How do you re-establish control once loss. Great question sent from one of our viewers. 

Great job by everyone. Really great message to get out there. When this situation happens to anyone you feel like your on an island. It happens to all of us. It is the growing pains of Corrections we must all overcome

Another thing I would like to emphasize is that this officer has a limited amount of time in and that MIGHT also mean he or she is young. Nothing wrong with being young and having limited experience but it makes every situation more difficult. Your credability and your reputation can purchase you a lot of compliance and when you are older that has an effect to. So go forward, develop your reputation, be decisive in front of the inmates at every turn. It won't happen in a day or even a year but each step moves you toward a better reputation and more credability. Somedays you might lose some ground but don't be dissuaded. This is a career not a job. Learn from it. And reaching out to get some insight is hard but you did it and that speaks volumes. You will get there!

Great question! I agree with literally everything said, and know full well that every agency is different, so my advice may or may not always be applicable to the person that asked the question. Fist and foremost, yesterday is gone and done. Yes, we all do dwell on things at times no matter how much time you have, but you need to get over it and move on. Do not let a bad day like that get you down the next day. If the issues persist, you are absolutely going to have to make an example or two or three out of some inmates. Again, this is where it may vary from agency to agency, but if that was going on where I work, there would be a random handful of people sent to confinement if it continued. Proving a point can and does work especially early on in your career. As your career moves forward, I can almost promise you that your issues will go down. The inmates are trying to push your buttons and 'try' you, and that is going to happen often due to how new you are. Everyone of us and everyone you work with went through it if they will admit it or not. Also as was said, get out there among the inmates if you can. Do your job, do searches, but also talk to them, get a general feel of the unit. Finally, there is zero wrong with needing assistance sometimes. A new officer that may not be having the best of days where inmates think that they can get away with anything can often be handled by fellow senior offices showing up and assisting that officer as it shows the inmates that this new officer DOES have backup and support when needed. What is described in that question to you Anthony, had that exact same scenario happened where I work and I responded, I would have found one inmate and taken him to confinement and ensured everyone knew it was due to not locking down, and I'm sure other staff would have taken a couple more. Everything I said may or may not work given the situation and scenario, and EVERY situation is different, but MOST important: the day is over and tomorrow is coming. Perhaps tomorrow will be a bad day as well but maybe not. The more inmates see you and the more you do your job properly, the easier it will get in time.

Yes thank you for always posing such awesome content.

I work in private rehabilitation parole violation center, where there's no supervision on 3rd shift and barely 2md shift. My best advice is like was said in this video remind them if they want to make waves your make a tsunami! Write ups confiscation slips, write up infractions but remember respect goes a long way. they will stop testing you and go to different co worker. Stay strong! Do your job! Good luck!

What a great question to post! I know this happens more often then officers like to talk about. To the young officer-don't let it affect the way you do your job tomorrow. Each day is a new day and you go in there with confidence and the inmates will listen. If you need to discipline then you do what needs to be done. Good luck!

A trick I like to use should the inmates refuse to lock is shakedowns. I walk through the unit and I’m saying it’s count time and the inmates want to hang out in the day room, start going into the cells that are empty. We can shakedown at any time for any reason. Go in and get nosey. They’ll see this and start going in. Once it is officially count time, start closing doors. They’ll get moving. If not, they’re refusing lock and go to seg and won’t be your problem anymore anyway. 🤷🏻‍♂️

Today is a new day is key in what you said Anthony . I feel confidence and walking in with that feeling of i own this non confrontational but take no crap attitude

I usually do one of two things. My units have 118 max. It isn’t all of them and I got 8 hrs so I go problem by problem and explain that I’m not playing games today. Any resistance I’m shaking down him and two unrelated people on either side of him. Or just come in and start writing tickets. Tell the supervisor before that you’re bringing down the hammer and why. To avoid it looking like you’re protesting the post assignment. I go with the reluctant attitude, “I don’t like doing this but you forced my hand, don’t mess with me, I do tours and sit at my desk.” “You wanted it this way”.

Great guest spots brother this video is getting better and better.

Ok i explain it like this it takes a rookie at least 5 years to learn to deal with convicts and it takes the convicts several months to understand who or what type of cop you will be. Ok heres some of my chump change. 1. All inmates recieve a handbook with some of the rules, read it learn it. 2 your department has directives when it comes to discipline read it learn it. 3. When that happens again i handled it like this, i put both books in my pockets so inmates see it. (Inmates will always test you). Once you learn the job, know the rules and how to implement them. i would stand dead center of the unit call recall and watched them look up, i made sure they see me put notes in my notepad whoever took longest or wasted time to lock up usally the last I/M to lock up is your trouble maker. Now with those names start to issue Discipline reports. I didnt care how many i had to write. By the end of the 5 days all I/Ms locked up on time. How you do things within the next 5 years will make you an officer. inmates will understand you and your actions will follow you the rest of your career. Remember I/Ms need to know what type of cop your are its all a test, , and you need to learn to how to be a cop by picking what you learn from your senior cops. I hope this help a little, Rookies urggggggggggg. ;-)

Sometimes, you’ve just gotta write a tornado of tickets. They may hate you for a little while but they’ll know what you won’t tolerate

Wow. I saw a similar thing with the cadets. One guy trying to stir up everyone against another cadet. It did not work for him. But I can see exactly how it would work in a unit.

Great advice from everybody its spot on. Stay safe Brothers and Sisters

The Inmates that started the how thing with not listening to a direct order need to go to confinement. Because you already know you don't have the control at the moment, call the Building Supervisor and back up. When the main source of distraction is dealt with, deal with the rest of the Unit. At this point u are most of the time back in control, they know you dealt with the situation so they will follow the directive order. If one or two try this again, send them out. Then lock the rest of the Unit down. If you have a good Team behind you they stand with you, supervisor and other officers. What this means is even that hes your supervisor he will let you give orders and will just help you with the other officers to establish that the orders are followed. I was in the Situation with one Inmate yesterday. He told me you are new and can't do shit without a supervisor, he was partial right because i was on overtime i didn't know the way this team would handle the Situation. But i made the decision to call the Supervisor, not asking him if that's what i can do just telling him the Inmate is not following directives and i gonna send him to solitary confinement for 10 hours. The Supervisor understood why I didn't ask, and just said do what you think is right. After the situation was dealt with i went personally to the Supervisor and explained to him that i know this is not my Shift and that I did't wanted to go over his head, but that i needed to make clear to the Inmate and Unit that I am the one that owned the house for the next few working hours. The supervisor told me that he would appreciate more officers like me, making decisions and know how to back them when they are made. He told me that we deal with the Situation first, and if he thought that it was dealt with the wrong way, we can correct that later on. But even then you should be the one correction the Problem, so that you get the credit from the Inmate that you are the one in Control. Lets say the supervisor tells you the 10 hours was not enough or to much, then he should give you a set of reasons and I could go to the Inmate and tell him: "I reviewed your file and now know its your first time acting this way, that is why you gonna get less time" or the other way around "After reviewing your file this was not the first time you acted out, so i have to give you more time" That shows the Inmate I'm in charge and never gives out that i need a supervisor to make a decision.

Sorry I've been away awhile life has been in the way. Ok, when you lose control, you can't be wishy washy. You have to take control. Get your pride out of the way and get help. The next time you have to let out for meals or showers slow things down. Let out fewer cells at once so it's easier to maintain control. This also let's them know that you are in control and they will get out when you decide they get out. Tell supervisors before you do it, and if they say no, ask for help.

I was in this exact situation myself. I think the advice given is great. Remember you're in charge. In my case writing them up ( which means they lose privileges) is enough to get them in line

Damn I'm interested in this answer.

We had the option too if we were starting to lose control to just freeze the yard, put it down and then do a controlled recall and lockup. If it didn't go down well there was going to be a riot then anyway so at least you knew...

Sometimes you have to lunge them Just like you do a police horse before you ride it. Know what I mean?