Inmate Manipulation
The Dead Sea
Bud Allen & Diana Bosta begin their book with a short allegorical commentary titled, The Dead Sea, in which they liken those who only take as being devoid of life just as the Dead Sea. In order to be a functional member of society, one must be able to give at times regardless of what may or may not be received. A balance must be found between give and take. Allen & Bosta suggest those who can only give find themselves in psychiatric institutions and those who can only take generally find themselves in prisons.
Preface
The Preface introduces the concept of patterned information being delivered to a person, usually the victim, in order to produce a desired reaction that would normally not have occurred. Law abiding individuals succumb to this form of manipulation because they do not verify the information being delivered to them.
Prologue
The Prologue introduces the tactics inmates will use to manipulate and coerce correctional staff. The case described deals with a Correctional Officer who identified with, felt obligated to, and ultimately felt sympathy for an inmate. The Officer identified with the inmate because each shared similar beliefs. When the Officer “lost” a set of security keys the inmate he identified with found and returned those keys to him without anyone knowing. The Officer felt obligated to the inmate because he could have lost his job over the incident and the inmate could have gotten in trouble for holding the keys overnight until the Officer returned to work. At that stage the inmate told the Officer of his problems such as his wife leaving him and his sick baby needing medicine. The sympathy the Officer felt leads to him violating minor rules that allegedly help the inmate and his sick baby, thus fulfilling his since of obligation. However, the rule violations are used to coerce the Officer into smuggling marijuana into the prison (a major rule violation). After a while, the Officer refused to bring in anymore drugs. The very inmate he was trying to help stabbed him in the chest as an act of retaliation.
To the Reader
Conflict between inmates and correctional staff arises from opposing individual identities. Those incarcerated have generally formed identities that are counterproductive and prove to be destructive to themselves and those around them. Correctional employees, like any other free persons, have formed identities that allow for a career and continued freedom within society. Those incarcerated are predisposed to animosity toward the system because it is the system that ultimately took their freedom. Likewise, inmates find they can gain peer statues by circumventing rules and embarrassing those who are suppose to enforce the rules. The authors suggest that employees can alleviate much of the conflict by preventing bad behavior before it occurs. By preventing bad behavior, the inmate will not have to undergo additional discipline which further fuels his or her animosity toward the system and the process of rehabilitation can occur. In order for this to happen, employees must first recognize inmate deception before it goes too far and end it immediately.
Terms and Definitions
This chapter takes a look at what constitutes a profession by focusing on some common terms and definitions. A distinguishing characteristic of a profession is the vocabulary used to convey ideas. Additional characteristics include the ongoing education of practitioners and the continuing research within the field. Now, more than ever, corrections is a legitimate profession which holds many advancement opportunities for the initiated. The reader should carefully examine this chapter. The examples used by the authors address important issues such as how new employees can immediately overcome being naive by simply verifying information received from inmates. Also, this chapter introduces the terms used to describe the set-up process.
The Set-Up
This is the heart of the book explaining in detail the set-up processes used by inmates to manipulate correctional staff. The set-up is divided into 14 steps. These steps can be divided into three distinct groups. The first three steps are related to the “technique” used to identify and test a potential victim for being set-up. Observing staff, selecting a victim and testing the victim’s reaction to certain questions mark the beginning phase of the set-up process. The next eight steps are related to the “tools” used to manipulate the victim. These steps include: showing the victim support, offering empathy or sympathy, asking the victim for some type of help, separating the victim from fellow staff, offering to protect the victim in dangerous situations, suggestion to sex, touching and finally, creating rumors that induce stress and isolate the victim. The last three steps are called the “turnout.” These steps include: presenting the victim with demands like drugs, money or sex, showing the victim how he or she will get in trouble if the demands are not meet, and finally, the victim’s choice of complying or not complying with the demands and the consequence of that choice. At some point in the set-up process, the victim will give something to or do something for the inmate. It is that action that is used as a “lever” to coerce the victim into complying with the list of demands in the turnout phase. The Set-Up chapter is presented first in outline format, and then expanded upon over the next 36 pages, making it easy for reader to get an overall picture from the start
Downing a Duck
This chapter takes the reader through a set-up from the point of view of an inmate. A Correctional Officer is identified as a victim because of the way he talks and the way he dresses. He was tested when the inmates ask for extra supplies. The Officer initially said no, but brought extra supplies to his cell while no one was looking. Several months would pass and in that time the inmate got to know the likes and dislikes of his victim and pretended to share them. Eventually, the victim was doing small favors for the inmate, such as bringing in candy and mailing a couple of letters. The testing continued though when the victim was requested to send out a letter with a large amount of money. The victim complied after being reminded of the other stuff he had done that could get him into trouble. The victim is eventually coerced into aiding in the successful escape of the inmate. The story ends with the inmate despising his victim and testifying against him in court.
Legal Apprehension of Manipulators
Proving an inmate manipulated a staff member is nearly impossible in most cases because little or no evidence exist. If there is evidence, it is usually circumstantial. Allen & Bosta suggest stopping manipulators at the beginning by using what they call, protectors.
Protectors
Protectors are actions employees can take if they are being targeted for manipulation. Almost all the protectors are meant to prevent or end the set-up process at an early stage. The protectors are: learn what a professional is and try to be one, know the steps in a set-up so you can recognize them, learn that communication between free people and inmates is deferent than free people communicating with each other, learn to say no, control and know your area of responsibility, verify information about inmates from their files if allowed to do so, know the procedures for inmates to request help that is not covered in general procedures, let your co-workers and supervisor know if you suspect an inmate of trying to manipulate you, document manipulation attempts so that it becomes part of the inmate’s file, initiate some level of formal discipline (depending on the severity of the attempt the inmate may need to be removed from open population), and finally, if the set-up process has reached a point where the inmate is now demanding contraband, then the employee should buy some time by saying, “I’ll have to think it over,” or, “It will be a few days before I can do that.” Because the inmate is most likely to become violent at this point if his demands are rejected, it is best to think of an excuse that will allow the victim to leave the area and contact a supervisor. Even if the employee is guilty of past infractions and the inmate is threatening to tell, the employee should notify a supervisor in order to bring the ordeal to a safe ending.
A Questionnaire with Answers
This chapter gives the reader thirty scenarios taken from real cases. Each scenario is in the form of a, “What would you do if . . .,” question, then tells what the actual corrections employee did, followed by a suggestion of an appropriate response that would end any attempt at manipulation. The chapter ends with a short assessment of the soft, mellow and hard personality traits and suggests that being mellow is best. The soft employee is easily manipulated and the hard employee is hiding a weakness that will also make manipulation easy.
Backlash
Correctional staff should always prevent set-ups before they begin because this allows the inmates involved to go about their business of rehabilitation. But for those who are involved in a set-up and want to end the shenanigans, they should expect some type of backlash from inmates and maybe some staff members. Inmates who have invested time and resources will certainly feel angry and react with various forms of verbal taunts and long glaring stares. In some instances, physical attacks have occurred. If the employee changes his or her approach to managing inmates, and no longer sends signals of susceptibility, the backlash will end and will be replaced with respect from both inmates and co-workers.
Case Histories
Six case histories are profiled in this chapter and are much more in-depth than the “A Questionnaire with Answers” chapter. It is worth noting that after reading the case histories and other examples of manipulation, I was left with the impression that correctional staff being manipulated engage in the willing suspension of disbelief.
Profile of Susceptibility Traits and Statistics
Using data gathered from various prisons and various set-up schemes, Allen & Bosta found that new employees are targeted much more often than experienced ones. This is no revelation to those who have worked in corrections for some time but it does document the need for training prior to new employees entering the prison gates. However, the data also shows that experience does not make one immune from manipulation either.
Employee Susceptibility Traits: A Self Test
Knowing who you are is a good place to start when trying to figure out how you should act around inmates. Trying to be someone you’re not will never work around criminals as they have an innate ability to see through faked personalities. However, filtering the distinctive traits that may portray you as being susceptible to manipulation can be successfully accomplished. But first you must know what traits you are inadvertently sending that tell inmates you can be manipulated. Once aware of said traits you have the obligation to alter your means of communication.
You Can Feel It in the Air
All too often, manipulation schemes are not given the attention they are due because there is little if any fact, only words and gestures. It is from those words and gestures that correctional employees must recognize the existence of a set-up attempt and end it immediately.
Manipulators at Large
The final chapter deals with manipulation schemes outside the confines of prisons and jails. Most interestingly is that many of the step of a set up can be skipped because a more susceptible victim can be chosen. The final message of this book is, “IT CAN HAPPEN TO YOU,” if you fail to recognize the process and stop it immediately.
IS GAMES CRIMINALS PLAY WORTH READING?
Games Criminals Play is a classic and should be read by all in the field of corrections. You may find that some of the language is archaic due to the time period it was written in but that does not hinder ones understanding of the subject matter. Games Criminals Play is the standard that all other books on this topic should be judged.
Bud Allen & Diana Bosta begin their book with a short allegorical commentary titled, The Dead Sea, in which they liken those who only take as being devoid of life just as the Dead Sea. In order to be a functional member of society, one must be able to give at times regardless of what may or may not be received. A balance must be found between give and take. Allen & Bosta suggest those who can only give find themselves in psychiatric institutions and those who can only take generally find themselves in prisons.
Preface
The Preface introduces the concept of patterned information being delivered to a person, usually the victim, in order to produce a desired reaction that would normally not have occurred. Law abiding individuals succumb to this form of manipulation because they do not verify the information being delivered to them.
Prologue
The Prologue introduces the tactics inmates will use to manipulate and coerce correctional staff. The case described deals with a Correctional Officer who identified with, felt obligated to, and ultimately felt sympathy for an inmate. The Officer identified with the inmate because each shared similar beliefs. When the Officer “lost” a set of security keys the inmate he identified with found and returned those keys to him without anyone knowing. The Officer felt obligated to the inmate because he could have lost his job over the incident and the inmate could have gotten in trouble for holding the keys overnight until the Officer returned to work. At that stage the inmate told the Officer of his problems such as his wife leaving him and his sick baby needing medicine. The sympathy the Officer felt leads to him violating minor rules that allegedly help the inmate and his sick baby, thus fulfilling his since of obligation. However, the rule violations are used to coerce the Officer into smuggling marijuana into the prison (a major rule violation). After a while, the Officer refused to bring in anymore drugs. The very inmate he was trying to help stabbed him in the chest as an act of retaliation.
To the Reader
Conflict between inmates and correctional staff arises from opposing individual identities. Those incarcerated have generally formed identities that are counterproductive and prove to be destructive to themselves and those around them. Correctional employees, like any other free persons, have formed identities that allow for a career and continued freedom within society. Those incarcerated are predisposed to animosity toward the system because it is the system that ultimately took their freedom. Likewise, inmates find they can gain peer statues by circumventing rules and embarrassing those who are suppose to enforce the rules. The authors suggest that employees can alleviate much of the conflict by preventing bad behavior before it occurs. By preventing bad behavior, the inmate will not have to undergo additional discipline which further fuels his or her animosity toward the system and the process of rehabilitation can occur. In order for this to happen, employees must first recognize inmate deception before it goes too far and end it immediately.
Terms and Definitions
This chapter takes a look at what constitutes a profession by focusing on some common terms and definitions. A distinguishing characteristic of a profession is the vocabulary used to convey ideas. Additional characteristics include the ongoing education of practitioners and the continuing research within the field. Now, more than ever, corrections is a legitimate profession which holds many advancement opportunities for the initiated. The reader should carefully examine this chapter. The examples used by the authors address important issues such as how new employees can immediately overcome being naive by simply verifying information received from inmates. Also, this chapter introduces the terms used to describe the set-up process.
The Set-Up
This is the heart of the book explaining in detail the set-up processes used by inmates to manipulate correctional staff. The set-up is divided into 14 steps. These steps can be divided into three distinct groups. The first three steps are related to the “technique” used to identify and test a potential victim for being set-up. Observing staff, selecting a victim and testing the victim’s reaction to certain questions mark the beginning phase of the set-up process. The next eight steps are related to the “tools” used to manipulate the victim. These steps include: showing the victim support, offering empathy or sympathy, asking the victim for some type of help, separating the victim from fellow staff, offering to protect the victim in dangerous situations, suggestion to sex, touching and finally, creating rumors that induce stress and isolate the victim. The last three steps are called the “turnout.” These steps include: presenting the victim with demands like drugs, money or sex, showing the victim how he or she will get in trouble if the demands are not meet, and finally, the victim’s choice of complying or not complying with the demands and the consequence of that choice. At some point in the set-up process, the victim will give something to or do something for the inmate. It is that action that is used as a “lever” to coerce the victim into complying with the list of demands in the turnout phase. The Set-Up chapter is presented first in outline format, and then expanded upon over the next 36 pages, making it easy for reader to get an overall picture from the start
Downing a Duck
This chapter takes the reader through a set-up from the point of view of an inmate. A Correctional Officer is identified as a victim because of the way he talks and the way he dresses. He was tested when the inmates ask for extra supplies. The Officer initially said no, but brought extra supplies to his cell while no one was looking. Several months would pass and in that time the inmate got to know the likes and dislikes of his victim and pretended to share them. Eventually, the victim was doing small favors for the inmate, such as bringing in candy and mailing a couple of letters. The testing continued though when the victim was requested to send out a letter with a large amount of money. The victim complied after being reminded of the other stuff he had done that could get him into trouble. The victim is eventually coerced into aiding in the successful escape of the inmate. The story ends with the inmate despising his victim and testifying against him in court.
Legal Apprehension of Manipulators
Proving an inmate manipulated a staff member is nearly impossible in most cases because little or no evidence exist. If there is evidence, it is usually circumstantial. Allen & Bosta suggest stopping manipulators at the beginning by using what they call, protectors.
Protectors
Protectors are actions employees can take if they are being targeted for manipulation. Almost all the protectors are meant to prevent or end the set-up process at an early stage. The protectors are: learn what a professional is and try to be one, know the steps in a set-up so you can recognize them, learn that communication between free people and inmates is deferent than free people communicating with each other, learn to say no, control and know your area of responsibility, verify information about inmates from their files if allowed to do so, know the procedures for inmates to request help that is not covered in general procedures, let your co-workers and supervisor know if you suspect an inmate of trying to manipulate you, document manipulation attempts so that it becomes part of the inmate’s file, initiate some level of formal discipline (depending on the severity of the attempt the inmate may need to be removed from open population), and finally, if the set-up process has reached a point where the inmate is now demanding contraband, then the employee should buy some time by saying, “I’ll have to think it over,” or, “It will be a few days before I can do that.” Because the inmate is most likely to become violent at this point if his demands are rejected, it is best to think of an excuse that will allow the victim to leave the area and contact a supervisor. Even if the employee is guilty of past infractions and the inmate is threatening to tell, the employee should notify a supervisor in order to bring the ordeal to a safe ending.
A Questionnaire with Answers
This chapter gives the reader thirty scenarios taken from real cases. Each scenario is in the form of a, “What would you do if . . .,” question, then tells what the actual corrections employee did, followed by a suggestion of an appropriate response that would end any attempt at manipulation. The chapter ends with a short assessment of the soft, mellow and hard personality traits and suggests that being mellow is best. The soft employee is easily manipulated and the hard employee is hiding a weakness that will also make manipulation easy.
Backlash
Correctional staff should always prevent set-ups before they begin because this allows the inmates involved to go about their business of rehabilitation. But for those who are involved in a set-up and want to end the shenanigans, they should expect some type of backlash from inmates and maybe some staff members. Inmates who have invested time and resources will certainly feel angry and react with various forms of verbal taunts and long glaring stares. In some instances, physical attacks have occurred. If the employee changes his or her approach to managing inmates, and no longer sends signals of susceptibility, the backlash will end and will be replaced with respect from both inmates and co-workers.
Case Histories
Six case histories are profiled in this chapter and are much more in-depth than the “A Questionnaire with Answers” chapter. It is worth noting that after reading the case histories and other examples of manipulation, I was left with the impression that correctional staff being manipulated engage in the willing suspension of disbelief.
Profile of Susceptibility Traits and Statistics
Using data gathered from various prisons and various set-up schemes, Allen & Bosta found that new employees are targeted much more often than experienced ones. This is no revelation to those who have worked in corrections for some time but it does document the need for training prior to new employees entering the prison gates. However, the data also shows that experience does not make one immune from manipulation either.
Employee Susceptibility Traits: A Self Test
Knowing who you are is a good place to start when trying to figure out how you should act around inmates. Trying to be someone you’re not will never work around criminals as they have an innate ability to see through faked personalities. However, filtering the distinctive traits that may portray you as being susceptible to manipulation can be successfully accomplished. But first you must know what traits you are inadvertently sending that tell inmates you can be manipulated. Once aware of said traits you have the obligation to alter your means of communication.
You Can Feel It in the Air
All too often, manipulation schemes are not given the attention they are due because there is little if any fact, only words and gestures. It is from those words and gestures that correctional employees must recognize the existence of a set-up attempt and end it immediately.
Manipulators at Large
The final chapter deals with manipulation schemes outside the confines of prisons and jails. Most interestingly is that many of the step of a set up can be skipped because a more susceptible victim can be chosen. The final message of this book is, “IT CAN HAPPEN TO YOU,” if you fail to recognize the process and stop it immediately.
IS GAMES CRIMINALS PLAY WORTH READING?
Games Criminals Play is a classic and should be read by all in the field of corrections. You may find that some of the language is archaic due to the time period it was written in but that does not hinder ones understanding of the subject matter. Games Criminals Play is the standard that all other books on this topic should be judged.
Inmate Manipulation
Book Review
Review: Games Criminals Play
