Prison Guards Are ‘#FeelingCute’ About Threatening To Assault Inmates for No Reason - wtf i love police now

https://reason.com/2019/04/17/priso...on/HitandRun+(Reason+Online+-+Hit+&+Run+Blog)

Prison Guards Are ‘#FeelingCute’ About Threatening To Assault Inmates for No Reason
"Feeling cute, might just gas some inmates today, IDK."
JOE SETYON | 4.17.2019 12:15 PM

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(Facebook screenshots via America's Police Problem)
Regular Reason readers know that we're regular critics of police activity on social media. It's not that we want to censor them, it's just that their attempts to be witty or brag about confiscating a bit of weed and a $2 bill usually fall flat.
There's a big difference, though, between posting a cringeworthy joke and actually threatening to use your power to hurt people for no reason. It's the latter that's sparked multiple investigations in law enforcement agencies around the country.
It all started with the #FeelingCute challenge, a social media craze in which users post selfies of themselves suggesting something they may—or may not—do later. I suppose it can be funny, if you're into that sort of thing.
Apparently, the viral challenge was particularly popular among members of a (now-private) Facebook group called Correctional Officer Life. But the actions some of the group's nearly 30,000 members claimed to be considering can only be described as cruel.
"Feeling cute, might just gas some inmates today, IDK," one user posted, along with a selfie of what appeared to be the Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ) employee, according to the Houston Chronicle's Keri Blakinger. A photo of a different person in TDCJ uniform included the caption: "#feelingcute my gas the whole wing later."
"Gassing" is a prison slang term referring to when inmates throw human waste products at guards or fellow inmates. The posts from alleged TDCJ employees could be suggesting that they be the ones to throw feces or urine at inmates.
"The Texas Department of Criminal Justice is aware of the so-called feel cute challenge currently on social media," TDCJ communications director Jeremy Desel told the Chronicle. "A handful of correctional officers employed by this agency are under investigation for on and off-duty conduct violations as a result of the alleged posting of inappropriate photographs on social media."
"If any of these allegations prove correct then swift disciplinary action as severe as termination of involved employees will occur," an agency spokesperson added to yc.news.
It's not just Texas. A woman who identifies herself on Facebook as a correctional officer at Wheeler Correctional facility in Georgia wrote: "Feeling cute; might put your baby daddy in the shower for 6 hours, since we aint got no beds in Seg. But I don't know yet."
Another alleged Wheeler employee wrote: "Feeling cute, might shoot your baby daddy today…Idk," according to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
"The alleged actions of these individuals do not reflect the conduct expected of any GDC employee, and will not be tolerated," Georgia Department of Corrections spokesperson Joan Heath told the newspaper.
Another user, who KOMU identified as a corrections officer in Jefferson City, Missouri, wrote: "Feeling Cute. Might take your homeboy to the hole later." Missouri Department of Corrections Director Karen Pojmann told the outlet that prison employees "are expected to help ensure that interactions with offenders and fellow employees are professional and respectful."
The police accountability website America's Police Problem took screenshots of many of the posts. Some of the more noteworthy examples can be seen below:

• "Feeling cute, may find drugs on your Baby Mama that 'isn't hers' later but idk yet."
• "Feeling cute: might take your baby daddy to the box later."
• "#feelingcute might take the hot pots and TV cords out the dorms today idk."
• "Feeling kinda cute, might take your BM to the hole tonight."
• "#feelingcute might just tase your gf later! It's an electrifying experience!"
• "Feeling kinda Cute Tonight!!! Might search your boyfriend Cell and Mess it up!!! Idk yet still thinking."

The best way to read these posts would be as jokes that are in very, very poor taste. The problem is, there's no guarantee they're just jokes.
Abuse of inmates in prisons and jails around the country is a very real problem. Reason has documented egregious cases from Texas and Georgia, for instance, where inmates died after spending months in jail because they couldn't afford to make bail. (The Marshall Project also has a useful page linking to stories about inmate deaths nationwide.)
There's no evidence any of the corrections officers who posted about mistreating inmates actually did so. But it leaves a bad taste when prison guards joke about it, given how often it ends up happening and how little accountability there is when it does.

 

[Male Idiot]

I see nothimg wrong, just tough prison love uwu.

 

[Aquinas]

I can, to a point, see where odie is coming from, because i do agree
just not to the point where i will get angry about it. i mean these people are supposed to be professionals at a job, and should act as such. with professionalism. I mean would you want someone to serve you food if you see that they post about pissing in they're drinks on social media?
i mean, joke or not it makes you think twice about how that actually behave at work, ya know?

 

[Haramburger]

Anyone who visits the ResetEra/NeoGAF thread, can we take a moment to pause and reflect on a staff member criticizing a poster with a contrarian point of view, the poster responding back & getting a "fuck you" from said staff member, and the thread's still up & nobody's been moderated? It's beautiful. Simply beautiful. I'm easy to please.

EDIT: corrected for dream-killers

 

[Aquinas]

nobody's been moderated?

well i mean, @Odie Esty DID get thread banned, though he was making an ass of himself so i expected as much.

 

[Dracula's Spirit Animal]

This thread is a disaster.

Anyhow, I really don't see how this is a problem. The guards get to let off some light-hearted steam, which helps create a sense of community and support between likeminded people.

They get to vent in a humorous way, rather than letting their frustrations boil and legitimately turn into something ugly.

Prisoners get to see they are fucking around with jokes.

Civilians get to see them as normal people with an ability to joke about a tough situation.

The only butthurt about this is from moral policing twats who somehow think most people in every profession behave differently.

You should look at military humour. Or lawyers making fun of their clients behind closed doors. Or therapists. Or doctors. Granted, this isn't behind closed doors, but it also lacks that need for confidentiality.

If any prisoner was scared or butthurt about this sort of thing, they are in for a lot more butthurt from their fellow inmates than this banter.

 

[ToroidalBoat]

me before opening thread: "Let me guess -- this story comes from the USA, doesn't it?"

 

[OhGoy]

If they don't like you you're fucking dead, you're just dead. They kill you. One guy I worked with was bent over and raped with a pool cue. I was stabbed in the head and neck, one of my friends was tossed off the top rung of a 3 tier housing unit and shattered his legs.

Spoiler: i propose an alternate form of "gassing" inmates

 

[Carcinogenesis]

Prisons make people crazy. Even the guards.

Wasn't the Stanford Prison Experiment proven fraudulent as the researcher coached the guards to be cruel?

 

[OB 946]

Wasn't the Stanford Prison Experiment proven fraudulent as the researcher coached the guards to be cruel?

Yes. The guards were given no rules of engagement other than "maintain order," the prisoners were stripped naked and given only smocks, they were deprived of constitutionally mandated freedoms that all prisoners enjoy such as access to both hot and cold water, outdoor recreation, natural sunlight, a balanced and varied diet, and protections from cruel and unusual punishment. The Stanford Experiment has not been able to be replicated in any other setting. It was patently bad science.

Another shitty experiment was the Milgram experiment. People tout it as some great discovery, but in reality the participants did object to what they were doing, almost universally, and only pressed on because of the threat of physical harm or imprisonment. Decisions made under duress are not the same as "following an authority figure" which is what the study initially touted. If I hold a gun to your head and tell you to shoot some random you've never met or I blow your brains out, you're gonna do it. You may not feel good, you may be upset, you may protest a little bit, but you'll shoot the rando.

 

[neverendingmidi]

It's a meme that's been done for a bunch of jobs in stupid ways. I know I saw one for UPS talking about drop kicking a package.

I'm pretty sure I saw one for GOT talking about killing people, and one for Hannibal involving canibalism.

 

[Manah]

Yes. The guards were given no rules of engagement other than "maintain order," the prisoners were stripped naked and given only smocks, they were deprived of constitutionally mandated freedoms that all prisoners enjoy such as access to both hot and cold water, outdoor recreation, natural sunlight, a balanced and varied diet, and protections from cruel and unusual punishment. The Stanford Experiment has not been able to be replicated in any other setting. It was patently bad science.

Another shitty experiment was the Milgram experiment. People tout it as some great discovery, but in reality the participants did object to what they were doing, almost universally, and only pressed on because of the threat of physical harm or imprisonment. Decisions made under duress are not the same as "following an authority figure" which is what the study initially touted. If I hold a gun to your head and tell you to shoot some random you've never met or I blow your brains out, you're gonna do it. You may not feel good, you may be upset, you may protest a little bit, but you'll shoot the rando.

I can't remember if it was Milgram or Standford, but iirc the person doing the experiment also participated personally which is a big no-no.

 

[OB 946]

I can't remember if it was Milgram or Standford, but iirc the person doing the experiment also participated personally which is a big no-no.

Yeah that was the Stanford experiment. He was in character as the "warden" which violates like every scientific ethical standard. The Milgram experiment is when they pretended to administer lethal shocks to people.

 

[Wendy Carter]

I decided to jump in to say 2 things:

1. @Odie Esty and myself had managed to resolve our differences peacefully. Some of his arguments are pretty good, he just has a bit of a chip on his shoulder, but he's quite rational once he calms down a bit.
2. @Andrew Blaze, stop being an asshole. At least have some dignity and try to meet the other person halfway rather than going about talking shit about him and publically releasing screenshots his attempts to de-escalate the situation as some sort of attempt to humiliate him, the way you're going about this makes you look very irrational.

Now I'm just wondering where the hell this thread will go next, this is quite a rollercoaster of events.

 

[Ineedahero]

Man bitches be dumping their purses all over this thread.

 

[polonium]

Man bitches be dumping their purses all over this thread.

spaghetti everywhere

 

[Recoil]

Ugh it's worse than Comic Sans

At least comic sans has a purpose - being readable to the elderly.
This font just needs to be put on train cars immediately.

 

[Duke Nukem]

At least comic sans has a purpose - being readable to the elderly.
This font just needs to be put on train cars immediately.

Yeah and then the whole train should be set on fire and driven off a cliff like in Back to the Future III.

 

[Dracula's Spirit Animal]

I was thinking about this subject this morning, and am just going to sort of expand on my thinking a bit from an earlier post. Sort of peripheral, but not really off-topic.

You know how animals, in puppy mills, mistreated, in poorly run or designed zoos end up all neurotic? Some become listless, some hurt themselves, some turn out all right, some snap and become aggressive. It's the same with humans. Pretending we're not animals with the same susceptibilities is kinda crazy.

People reeee-ing about these guards is conterproductive, IMO. Humour exists for a reason -- or several really. It allows for people to mitigate the damage of stressful or traumatizing environments. These people want to remove that coping mechanism.

I think it's a problem with the entire left. So many things are now verboten and there is this humourless, joyless zeitgeist where everything is offensive, a calamity, and veiled hate. Thinking about the whole thing about comedians rarely going to colleges any more. Everything is outrage and spite from these types. And art is sanitized and neutered along with humour. Or looking back at the USSR, it was the same thing. Humourless and with sterile art.

A lot of other factors of course, but I think in both the USSR and the modern west with its left wing ideology, there is a natural rise of thye extremes of neuroticism. The cliche of depressed and drunkard Russians has some truth to it, and maybe the soviet zeitgeist had something to do with it.

Same in the west, the high rates of suicide, depression, anxiety, school shootings, massive prescribing of mood altering medication... These problems never really became epidemic until the leftist ideology started to take a firm foothold. I kind of think that has at least some of its roots in the humourlessness, art policing, and sense of powerlessness in a framework of victim culture.

Hell, we have KF for that humour release, to laugh at people. Probably helps keep us from becoming even more exceptional than we already are.

Dunno, just kind of thinking about that a bit, and think it makes sense....

 

[Marvin]

You have to be a really shitty human being to fuck an entire person's career because they made a tasteless joke, you know that?

Nonsense. This is a matter of professionalism. Intentionally connecting your job with these kinds of jokes legitimately puts your work performance into question.

The right thing to do is fire these dumbasses and publicly shame them.

But then again, there's way bigger problems with law enforcement officers. Jokes are at the bottom of the totem pole here.

 

[Corbin Dallas Multipass]

Holy shit it's a meme. Stop your moral grandstanding, these people get piss and shit thrown on them, HIV blood spit at them, beat up, stabbed, degraded, and overworked for $12.41 an hour. Chill the fuck out. Let them make jokes.

I know, when will we end this mandatory prison guard program where people just get drafted into being prison guards against their wills. Those poor fellows...