Tuesday, May 12, 2015

On "I Can't Breathe", "You're Hurting Me", Etc.

I worked as a corrections officer for a brief time in my 20s (Litchfield Correctional Center - it's a rehab place now, I think), and in that time I witnessed a fair number of restraints. And I can assure you that almost without exception a) the inmate that was being restrained would yell out that we were injuring him somehow (impression management, I believe is what Goffman referred to it as) and b) the officers that were doing the restraint would NOT let the fellow up prior to having him cuffed and subdued (the reason of course being that to do otherwise would put the officers in danger). Yes, it was uncomfortable to watch at times but this is how they're taught, seriously.

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