Tuesday 24 July 2012
Tuesday 10 July 2012
I'm going to tell you a secret.
I'm going to tell you a secret about me.
But before I do, I will tell you about my last few shifts, each of which featured a new and spectacular level of abuse from the recently arrested.
Dazzlingly fluent, complaining, attacking, verbal assaults. Expertly chosen selections of the most traditionally effective insults that would be personal weren't they so generic.
At this level of skill, it really becomes an art form.
The first of this superbatch was around 5am Sunday morning - a spectacular award-winning torrent of abuse by any standard, at which it was all I could do not to giggle.
Or applaud.
Detention officers who see this day-in day-out were left in 15 minutes of hysterics.
Now, admittedly, every time he took a breath for air, I would recharge his motor with a query such as...
"well, that's not very nice", or
"well, I'm sure you don't mean that...."
Or "actually I should let you know, that's coming over as a bit rude..."
This sort of gentle feedback, if anything, strangely, seems to heighten the speed, volume and general endlessness of the river of abuse.
And the same thing happened on Monday, and indeed today.
The imprisoned complaining about their walls.
Challenging any who approached.
Who goes there? Foe or foe?
They push, they poke, they try to push you off your plinth, testing your foundations, your resolve, questioning your identity, your ability, your physique, your sexuality and anything else that suits them.
Face this repeatedly, you really have to be sure of who you are, or perhaps who this could turn you into.
You have to ask the question.
Maybe you're a roughhewn rock and these cuts will shape you into David.
Or maybe you're David already, and these cuts will shape you into a roughhewn rock.
They usually harp on about their human rights and their access to solicitors.
They quote psychiatrists and counsellors who know that they are "like this".
Their bad behaviour pass.
And these people, of which I speak, weren't drunk.
They chose this behaviour.
Or did they? Because the person screaming at me at 8am this morning told me he actually had a note from a counsellor saying that he had to shout at such a volume because he was incapable of not shouting when agitated.
A note...
I hadn't heard that one before...a note permitting the highest volume of verbal abuse.
And I didn't fully realise, that their rights to do this don't seem to result in them being rearrested for this abuse.
Outside a police station, a simple reference to a policeman's comical hat would be enough to have you nicked.
But inside you can question his parental legitimacy and spit in his face and suffer no redress.
And they can do the same to any of the rest of us who have an obligation to turn up.
Apparently we surrendered our human rights when we walked into the station.
We don't have the right to be offended.
We don't have the right not to be insulted. To be treated with respect.
We cannot prosecute.
We can't complain.
The police tell me they gave up those rights when they did the job.
I'm not even sure if I can laugh it off without bolstering their complaint.
Another complaint for the solicitor ...."he didn't take me seriously".
But I'm not a policeman and I don't remember giving up those rights.
They bang the cells, they bang their heads, they question the temperature at which their hot chocolate is served, the timing of their methadone delivery and they exercise their right to kick, punch and destroy. A man this morning took the wheel off his own wheelchair, and told everybody how his rights were being infringed.
"His rights"..... as he launched into another torrent of abuse and ignored everybody else's.
But then I realised what the police are doing there.
What the walls are doing there.
Why the locks are on.
Why the cameras are there.
Demon's run when a good man goes to war.
All the videotape, the surveillance.
All the rules.
The code of practice that lay in pieces on the floor of the cell.
That system he hated and complained about so much.
The system that had taken his freedom.
The same system that taken my right to reply, to counter, to respond.
I realised what it was all for.
All those rules.
They were there to protect him.
From me.
I'll tell you my secret.....
I'm a doctor.
I'm going to tell you a secret about me.
But before I do, I will tell you about my last few shifts, each of which featured a new and spectacular level of abuse from the recently arrested.
Dazzlingly fluent, complaining, attacking, verbal assaults. Expertly chosen selections of the most traditionally effective insults that would be personal weren't they so generic.
At this level of skill, it really becomes an art form.
The first of this superbatch was around 5am Sunday morning - a spectacular award-winning torrent of abuse by any standard, at which it was all I could do not to giggle.
Or applaud.
Detention officers who see this day-in day-out were left in 15 minutes of hysterics.
Now, admittedly, every time he took a breath for air, I would recharge his motor with a query such as...
"well, that's not very nice", or
"well, I'm sure you don't mean that...."
Or "actually I should let you know, that's coming over as a bit rude..."
This sort of gentle feedback, if anything, strangely, seems to heighten the speed, volume and general endlessness of the river of abuse.
And the same thing happened on Monday, and indeed today.
The imprisoned complaining about their walls.
Challenging any who approached.
Who goes there? Foe or foe?
They push, they poke, they try to push you off your plinth, testing your foundations, your resolve, questioning your identity, your ability, your physique, your sexuality and anything else that suits them.
Face this repeatedly, you really have to be sure of who you are, or perhaps who this could turn you into.
You have to ask the question.
Maybe you're a roughhewn rock and these cuts will shape you into David.
Or maybe you're David already, and these cuts will shape you into a roughhewn rock.
They usually harp on about their human rights and their access to solicitors.
They quote psychiatrists and counsellors who know that they are "like this".
Their bad behaviour pass.
And these people, of which I speak, weren't drunk.
They chose this behaviour.
Or did they? Because the person screaming at me at 8am this morning told me he actually had a note from a counsellor saying that he had to shout at such a volume because he was incapable of not shouting when agitated.
A note...
I hadn't heard that one before...a note permitting the highest volume of verbal abuse.
And I didn't fully realise, that their rights to do this don't seem to result in them being rearrested for this abuse.
Outside a police station, a simple reference to a policeman's comical hat would be enough to have you nicked.
But inside you can question his parental legitimacy and spit in his face and suffer no redress.
And they can do the same to any of the rest of us who have an obligation to turn up.
Apparently we surrendered our human rights when we walked into the station.
We don't have the right to be offended.
We don't have the right not to be insulted. To be treated with respect.
We cannot prosecute.
We can't complain.
The police tell me they gave up those rights when they did the job.
I'm not even sure if I can laugh it off without bolstering their complaint.
Another complaint for the solicitor ...."he didn't take me seriously".
But I'm not a policeman and I don't remember giving up those rights.
They bang the cells, they bang their heads, they question the temperature at which their hot chocolate is served, the timing of their methadone delivery and they exercise their right to kick, punch and destroy. A man this morning took the wheel off his own wheelchair, and told everybody how his rights were being infringed.
"His rights"..... as he launched into another torrent of abuse and ignored everybody else's.
But then I realised what the police are doing there.
What the walls are doing there.
Why the locks are on.
Why the cameras are there.
Demon's run when a good man goes to war.
All the videotape, the surveillance.
All the rules.
The code of practice that lay in pieces on the floor of the cell.
That system he hated and complained about so much.
The system that had taken his freedom.
The same system that taken my right to reply, to counter, to respond.
I realised what it was all for.
All those rules.
They were there to protect him.
From me.
I'll tell you my secret.....
I'm a doctor.
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