What would you do if these guys turned on you?

"What would you do if all of these guys suddenly turned on you?"

I looked around at the guys in question. Some 15 or 20 men either convicted of, or awaiting trail for, serious violent and other crimes. Mostly they were big, broad shouldered, and spent plenty of time in the gym and working out in their cells. Any one of them could have overpowered me with little difficulty, let alone a roomful of them.

I stood at one side of the room, away from the nearest door, and with no alarm button to hand. In the case of a swift, multiple assailant attack, neither the radio, nor the extendable baton I carried, would have helped much.

He had their attention all right. The scrawny, nasty, little guy sneered in delight. Too puny and cowardly to fight his own fights, he was always happy to make trouble for others. Some of the guys in question nodded as if they, too, wondered what I would do. One or two may have been considering the option to set upon me, though I can't think what for. Some were looking at me curiously, non-committal, awaiting my reply with evident interest.

Earlier, I had escorted a group of prisoners to a work training session in one of the annex rooms. The instructor for the morning had yet to arrive. Given the number of prisoners attending, it would have been unsafe to have a single member of non-uniform staff in charge of so many prisoners, hence my presence. Until the staff member arrived, I was on my own. This was not unusual, and I knew how to keep safe but, then again, the puny guy knew how to cause trouble.

"What would I do?" I replied.

"Yeah! What would you do?"

I turned my head to the crowd, as if in appraisal.

"I'd have no troubled taking them all on," I answered with a confident shrug. This raised a few eyebrows, to say the least. One or two faces even adopted a scowl at the unwarranted boast. "Not with you covering my back," I said to the weedy guy, straining to maintain the deadpan expression. "Between the two of us, we could easily take this lot."

This produced a burst of laughter. One of the big guys, chuckling beside me, even patted me on the shoulder, indicating his approval.

Tension broken, joke offered and accepted, by all but the butt of the joke, the day’s business continued. The idea that such a weedy wretch could take on anyone, let alone a room full of tough guys, was beyond derision. I felt a twinge of regret at his discomfiture but he’d asked for it, and it had shut him up for the time being. He stormed off, after leaving me with a parting...

"There's no way I would be on your side!"

It was a silly kind of incident, and I had laughed it off just like any other officer would have done. Others may have taken a different approach, but each in their own way, each using what they had, to deal with the very human situations that arose through the working day in prison.

I was in my late forties, when I joined the prison service. Dealing with tense situations, aggressive and potentially violent prisoners, was part of the day to day role of the prison officer. The aim was always to de-escalate, and this approach worked 99.9% of the time. If we had to use force, we were trained to do so in a way that was as safe as possible for us, and the prisoners. But force was a last resort

What prisoners didn't know, was that I was a use of force specialist. I had received considerable additional training in advanced techniques including what was, effectively, riot control. I even provided other officers with 'refresher' training, which was great fun.

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I was an accredited use of force instructor, and a 'Tornado' commander, meaning I was in command of a unit of twelve other officers, which could be deployed to deal with a 'serious incident' in our prison, or any other prison that needed support. As a specialist, I had my own personal protective (‘riot') equipment, packed in a hold-all, ready to throw on a van at a minute’s notice, if deployed to deal with a prison emergency, but…

That is another story.

Thanks for reading this one.