20 or 30 officers, no.
(11:54):
What makes our institutions runwell is when staff are
professional, and inmates don'thave to guess whether or not
things are going to be firm,fair, and consistent.
Firm fair and consistent wasn'tjust, you know, something that
we've just thrown into training.
Firm fair and consistent hasbeen around for decades.
(12:17):
And it's what inmates want.
There's no guessing.
If staff are professional andthey're firm, fair, and
consistent, nobody has to guesswhat the staff member's going to
do.
So those are some of the thingsthat officers can control.
What officers what can'tofficers control?
Well, one thing, of course, isinmate choices.
(12:37):
You can have the best intentionsin the world, you can do
everything right, and that doesnot mean that an inmate can't
make a bad choice.
But you cannot control that.
You can only control yourresponse to it.
You can't control administrativedecisions, whether that's the
supervisor above you, whetherthat's the warden of your or
(12:57):
sheriff of your agency, orwhether that's the federal
government.
You can't control those things.
You can only control yourresponse.
The other thing you can'tcontrol is other people's
attitudes.
Not everybody's good at takingcare of their attitude before
they come to work.
(13:18):
Or in the coffee shop or on theway to work, whatever, at home.
We can't control that, but wecan control our response to
their attitudes.
And often we can change people'sattitudes by our response.
So that's why it's so important.
Just remember that a stoicmindset is almost the same as
(13:39):
emotional intelligence.
And it's essential for officersdealing with confrontation,
trauma, and unpredictability.
A stoic mindset and emotionalintelligence can help you
respond correctly to people whoare out of control, to people
who aren't making gooddecisions, to people who are
(14:01):
letting their feelings controlwhat they do.
So one of the things I oftenhear about stoicism is that um
stoicism and there's actually aschool of thought called
cynicism.
We don't use it that way thesedays.
Um but many people thinkstoicism and cynicism are the
(14:22):
same thing, that if you don'treact to what's going on around
you, that you um that you're acynic.
Well, in prison, there are twothings that grow very fast, and
we don't really want either oneof them.
One of them is tension.
It comes on very quick, it cancome on from many different
ways, and the other one iscynicism, and I think all of us
(14:44):
take a little bit of that withthem.
I know at times in my life Ihave been cynical.
I know that I am more cynicalafter having lived as a
correctional officer for 30years than I would have been if
I hadn't done that.
We we see some of the bad in theworld, we see people hurt
(15:06):
people, we see um injustice, andwe take that, and sometimes that
becomes cynicism for us.
When cynicism comes and knockson your door, probably the best
thing you can do for yourself isto enhance your character, to
(15:27):
work on your character, to umwork to become a better person.
And that won't that won't keepyou from seeing the things that
have made you cynical, but itwill help you to understand,
it'll help you to engage them ina different way, right?
(15:47):
If you take a look at some ofthe virtues that we all look
upon justice, courage, wisdom,temperance, which temperance is
kind of an old word in inAmerica that's that's been uh I
think people reference that asmeaning that you don't drink,
right?
Uh, because we had thetemperance movement in the back
(16:09):
1920s.
But in in truth, temperance isis not letting anything control
you completely, right?
Not letting it become somethingbad that controls you, whether
that is drinking or whether it'sa a way of thinking, right?
Cynicism.
Those things are what keepscynicism from coming into your
(16:33):
life so harshly.
After years and corrections, youhave eroded trust.
People always ask me what wasthe hardest thing about prison.
It wasn't the fighting, itwasn't the stabbings, it wasn't,
it wasn't any of that stuff.
I became very cynical because ofthe manipulation.
(16:54):
I I were I felt like, and I feltthis at work, and it's true.
You are manipulated as acorrectional officer all the
time.
Everybody's trying to get aroundthe rules, everybody's trying to
get around you, everybody'strying to um manipulate the
situation, and I took thatoutside of prison to my my life,
(17:17):
and I began to believe thateverybody was manipulating me.
And so that was some of thebiggest cynicism I had was just
on the manipulation.
Um, but working in correctionsthat eroded trust, whatever, and
that can take many forms.
For me, it was aboutmanipulation.
Your worldview.
(17:38):
I can absolutely speak to this.
I still have some of that in me.
Um, I'm a very black and whiteperson, uh, right or wrong, it's
hard for me.
I have to take time to thinkabout the gray, uh, that there
are gray areas in the world.
Um, so it does harden yourworldview, and it can make
(17:59):
bitterness feel normal.
Um and I and I see that incorrectional staff.
I've seen it myself.
I've talked to othercorrectional staff who felt the
same way, that after a while youjust become bitter and cynical,
and it's hard to see the good inthings.
Stoicism offers a way ofgrounding those feelings, it
(18:20):
gives you a way to work withthem without letting them take
over your view, your world view,uh, instead of hardening you.
Um Stoicism allows you to uhstep away a little bit, right?
Um to choose what you cancontrol and to deal with the
(18:40):
things you can't control in aproductive way.
So that's one of the that's oneof the ways that stoicism works
against cynicism, if that makessense.
I'm using a lot of isms here.
So how do you fight cynicism?
Well, one of the things you cando is at the end of the shift
(19:04):
take a moment to reflect.
What did I do well?
Um where could I have donebetter?
Did my work today align with myvalues?
And sometimes I have to just umfind something today that didn't
(19:25):
go wrong.
Have you ever had that type ofday where it seems like
everything went wrong all daylong?
Well, what didn't go wrong?
Maybe you just had a good lunch.
Maybe you got a surprise phonecall from somebody you hadn't
talked to in a while.
You know, these are things thatdidn't go wrong.
And sometimes we need to focuson those offsets because if all
(19:48):
we focus on is what went wrong,we're gonna feel like the whole
day was wrong.
Whereas if we can find thoseoffsets, if we can find those
little things that tell us umthat the day wasn't wasn't
horrible, right?
Uh I'm alive, I'm still kicking.
So let's talk about the stoicleader and what it takes to lead
(20:11):
your agency in a stoic manner,whether you're a supervisor or a
warden or a sheriff or anunder-sheriff, a jail
administrator.
What is it that that stoicismcan teach us in leadership?
Um, I think one of the firstthings that we're going to talk
about is ego and humility.
(20:33):
That's really truly what makes agreat leader.
Now, there's many other thingsthat we need.
We need courage, decisionmaking, uh, you know, a servant
attitude.
We can name a long list, but ifyou don't have humility, and or
if your ego is overblown, thattakes away from a lot of the
(20:56):
other things that you do well.
So what is humility?
What does that mean?
Being humble, knowing thatsometimes it's better to let
others um talk about youraccomplishments than to talk
about them yourself.
Um we all know that person who'sconstantly telling you about
what they've done.
(21:17):
And I I had a uh an associatewarden who told me one time,
it's always better to let othersread your headlines.
And there's a lot of truth tothat.
If if you're trying to read yourheadlines and trying to get
everybody to listen and go, hey,which is kind of a thing these
days, you know, social media hashas caused a lot of that.
(21:37):
And I do it myself.
I post on Facebook and LinkedIn.
Um uh whenever I'm doingsomething new, whenever I'm
speaking somewhere, or I've gota class or I've had an article
published, I post it just likeeverybody else does, and we tend
to do that.
Um, we tend to want to show offa little bit in front of our
social group.
(21:58):
But when that ego takes over andyou're always trying to convince
the people around you at workthat, hey, I did this, hey, I
did this, that gets old realquick, and they don't see the
humility in it.
What they see is a person who'salways trying to claim credit,
(22:19):
and that becomes dangerous.
Uh, people will pull away fromyou if that's what they think
you're doing.
It's much better if you can readthe headlines of the people that
work for you and let othersknow, you know, how well they
do.
And I'll I'll tell you anotherlesson I learned from a
different AW.
(22:39):
Um we were having a oh, it was afamily day, and I noticed that
he made an effort to really goto everyone's wife or husband
and to talk to them for amoment.
And and of course I was with himwhile we were doing this, and I
said, Wow, that's um that'sreally nice for you to to go
(23:00):
over there, and he would hewould speak, you know, I I
really appreciate everythingthat your your wife does at work
or your husband does at work,you know.
We we couldn't do this jobwithout them.
And um I was like, you know,that's really great stuff.
And he said, There's no greaterthing I can give to one of my um
team members, you know, one ofmy staff members, than to make
(23:23):
their family feel good aboutthem.
And I thought that was justamazing.
Um and it's the absolute truth.
Uh what do we want?
You know, it's nice to get a paton the back at work, but man,
it's even better to get a pat onthe back at home.
So anything that he could do touh let the kids or let the wife
(23:45):
or the husband or the mom or dadand let them know how important
a job that their person wasdoing, how important the job
was, and why it was importantenough for them to be away from
home, you know, for the kids andhelp them understand that also.
Um, but that pays dividends ahundred times over.
(24:08):
And I was always very impressedwhen uh I got to see him do
that, and it was something thatI tried to take on in my own
leadership style.
Another thing for leaders, stoicleadership, people expect calm
in chaos.
And if you've learned how tounderstand your feelings, if
(24:31):
you've learned how to respondinstead of react, if you've
learned how to not necessarilyshow everything that's going on
at the moment in your face,that's going to be seen as calm.
And if you think that's thinkback, that's the leaders you
want in charge when something'sgoing crazy.
On the contrast, leaders thatbring in a large ego and that
(24:55):
are loud automatically shut downcommunication.
And once that happens, theincident's not going to get
better.
People stop talking to you,people stop letting you know
what's going on, they just starttrying to avoid you.
And that's never good.
You need honesty in asupervisor's position or in an
(25:16):
admin position.
You need your people to want totalk to you.
But if your ego is overblown, ifit's loud, if you're always
trying to talk over everyone,then you're never going to hear
what you need to hear.
Another one of the stoic thingsfor supervisors to think about
is what do you control as asupervisor?
(25:37):
You know, as a correctionalofficer, I only control so much,
but how about a correctionalsupervisor?
What do I control?
Much like correctional officers,you control the tone you set,
you control the culture you set.
You control um fairness.
(25:57):
That's something from asupervisor.
That's what inmates want fromcorrectional officers, and
that's what correctionalofficers want from their
supervisors.
Fairness.
As a supervisor, you can modelprofessionalism.
You can show people whatprofessionalism looks like.
And I think we've lost a littleof that.
(26:18):
I think it I love seeing when Iuh come across supervisors who
just they command the room whenthey walk in because of their
professionalism.
Another thing that you can do asa leader, a stoic leader, is
mentorship, teaching others howto recognize their emotions,
teaching them how to respondinstead of react, teaching them
(26:41):
how to make the best decisionsfor the group.
Marcus Aurelius, uh, I think Ibelieve it was Marcus Aurelius,
but there was a quote that said,What brings no benefit to the
hive brings none to the bee.
And if we had more supervisorswho thought like that, um
(27:02):
corrections would be so muchbetter, not only for the staff,
but for the inmates as well.
What brings no benefit to thehive.
So if you're doing something asa supervisor, if you're doing
something as an admin, and umwhen you think about it, it's
not bringing a benefit to thewhole hive.
It's only bringing a benefit toone or two people or yourself,
(27:26):
then it brings no um benefit tothe bee.
And with without bees, you don'thave a hive.
Um I think it was uh SenatorJohn Boehner that said a a uh a
leader without followers is justa man with out on a walk.
And that's the absolute truth.
(27:48):
Um when you lead, you needfollowers, and you need to take
care of them.
So when you make thosedecisions, think about what's
good for the hive, and you willbring what's good for the bee.
Some more things that you cando, of course, as a stoic
leader.
Uh praise in public, correct inprivate.
(28:08):
That should be a rule foranybody, but it's something that
we can keep in mind.
Whenever you get that chance,praise them.
And when you have to correctthem, do it private.
Take them aside.
And don't just correct them,mentor them.
It's a mistake shouldn't be onlypunished.
(28:30):
It should also be a time forlearning.
That's when we learn our best,is when we make mistakes.
One other thing that um I thinkstoic leaders can do is what's
called a stoic pause.
When you're giving direction orwhen you're making decisions in
a stressful moment, it seemslike you need to say as quickly
(28:52):
as possible what your nextdecision is.
But that's not always true.
If you can take that pause, giveyourself just a moment to think,
give yourself just a moment tolook inside.
What are your emotions saying?
What are you seeing?
And make a decision that's moreof a response than a than a
reaction.
(29:12):
That's what that stoic pausegives you the moment to do.
And we almost always have timefor that pause.
Too often we get pushed intocorners, make a make a decision,
make a decision, make it now.
Take that stoic pause.
Take that moment and make surethat it is a good decision and
(29:33):
that it's based on what you'refeeling, what you see, what
others are telling you.
Don't just make decisions forthe sake of making decisions.
And that's really hard to to notdo in a stressful moment.
You know, the other thing thathappens, um, whatever you want
(29:55):
to call it, I've seen it calledmoral injury, um, from working
in corrections.
You know, correctional officerssee stuff and and they carry
stories that the public willnever see.
Um that's part of what when wego to parties or whatever, and
people will tell me whathappened.
They want to hear the worststory.
(30:15):
You know, that's where thatcomes from.
Um you know, correctionalofficers are affected by those
things.
Let me let me um speak to this.
And it's been a while since thiscame out, but I think it's
probably still very relevant.
Uh in 2011.
They did a study, andcorrectional officers
(30:36):
experienced approximately 254work-related injuries per 10,000
full-time employees.
And this was due to assaults andviolent acts.
There are roughly 8,000 assaultson correctional officers and
security staff each yearnationwide.
And civilian workers, on theother hand, it's seven per
10,000.
(30:57):
That's a huge difference.
That means correctional officersare 36% or 36 times more likely
to experience a work-relatedinjury from an assault or a
violent act than the averageworker in the civilian
profession.
So we're going to see badthings.
We're going to see bad thingshappen to people we love.
(31:19):
We're going to see bad thingshappen to inmates.
We're going to see bad thingsthat most of the world doesn't
experience.
And a lot of that causes whatthey refer to as moral injury.
You're going to see self-harm.
You're going to be forced, andthis was a tough one a few times
for me, but we're often forcedto enforce policies that I don't
(31:42):
morally agree with, right?
When the Federal Bureau ofPrisons went smoke free, I can
tell you the number of use offorces went up tremendously for
a bit.
And in my mind, I didn't have areason to back that.
I understand why they did it,that it was, you know, health of
(32:02):
the inmates and stuff like that,but it wasn't worth in my mind
all the fights, the shoulderinjury that I got during that
time, that I just had a shoulderreplaced.
It wasn't worth losing.
You know, cigarettes were a goodway to de-escalate.
You could have a guy who wasgoing off and take a moment and
(32:22):
give him a cigarette and let himsmoke a cigarette for three
minutes and often de-escalateuse of forces.
So morally, I wasn't behindtheir decision, but it wasn't my
decision to make, and I stillhad to enforce it.
So sometimes we have to do that.
And that causes us to thinkabout who we are and why we're
(32:48):
doing this job, and is it worthit?
Often we feel powerless in thosesituations.
Um and often we feel uhunsupported in those situations.
You know, you're not listened tono matter no matter if you've
got a good idea or not, thedecision's been made, this is
(33:08):
what we're gonna do, and youjust have to live with it.
So, what does this have to dowith stoicism?
Well, stoicism gives us a coupleof things that we can use when
we're dealing with these typesof moral injury or moral
questions.
And one of them is you know,stoicism allows us to clarify
(33:29):
what's our responsibility,what's our sphere of
responsibility, and what's theadministration's sphere of
responsibility.
And once you're able tounderstand that you don't have
um control over these decisions,those decisions were made by
someone else, and if they're notillegal, um immoral, that's for
(33:51):
you to decide, um, then it ispart of your job.
Having the ability to understandthat that's I didn't make this
decision, I'm not responsiblefor this decision if I feel like
it's a bad one, does allow youto set that off to the side.
Like I said, unless it's immoralor illegal, and then you then
you have to deal with it in thatmanner.
(34:12):
The other thing it allows you todo is to remember that you can
act with integrity.
You know, when you're in thosemoments that uh you might not
necessarily agree with, youdon't have to um you don't have
to do something against yourcharacter.
You can still show integrity,you can do things the right way
for the right reasons, even ifyou may not agree with the
(34:36):
decisions.
You can still choose the rightresponse, if that makes sense.
I may have rambled just a littlebit today, so I hope that uh I
hope that it makes sense.
Uh it's something I wanted totalk about.
It's something that uh I useevery day that means a lot to
me, and I hope it does for someof you.
(34:58):
You know, and in the end, thethe connection between stoicism
and corrections, it's it's notjust abstract, it's not
philosophical.
It's very practical.
It's something we can use everyday.
You know, we step into anenvironment shaped by stress,
unpredictability, and uh andresponsibility all the time.
(35:18):
Stoicism gives us a framework tostand there in the middle of
that storm and still make gooddecisions, to focus on what we
control, uh, to release or uhwhat we can't control, right?
To bring discipline andintegrity um into the job,
(35:39):
right?
This job that demands more thananything else integrity.
By training our minds the sameway we train our bodies and our
tactics, we build um staff thatare calmer under pressure, that
make better decisions, that aremore grounded in the purpose.
(36:00):
And when we carry that mindsetback home, I hope, um, the stoic
mindset into our families, ourfriendships, and our personal
lives, um, we not only becomebetter officers, we become
better human beings.
So that's the heart of today'sconversation.
Um, resilience is a skill,professionalism is a practice,
(36:22):
and that peace of mind that weseek often comes with the way
that we make choices.
And stoicism gives you theopportunity to respond and make
better choices than react andmake poor choices.
So I hope you learned a littlebit about stoicism today.
(36:44):
Um, speaking of emotionalintelligence, I invite you to go
to uh Amazon.com.
Uh Power Skills, EmotionalIntelligence, and Soft Skills
for Correctional Officers, FirstResponders, and Beyond.
Uh, this book came out thisyear.
It's been doing great.
Um for many years.
(37:07):
I avoided the words emotionalintelligence until a friend of
mine showed me that I've beenusing emotional intelligence for
years.
And that book is to show youthat you've been using emotional
intelligence for years.
Uh, the word, you know, comesout of the psychology uh area,
and for correctional officers,we kind of hang back away from
(37:29):
that.
We're not we're not sure we wantto talk about um emotions, but
the truth is almost everycorrectional officer is a
master, has the superpower, it'sa power skill, being able to
recognize others' emotions,being able to recognize our own
emotions, and make decisionsbased on that.
(37:50):
So uh check out my book.
It's on Amazon.
Uh you can find the link atwww.theprisonofficer.com at the
podcast.
Uh, there's a link on there forthat.
And before we go today, I'd liketo mention Omni Corrections.
Uh if you've been around herefor a while, you know that uh
Omni Corrections Suite is afully integrated software and
(38:11):
hardware solution engineered tomeet the unique demands of
correctional environments.
Omni Life Sense providesreal-time accurate monitoring of
heart rate, blood oxygen levels,skin temperature, and location
across your inmate population.
With continuous data forreporting purposes and instant
alerts for emergencies.
(38:32):
It empowers your team to respondfaster and more effectively.
Enhance safety, streamlineemergency response.
Check out Omnicorrections atwww.omnicorrections.com.
And while you're there, let themknow that you heard about it on
the Prison Officer Podcast.
I thank you guys.
I hope you enjoyed this today,and I will talk at you soon.
(38:53):
Have a great day.
Hello, and welcome back to the Prison Officer
Podcast.
My name is Mike Cantrell, andtoday we're going to talk about
Stoicism and how Stoicism canhelp correctional staff get
through the day.
But before we go there, I'd liketo mention Pepperball.
Pepper Ball's been a sponsor ofthe Prison Officer Podcast for
many years now.
(00:58):
I really appreciate the factthat they do sponsor us.
It's what allows me to come andmake this podcast and
communicate with you guys.
You know, correctional officersfrequently face unpredictable
and high stress situations wherequick, decisive actions are
crucial.
From managing cell extractionsto controlling disturbances,
Pepperball empowers officerswith the confidence and
(01:20):
capability to handle manychallenges, ensuring both
officer and inmate safety.
It's trusted by leadingcorrectional institutions.
It's trusted by me.
Pepperball is specificallydesigned to meet the rigorous
demands of the prisonenvironment.
So if you haven't yet, go checkout www.pepperball.com.
Uh, see what they offer.
(01:41):
We have a lot of launchers, alot of different uh projectile
choices.
Uh go see what they can do foryour agency and let them know
that you appreciate themsponsoring the prison officer
podcast.
Early in my career, you know,other staff would come to me and
they would mention, you know,that I was stoic.
And I really didn't know whatthat meant.
(02:01):
They said I had a stoic face andI was hard to read, uh, or that
I was very stoic in my decisionmaking.
And I hadn't studied stoicism.
I really didn't know what itwas.
But as I looked into it, um,read some of the works of Marcus
Aurelius, um, who was awell-known historical stoic, I
(02:23):
quickly became a fan of theancient philosophy.
Now that I think about it, Ithink corrections is what taught
me stoicism even without meknowing it.
You know, learning to keep astoic face when inmates try to
get under your skin, that'ssomething we all do.
Um, you know, you've got thosedoor warriors that just try to
(02:44):
say that one thing that'll getyou to to blow up or turn
around, and and learning tocontrol that and and not let
them pass that that facade isone of the things that we
learned very early.
Um I also learned how to respondinstead of react to things, you
know, and that's a that's a bigpart of stoicism.
(03:04):
We're gonna take a look at that.
And it also brings you betteroutcomes, you know, in an
incident, if you can respondinstead of react.
Um, I'm gonna go into just alittle bit about how stoicism
you know works for correctionalofficers and and what it is and
how it's so beneficial.
(03:25):
Stoicism is a practicalphilosophy focused on staying
steady under pressure,controlling what you can control
and responding, not reacting tochaos.
For correctional officers,stoicism offers a mental
framework that strengthensprofessionalism, emotional
stability, and personalwell-being.
(03:46):
Some of the key principles thatwe see in stoicism that work so
well for corrections is uh, youknow, the dichotomy of control.
You can't control inmatebehavior, you can't control
staffing levels, you can'tcontrol when uh use of force
happens.
But you can control your effort,you can control your decisions,
(04:08):
you can control yourprofessionalism, you can control
your mindset.
And when you control thosethings, it gives you power over
the situation.
Some more principles that comeout of stoicism, of course, are
are wisdom, courage, justice,and self-discipline.
(04:28):
Now, when you think about that,what more could you want in a
correctional officer?
If they've got those qualitiesinside them, you that's a win,
right?
So if they're studying thosequalities and they're trying to
make it better, and if they'retrying to be a better person in
those areas, that's an absolutewin.
Another thing that we, and Imentioned this, but another
(04:51):
thing that we talk about withStoicism is uh emotional
regulation.
Stoicism trains you to remaincalm and remain focused, even
when things are stressful.
Stoicism talks a lot about dutyand service.
You know, officers play acrucial role in maintaining
safety and fairness inside ourprisons and jails.
(05:15):
Stoicism aligns perfectly withthat philosophy or with that
purpose.
Um but I think a lot of peoplemisunderstand it.
Stoicism is not a philosophy ofsuppressing emotions.
It's about mastering youremotions so that you stay
grounded and reliable and sothat people can trust the
(05:36):
decisions you make and why youmake them, that they're not
reactive decisions.
You know, corrections is a worldof constant chaos for a lot of
us, especially if you're workingmaximum security or work in a
penitentiary somewhere.
But your internal world doesn'thave to match the external one.
Just because things are goingcrazy around you doesn't mean
(05:58):
that you have to be crazyinside, that you have to let
everything affect you.
And that's where many of thesestoic principles come from.
You know, one of the core stoicprinciples is focus on what you
can control.
Focus on your judgments, yourreactions, the choices that you
(06:18):
make.
Everything else, inmatebehavior, staffing, last-minute
OT, uh, admin changes.
All this is outside of yourcontrol.
You can't control whether or notit happens, but you can control
how you respond to it.
Um can you respond to itthoughtfully?
(06:40):
Can you respond to it in a waythat doesn't make it worse?
A lot of times reacting andthrowing a fit and um, you know,
getting emotional makes some ofthese situations even worse than
what they were.
So learning that is a large partof what stoicism is.
Correctional officers often burnout, but not from the job.
(07:03):
They burn out from trying tocontrol things that were never
theirs to control.
And this is a conversation Ihave with family and friends
outside of prison.
You know, we if you have afamily member, why do they
continue to do that?
Why are they still in trouble?
People make choices.
You can't make their choices forthem.
Um, the only thing you can do isdecide whether this is something
(07:27):
you want in your life and decidehow you respond to it.
Stoicism teaches emotionalintelligence, being able to
notice your emotions.
We all have emotions.
You can't you can't stop themcompletely.
Even the most uh stoiccorrectional officer who who's
(07:48):
able to put that mask on andkeep their face from anybody
knowing what they're thinking,they have emotions.
But are they letting theiremotions control them?
Or are they taking care of theiremotions?
And the first part of that isnoticing what the emotion is.
(08:08):
You know, it's okay when you uhrun up on a bloody fight to feel
scared or to feel sympathy orempathy.
It's absolutely okay to feelthose things.
Self-awareness and situationalawareness are probably the two
(08:28):
most important things that youcan do in prison when you work
in a prison.
Of course, self-situationalawareness is being, you know,
having your head on a swivel,paying attention to what's going
on around you, understandingwhat's going on around you, and
self-awareness is understandingwhat's going on inside you and
how you're responding and howyou're feeling and why you're
(08:51):
having those feelings.
Are you upset today, really,because of what's happening
right now?
Or are you upset because you hadsomething happen before you come
into work?
Your reactions could cause thething inside work to blow up,
and it could cause it to blow upto the point where you're now
dealing with a more dangeroussituation.
(09:12):
So, response versus reaction.
You know, reaction is ourimpulse.
It's what, you know, I we cancontrol it, but we feel like,
you know, I need to saysomething right now, I need to
do something right now, oftenwithout putting much thought in
it.
Whereas response is it'sdisciplined, right?
(09:34):
It's thought out.
Um it's something that we havelearned to control, what we can
control.
And what can officers control,right?
You can't control the behaviorof the inmates, you can't
control what you can't controlthe rules that come from on
high, but you can control yourtone, how you talk to others,
(09:59):
what your inflection, what yourvoice says.
You can control your mindset,how you look at the world, your
perspective, how you choose tomove forward in it.
You can control tacticalpatience.
There's times when uh it's thethe right thing to do to be
(10:25):
patient.
Sometimes we don't want tolisten to the conversation,
sometimes we don't want to hearwhat someone says, but the act
of patience, letting them talksometimes, is all that's needed
to de-escalate that situation.
Officers can control theirreadiness, right?
(10:46):
Um remove complacency from yourlife.
Is your equipment is yourequipment in good working order?
In case you do have to respond.
The other thing you can controlis your professionalism, how
you're seen, how you handleyourself.
Um this carries a lot of weightinside.
(11:12):
If we can be professional everyday, and I recently, I can't go
into it right now, I'm workingon a project, but uh I recently
saw a stark reminder of how muchpeople and inmates want
consistency.
And one of the things that theywant consistency of is
professionalism.
(11:32):
They don't want to have tofigure out what you're doing
today, how you're feeling today,how you're acting today.
They don't need, uh, especiallyin our correctional uh
environment, those inmates don'twant to try to figure this out
every day.
And then when you look at thenumber of officers in there and
they need to figure this outwith 20 or 30 officers, no.
(11:54):
What makes our institutions runwell is when staff are
professional, and inmates don'thave to guess whether or not
things are going to be firm,fair, and consistent.
Firm fair and consistent wasn'tjust, you know, something that
we've just thrown into training.
Firm fair and consistent hasbeen around for decades.
(12:17):
And it's what inmates want.
There's no guessing.
If staff are professional andthey're firm, fair, and
consistent, nobody has to guesswhat the staff member's going to
do.
So those are some of the thingsthat officers can control.
What officers what can'tofficers control?
Well, one thing, of course, isinmate choices.
(12:37):
You can have the best intentionsin the world, you can do
everything right, and that doesnot mean that an inmate can't
make a bad choice.
But you cannot control that.
You can only control yourresponse to it.
You can't control administrativedecisions, whether that's the
supervisor above you, whetherthat's the warden of your or
(12:57):
sheriff of your agency, orwhether that's the federal
government.
You can't control those things.
You can only control yourresponse.
The other thing you can'tcontrol is other people's
attitudes.
Not everybody's good at takingcare of their attitude before
they come to work.
(13:18):
Or in the coffee shop or on theway to work, whatever, at home.
We can't control that, but wecan control our response to
their attitudes.
And often we can change people'sattitudes by our response.
So that's why it's so important.
Just remember that a stoicmindset is almost the same as
(13:39):
emotional intelligence.
And it's essential for officersdealing with confrontation,
trauma, and unpredictability.
A stoic mindset and emotionalintelligence can help you
respond correctly to people whoare out of control, to people
who aren't making gooddecisions, to people who are
(14:01):
letting their feelings controlwhat they do.
So one of the things I oftenhear about stoicism is that um
stoicism and there's actually aschool of thought called
cynicism.
We don't use it that way thesedays.
Um but many people thinkstoicism and cynicism are the
(14:22):
same thing, that if you don'treact to what's going on around
you, that you um that you're acynic.
Well, in prison, there are twothings that grow very fast, and
we don't really want either oneof them.
One of them is tension.
It comes on very quick, it cancome on from many different
ways, and the other one iscynicism, and I think all of us
(14:44):
take a little bit of that withthem.
I know at times in my life Ihave been cynical.
I know that I am more cynicalafter having lived as a
correctional officer for 30years than I would have been if
I hadn't done that.
We we see some of the bad in theworld, we see people hurt
(15:06):
people, we see um injustice, andwe take that, and sometimes that
becomes cynicism for us.
When cynicism comes and knockson your door, probably the best
thing you can do for yourself isto enhance your character, to
(15:27):
work on your character, to umwork to become a better person.
And that won't that won't keepyou from seeing the things that
have made you cynical, but itwill help you to understand,
it'll help you to engage them ina different way, right?
(15:47):
If you take a look at some ofthe virtues that we all look
upon justice, courage, wisdom,temperance, which temperance is
kind of an old word in inAmerica that's that's been uh I
think people reference that asmeaning that you don't drink,
right?
Uh, because we had thetemperance movement in the back
(16:09):
1920s.
But in in truth, temperance isis not letting anything control
you completely, right?
Not letting it become somethingbad that controls you, whether
that is drinking or whether it'sa a way of thinking, right?
Cynicism.
Those things are what keepscynicism from coming into your
(16:33):
life so harshly.
After years and corrections, youhave eroded trust.
People always ask me what wasthe hardest thing about prison.
It wasn't the fighting, itwasn't the stabbings, it wasn't,
it wasn't any of that stuff.
I became very cynical because ofthe manipulation.
(16:54):
I I were I felt like, and I feltthis at work, and it's true.
You are manipulated as acorrectional officer all the
time.
Everybody's trying to get aroundthe rules, everybody's trying to
get around you, everybody'strying to um manipulate the
situation, and I took thatoutside of prison to my my life,
(17:17):
and I began to believe thateverybody was manipulating me.
And so that was some of thebiggest cynicism I had was just
on the manipulation.
Um, but working in correctionsthat eroded trust, whatever, and
that can take many forms.
For me, it was aboutmanipulation.
Your worldview.
(17:38):
I can absolutely speak to this.
I still have some of that in me.
Um, I'm a very black and whiteperson, uh, right or wrong, it's
hard for me.
I have to take time to thinkabout the gray, uh, that there
are gray areas in the world.
Um, so it does harden yourworldview, and it can make
(17:59):
bitterness feel normal.
Um and I and I see that incorrectional staff.
I've seen it myself.
I've talked to othercorrectional staff who felt the
same way, that after a while youjust become bitter and cynical,
and it's hard to see the good inthings.
Stoicism offers a way ofgrounding those feelings, it
(18:20):
gives you a way to work withthem without letting them take
over your view, your world view,uh, instead of hardening you.
Um Stoicism allows you to uhstep away a little bit, right?
Um to choose what you cancontrol and to deal with the
(18:40):
things you can't control in aproductive way.
So that's one of the that's oneof the ways that stoicism works
against cynicism, if that makessense.
I'm using a lot of isms here.
So how do you fight cynicism?
Well, one of the things you cando is at the end of the shift
(19:04):
take a moment to reflect.
What did I do well?
Um where could I have donebetter?
Did my work today align with myvalues?
And sometimes I have to just umfind something today that didn't
(19:25):
go wrong.
Have you ever had that type ofday where it seems like
everything went wrong all daylong?
Well, what didn't go wrong?
Maybe you just had a good lunch.
Maybe you got a surprise phonecall from somebody you hadn't
talked to in a while.
You know, these are things thatdidn't go wrong.
And sometimes we need to focuson those offsets because if all
(19:48):
we focus on is what went wrong,we're gonna feel like the whole
day was wrong.
Whereas if we can find thoseoffsets, if we can find those
little things that tell us umthat the day wasn't wasn't
horrible, right?
Uh I'm alive, I'm still kicking.
So let's talk about the stoicleader and what it takes to lead
(20:11):
your agency in a stoic manner,whether you're a supervisor or a
warden or a sheriff or anunder-sheriff, a jail
administrator.
What is it that that stoicismcan teach us in leadership?
Um, I think one of the firstthings that we're going to talk
about is ego and humility.
(20:33):
That's really truly what makes agreat leader.
Now, there's many other thingsthat we need.
We need courage, decisionmaking, uh, you know, a servant
attitude.
We can name a long list, but ifyou don't have humility, and or
if your ego is overblown, thattakes away from a lot of the
(20:56):
other things that you do well.
So what is humility?
What does that mean?
Being humble, knowing thatsometimes it's better to let
others um talk about youraccomplishments than to talk
about them yourself.
Um we all know that person who'sconstantly telling you about
what they've done.
(21:17):
And I I had a uh an associatewarden who told me one time,
it's always better to let othersread your headlines.
And there's a lot of truth tothat.
If if you're trying to read yourheadlines and trying to get
everybody to listen and go, hey,which is kind of a thing these
days, you know, social media hashas caused a lot of that.
(21:37):
And I do it myself.
I post on Facebook and LinkedIn.
Um uh whenever I'm doingsomething new, whenever I'm
speaking somewhere, or I've gota class or I've had an article
published, I post it just likeeverybody else does, and we tend
to do that.
Um, we tend to want to show offa little bit in front of our
social group.
(21:58):
But when that ego takes over andyou're always trying to convince
the people around you at workthat, hey, I did this, hey, I
did this, that gets old realquick, and they don't see the
humility in it.
What they see is a person who'salways trying to claim credit,
(22:19):
and that becomes dangerous.
Uh, people will pull away fromyou if that's what they think
you're doing.
It's much better if you can readthe headlines of the people that
work for you and let othersknow, you know, how well they
do.
And I'll I'll tell you anotherlesson I learned from a
different AW.
(22:39):
Um we were having a oh, it was afamily day, and I noticed that
he made an effort to really goto everyone's wife or husband
and to talk to them for amoment.
And and of course I was with himwhile we were doing this, and I
said, Wow, that's um that'sreally nice for you to to go
(23:00):
over there, and he would hewould speak, you know, I I
really appreciate everythingthat your your wife does at work
or your husband does at work,you know.
We we couldn't do this jobwithout them.
And um I was like, you know,that's really great stuff.
And he said, There's no greaterthing I can give to one of my um
team members, you know, one ofmy staff members, than to make
(23:23):
their family feel good aboutthem.
And I thought that was justamazing.
Um and it's the absolute truth.
Uh what do we want?
You know, it's nice to get a paton the back at work, but man,
it's even better to get a pat onthe back at home.
So anything that he could do touh let the kids or let the wife
(23:45):
or the husband or the mom or dadand let them know how important
a job that their person wasdoing, how important the job
was, and why it was importantenough for them to be away from
home, you know, for the kids andhelp them understand that also.
Um, but that pays dividends ahundred times over.
(24:08):
And I was always very impressedwhen uh I got to see him do
that, and it was something thatI tried to take on in my own
leadership style.
Another thing for leaders, stoicleadership, people expect calm
in chaos.
And if you've learned how tounderstand your feelings, if
(24:31):
you've learned how to respondinstead of react, if you've
learned how to not necessarilyshow everything that's going on
at the moment in your face,that's going to be seen as calm.
And if you think that's thinkback, that's the leaders you
want in charge when something'sgoing crazy.
On the contrast, leaders thatbring in a large ego and that
(24:55):
are loud automatically shut downcommunication.
And once that happens, theincident's not going to get
better.
People stop talking to you,people stop letting you know
what's going on, they just starttrying to avoid you.
And that's never good.
You need honesty in asupervisor's position or in an
(25:16):
admin position.
You need your people to want totalk to you.
But if your ego is overblown, ifit's loud, if you're always
trying to talk over everyone,then you're never going to hear
what you need to hear.
Another one of the stoic thingsfor supervisors to think about
is what do you control as asupervisor?
(25:37):
You know, as a correctionalofficer, I only control so much,
but how about a correctionalsupervisor?
What do I control?
Much like correctional officers,you control the tone you set,
you control the culture you set.
You control um fairness.
(25:57):
That's something from asupervisor.
That's what inmates want fromcorrectional officers, and
that's what correctionalofficers want from their
supervisors.
Fairness.
As a supervisor, you can modelprofessionalism.
You can show people whatprofessionalism looks like.
And I think we've lost a littleof that.
(26:18):
I think it I love seeing when Iuh come across supervisors who
just they command the room whenthey walk in because of their
professionalism.
Another thing that you can do asa leader, a stoic leader, is
mentorship, teaching others howto recognize their emotions,
teaching them how to respondinstead of react, teaching them
(26:41):
how to make the best decisionsfor the group.
Marcus Aurelius, uh, I think Ibelieve it was Marcus Aurelius,
but there was a quote that said,What brings no benefit to the
hive brings none to the bee.
And if we had more supervisorswho thought like that, um
(27:02):
corrections would be so muchbetter, not only for the staff,
but for the inmates as well.
What brings no benefit to thehive.
So if you're doing something asa supervisor, if you're doing
something as an admin, and umwhen you think about it, it's
not bringing a benefit to thewhole hive.
It's only bringing a benefit toone or two people or yourself,
(27:26):
then it brings no um benefit tothe bee.
And with without bees, you don'thave a hive.
Um I think it was uh SenatorJohn Boehner that said a a uh a
leader without followers is justa man with out on a walk.
And that's the absolute truth.
(27:48):
Um when you lead, you needfollowers, and you need to take
care of them.
So when you make thosedecisions, think about what's
good for the hive, and you willbring what's good for the bee.
Some more things that you cando, of course, as a stoic
leader.
Uh praise in public, correct inprivate.
(28:08):
That should be a rule foranybody, but it's something that
we can keep in mind.
Whenever you get that chance,praise them.
And when you have to correctthem, do it private.
Take them aside.
And don't just correct them,mentor them.
It's a mistake shouldn't be onlypunished.
(28:30):
It should also be a time forlearning.
That's when we learn our best,is when we make mistakes.
One other thing that um I thinkstoic leaders can do is what's
called a stoic pause.
When you're giving direction orwhen you're making decisions in
a stressful moment, it seemslike you need to say as quickly
(28:52):
as possible what your nextdecision is.
But that's not always true.
If you can take that pause, giveyourself just a moment to think,
give yourself just a moment tolook inside.
What are your emotions saying?
What are you seeing?
And make a decision that's moreof a response than a than a
reaction.
(29:12):
That's what that stoic pausegives you the moment to do.
And we almost always have timefor that pause.
Too often we get pushed intocorners, make a make a decision,
make a decision, make it now.
Take that stoic pause.
Take that moment and make surethat it is a good decision and
(29:33):
that it's based on what you'refeeling, what you see, what
others are telling you.
Don't just make decisions forthe sake of making decisions.
And that's really hard to to notdo in a stressful moment.
You know, the other thing thathappens, um, whatever you want
(29:55):
to call it, I've seen it calledmoral injury, um, from working
in corrections.
You know, correctional officerssee stuff and and they carry
stories that the public willnever see.
Um that's part of what when wego to parties or whatever, and
people will tell me whathappened.
They want to hear the worststory.
(30:15):
You know, that's where thatcomes from.
Um you know, correctionalofficers are affected by those
things.
Let me let me um speak to this.
And it's been a while since thiscame out, but I think it's
probably still very relevant.
Uh in 2011.
They did a study, andcorrectional officers
(30:36):
experienced approximately 254work-related injuries per 10,000
full-time employees.
And this was due to assaults andviolent acts.
There are roughly 8,000 assaultson correctional officers and
security staff each yearnationwide.
And civilian workers, on theother hand, it's seven per
10,000.
(30:57):
That's a huge difference.
That means correctional officersare 36% or 36 times more likely
to experience a work-relatedinjury from an assault or a
violent act than the averageworker in the civilian
profession.
So we're going to see badthings.
We're going to see bad thingshappen to people we love.
(31:19):
We're going to see bad thingshappen to inmates.
We're going to see bad thingsthat most of the world doesn't
experience.
And a lot of that causes whatthey refer to as moral injury.
You're going to see self-harm.
You're going to be forced, andthis was a tough one a few times
for me, but we're often forcedto enforce policies that I don't
(31:42):
morally agree with, right?
When the Federal Bureau ofPrisons went smoke free, I can
tell you the number of use offorces went up tremendously for
a bit.
And in my mind, I didn't have areason to back that.
I understand why they did it,that it was, you know, health of
(32:02):
the inmates and stuff like that,but it wasn't worth in my mind
all the fights, the shoulderinjury that I got during that
time, that I just had a shoulderreplaced.
It wasn't worth losing.
You know, cigarettes were a goodway to de-escalate.
You could have a guy who wasgoing off and take a moment and
(32:22):
give him a cigarette and let himsmoke a cigarette for three
minutes and often de-escalateuse of forces.
So morally, I wasn't behindtheir decision, but it wasn't my
decision to make, and I stillhad to enforce it.
So sometimes we have to do that.
And that causes us to thinkabout who we are and why we're
(32:48):
doing this job, and is it worthit?
Often we feel powerless in thosesituations.
Um and often we feel uhunsupported in those situations.
You know, you're not listened tono matter no matter if you've
got a good idea or not, thedecision's been made, this is
(33:08):
what we're gonna do, and youjust have to live with it.
So, what does this have to dowith stoicism?
Well, stoicism gives us a coupleof things that we can use when
we're dealing with these typesof moral injury or moral
questions.
And one of them is you know,stoicism allows us to clarify
(33:29):
what's our responsibility,what's our sphere of
responsibility, and what's theadministration's sphere of
responsibility.
And once you're able tounderstand that you don't have
um control over these decisions,those decisions were made by
someone else, and if they're notillegal, um immoral, that's for
(33:51):
you to decide, um, then it ispart of your job.
Having the ability to understandthat that's I didn't make this
decision, I'm not responsiblefor this decision if I feel like
it's a bad one, does allow youto set that off to the side.
Like I said, unless it's immoralor illegal, and then you then
you have to deal with it in thatmanner.
(34:12):
The other thing it allows you todo is to remember that you can
act with integrity.
You know, when you're in thosemoments that uh you might not
necessarily agree with, youdon't have to um you don't have
to do something against yourcharacter.
You can still show integrity,you can do things the right way
for the right reasons, even ifyou may not agree with the
(34:36):
decisions.
You can still choose the rightresponse, if that makes sense.
I may have rambled just a littlebit today, so I hope that uh I
hope that it makes sense.
Uh it's something I wanted totalk about.
It's something that uh I useevery day that means a lot to
me, and I hope it does for someof you.
(34:58):
You know, and in the end, thethe connection between stoicism
and corrections, it's it's notjust abstract, it's not
philosophical.
It's very practical.
It's something we can use everyday.
You know, we step into anenvironment shaped by stress,
unpredictability, and uh andresponsibility all the time.
(35:18):
Stoicism gives us a framework tostand there in the middle of
that storm and still make gooddecisions, to focus on what we
control, uh, to release or uhwhat we can't control, right?
To bring discipline andintegrity um into the job,
(35:39):
right?
This job that demands more thananything else integrity.
By training our minds the sameway we train our bodies and our
tactics, we build um staff thatare calmer under pressure, that
make better decisions, that aremore grounded in the purpose.
(36:00):
And when we carry that mindsetback home, I hope, um, the stoic
mindset into our families, ourfriendships, and our personal
lives, um, we not only becomebetter officers, we become
better human beings.
So that's the heart of today'sconversation.
Um, resilience is a skill,professionalism is a practice,
(36:22):
and that peace of mind that weseek often comes with the way
that we make choices.
And stoicism gives you theopportunity to respond and make
better choices than react andmake poor choices.
So I hope you learned a littlebit about stoicism today.
(36:44):
Um, speaking of emotionalintelligence, I invite you to go
to uh Amazon.com.
Uh Power Skills, EmotionalIntelligence, and Soft Skills
for Correctional Officers, FirstResponders, and Beyond.
Uh, this book came out thisyear.
It's been doing great.
Um for many years.
(37:07):
I avoided the words emotionalintelligence until a friend of
mine showed me that I've beenusing emotional intelligence for
years.
And that book is to show youthat you've been using emotional
intelligence for years.
Uh, the word, you know, comesout of the psychology uh area,
and for correctional officers,we kind of hang back away from
(37:29):
that.
We're not we're not sure we wantto talk about um emotions, but
the truth is almost everycorrectional officer is a
master, has the superpower, it'sa power skill, being able to
recognize others' emotions,being able to recognize our own
emotions, and make decisionsbased on that.
(37:50):
So uh check out my book.
It's on Amazon.
Uh you can find the link atwww.theprisonofficer.com at the
podcast.
Uh, there's a link on there forthat.
And before we go today, I'd liketo mention Omni Corrections.
Uh if you've been around herefor a while, you know that uh
Omni Corrections Suite is afully integrated software and
(38:11):
hardware solution engineered tomeet the unique demands of
correctional environments.
Omni Life Sense providesreal-time accurate monitoring of
heart rate, blood oxygen levels,skin temperature, and location
across your inmate population.
With continuous data forreporting purposes and instant
alerts for emergencies.
(38:32):
It empowers your team to respondfaster and more effectively.
Enhance safety, streamlineemergency response.
Check out Omnicorrections atwww.omnicorrections.com.
And while you're there, let themknow that you heard about it on
the Prison Officer Podcast.
I thank you guys.
I hope you enjoyed this today,and I will talk at you soon.
(38:53):
Have a great day.
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