An hour or so into the shift, some inmates on the kitchen crew were caught stealing cookies. That’s not uncommon. Big surprise, but most people who get to jail don’t have a lot of ethical hang-ups about stealing. What was surprising was that they almost wanted to be caught.
Still, it wasn’t my area. Another sergeant had the East End. I was dealing with the Mental Health units on the West End.
Then a backup call. When the officer tried to cut the cookie-thieves some slack and NOT send them to segregation, they refused. They wanted to go to the hole.
This was bad. If you don’t work in the system, you might not see it right away, but situational awareness is all about the situation. A jail or prison kitchen is like any other industrial kitchen. It contains a lot of things that can double as improvised weapons—knives, steam cauldrons, pots, pans, and the like. This one had 20 inmates, four civilian cooks to supervise them, and a single, unarmed officer assigned to maintain control.
Something was going to happen and whatever it was, it was so bad almost half of the inmates wanted no part of it. They were willing to go to the hole and even do extra time to not be in that kitchen on that day.
I called Lt. Turney. “This could be bad, sir. No way to be sure but it smells like a build-up to a potential hostage situation.”
“I can spare you one officer. Do what you can.”
“Can I have Craig?”
“Sure.”
Craig was a former Marine, one of my CERT members and a thoroughly good man in a crisis. I knew and trusted his ability in a fight. More importantly, I trusted his judgment, common sense, and people skills. What we were about to do was all people skills.
Just adding two unarmed officers to the mix didn’t change the odds that much. If things went bad we would still be heavily outnumbered and out-armed. But we weren’t there to fight. For the next few hours, Craig and I were everywhere. Talking, listening, and telling jokes.
Nothing happened. I’ll never know if something was really going to happen. But I wouldn’t bet against it. And if I’m right, we changed that. Sometimes nothing is the perfect outcome.
Most self-defense experts agree that for the average citizen, the majority of dangers can be identified and avoided simply by learning how to look out for them. If you do things right, it is possible to talk your way out of more than half of the potentially violent situations that you cannot avoid. Together, this strategy means that you should only need to fight your way out of three, four, or at worst, five of every hundred hazardous encounters. With good situational awareness, you may not have anywhere near a hundred such confrontations in your lifetime so those odds really aren’t all that bad.
So what is situational awareness? At the simplest level, it is knowing what is going on around you. More specifically, it is the ability to identify, process, and comprehend factors that can be important for your safety and welfare, such as the existence of potential threats, escape routes, and weapons.
Can you remember a time when you were driving along the highway, suddenly “knew” the car beside you was going to swerve into your lane, and took evasive action to avoid an accident? Almost everyone who drives has done that on numerous occasions. It is so common that most of us forget about such incidents shortly afterward. This ability to predict what other drivers are going to do is an excellent example of good situational awareness. If you fail to pay attention to what is going on around you, fixate on one task, or become preoccupied with work or personal matters, you can lose the ability to detect important information that can place you in danger when you are in a public place. In the driving example, talking or texting on your cell phone may diminish your ability to detect another driver about to move into your lane. Distracted driving causes a lot of accidents.
Knowing when it is time to leave a party is another example of good situational awareness. Fights at parties tend to happen after a certain time of night. It’s not the hour on the clock that is important, but rather the mood of the crowd. Most people have a good time and leave long before the fecal matter hits the oscillating blades. Just about everyone who is going to hook up has already done so; they’ve found a date, left together, and are off having fun. As the crowd starts to thin, those who have nothing better to do than cause trouble are the ones who are left. Buzzing with frustration and raging hormones, those who insist on hanging on well into the night are the ones who get caught up in it when the shit is most likely to fly. If you pay attention to the behaviors of those around you, however, it’s fairly easy to know when it is time to leave. If you are not there when things start to get rough, bad things cannot happen to you.
The same dynamics happen in just about any location or situation. By surveying and evaluating your environment, you achieve more control over what happens to you. Good situational awareness helps you make yourself a hard target by eliminating easy opportunities for those who wish to do you harm. It is not a guarantee of safety because there are no absolutes when it comes to self-defense, yet good situational awareness can let you predict and avoid most difficult situations.
Situational awareness, in general, is a skill that everyone instinctively has, yet few individuals pay attention to it. In most cases, you should be able to spot a developing situation and leave before anything bad happens. Pay attention to your built-in survival mechanisms, your gut feelings if you will. Once you begin to do this habitually, you will dramatically improve your safety. Your awareness skills can also be refined and improved through practice in much the same way that predicting other drivers’ behavior becomes easier over time.
Sometimes, however, try as you might to avoid it, trouble finds you and you must react accordingly. Good awareness helps you be prepared for that as well. It can be used before, during, and after a fight.
No one can maintain an elevated level of awareness at all times in all places. There is a difference between being aware and becoming paranoid. Any time you are near others, however, especially strangers, it pays to be vigilant so as not to be caught unawares by sudden conflict. This simply means looking for and paying attention to anything that stands out from the norm, not only things that you see, smell, or hear, or in some cases touch, but also other’s reactions to things that you cannot detect directly.
You cannot walk around in a constant state of hypervigilance, however. It’s emotionally and physically untenable. Consequently, it is important to scale your awareness up or down depending on whatever you encounter around you.
Low-level awareness is essential any time you are out in public. You should be able to identify, without looking twice, generally who and what is around you. Know about vehicles, people, building entrances, street corners, and areas that might provide concealment for a threat or a source of cover to escape toward should something untoward happen.
Be self-assured and appear confident in everything you do without presenting an overt challenge or threat to others. Predators typically stalk those they consider weaker prey, rarely victimizing the strong. We are not just talking about hardcore criminals here, but also bullies and petty thugs as well. Walk with your head upright, casually scanning your immediate area as well as what is just beyond. See who and what is ahead of you, be aware of the environment to each side, and occasionally turn to scan behind you as you move.
If you become aware of some nebulous danger, something out of place, pay attention to it, but not
