[Music] welcome to L Ros today I'm going to be talking about the prison officer roleplay Toros at the prison officer assessment day when I did it I got a like a piece of paper that had the information about the prisoner his name how old he was what he does day today you got like 10 minutes to remember this all this information and it is quite nerve-wracking and then you go to your Lade door you when you're ready enter the room you don't have to knock just enter the room and you can see through the glass
panel in the door there's a prisoner standing there this prisoner is an actor and they made this room look as best they can like a prison cell and it's quite nerve-wracking one because it's a role play you might feel a bit silly and secondly you're dealing with an actor who's going to act like a prisoner and I think most people have never had experience with prisoners so you walk in you turned around to me straight away being extremely aggressive shouting at me getting in my personal space shouting why can't I go to the library and
he was extremely frustrated swearing at me in my face throwing stuff around and I was like oh my gosh what have I walked into so the first thing I did was I just listened I just stood there and listened you got to remember when prisoners are in their cell and they can't do something and they can't do it for another week it's frustrating everything takes so long in jail in prison to to happen to work so he can go to the library and he just frustrated about it and he just you're an officer so he's
taking it out on you so I just listened to him just kind of listening until he basically couldn't say any more about it and I put my hands out like this basically subconsciously I'm not a threat to him I'm showing all my chest my torso my hands are like this I'm not a threat to him he kind of finished kind of being aggressive and in my personal space hands out like like this I was it's kind come on let's talk about it let's just talk about it calmly see if I can help you got to
show patience you got to be non-threatening you got to be able to listen just three key elements basically stand there and let some other sh abuse at you you should to get a little bit of empathy and some understanding and basically you need to deescalate the situation nine times out of 10 you can deescalate any situation by listening and just showing some understanding once he kind of calmed down I was like right why don't you just sit down and just chat let's sit down like two gr men and just have a chat about it see
if I can help so he sat down on his bed and I I kind of stood up so I was like right let's get to bottom of what's the matter I said why do you want to go to the library so much and he said to me I'm really into sci-fi books and sci-fi films and I wanted to go and get my sci-fi book and I can't that for another week or two weeks that's why I'm I'm mad so I said to him can I sit down you're giving them a little bit of power a
bit you know a bit of control by you're in their cell you're asking them can I sit there now so again you're not showing any threatening behavior so I sat down and we just started talking about SII films and sci-fi books I don't know anything about sci-fi just a few films that I've watched and just having that kind of Common Ground a common interest made it so he kind of trusted me we're talking about personal things having things in common building that Rapport up and then once we kind of really deescalate to the situation and
talking about normal things then it's like right how can I help what can I do and that's what I said to him said right so you don't miss the library next time how can I help you what can I do and he was like walk can you speak to so can short to make sure that I can go to the library and that I'm not going to miss it I was thought yeah sure I will speak to the manager and I'll make sure that this doesn't happen again now on the day there are two role
plays that have to do and each one is quite different the first one that I've just spoke about was quite aggressive in my face and that's what a lot of the time it is a lot of testosterone the second one was a bit different so when you're ready for your second one again you go back into a room at the assessment center and you read the information about this prisoner now this prisoner was completely different to the first prisoner that I dealt with again very good that in and you walk to the door you don't
knock you walk straight in and that's quite a unusual feeling because adults in their own space you got an observation panel and even looking through the observation panel it's it's not a normal thing to do it's like you're observing them you got to think how you would like it if somebody could just come and observe you in your bedroom when you're doing whatever you're doing or just literally walk walk in to your space without asking it's quite a unnatural thing to do so you left to the door and there's this prisoner who again is an
actor just sitting on the bed crying and you go in and your face of the prisoner crying what what do you do so I just had introduce myself my name's officer Smith he tell me what's the matter and then the prisoners crying basically still frustrated just kind of going off on one and again you're there to listen you're not there to judge you you're just there to listen to him so I just let the prisoner even though they wer being aggressive they just stayed on the bed I just let them talk and get it all
off their chest before I even said anything but then again I said can I sit down so I can talk and the LA say yes always say yes I sat down and I said look let's get to the bottom of it tell me what's the matter and then the prisoner had a lot of issues on the outside that that prisoner couldn't control in prison and it was frustrating them and they were angry about it and they basically wanted to self harm now self harm in jail in prisons it's quite big and people do it for
manipulative Behavior but then sometimes people do it for actual stress relief because it in that small cell which is like 6t by 9 ft kind the walls they feel so restricted so trapped when it comes to dealing with issues outside of the prison because they can only do so much some people turn to self harm just to relieve that scratch like I said sometimes it's manipulative and it's just little scratches but other times people really do self harm in a bad way you really have got to show a lot of empathy patience and again understanding
what I did was I just sat down listened and they told me the story of what was happening on the outside and then I said look you're doing the best you can you you got access to a phone you got access to writing you got access to visits you can only control what you can control and you basically just trying to have an adult conversation with them and perhaps give them a little bit of guidance because in prison the environment you're in you know a lot of prisoners don't think straight because they're in the environment
all day day and night and it must be mentally taxing on them as well as well as it is the officers again I just you know I was just giving advice and obviously I was saying to the prisoner look I'm going to have to report this if self harm we need to take to health care and all them kind of points but ultimately you were just trying to give them advice in that particular you know situation that role play It's all about it was all about patience and empathy and understanding and even try and deescalate
that situation because you don't want them to self harm you don't want them to do anything silly like maybe you know attempt to commit suicide you know you need to know that they're going to be okay in the real world in prison there are a lot of steps to follow if someone has self harm but in this scenario it's basically just listening you got listen empathy deescalation and try and understand where they're coming from now of course when you're in the actual role play itself yours might be a completely different scenario But ultimately the things
that you need to kind of the key points are is being able to listen extremely frustrated and they take their frustrations out on you the officer you don't need to be aggressive you be nonthreatening just kind of stand there have a have something about you have a bit of presence but you don't need to be snaring you don't need to be shouting back at them you don't need to be ordering them around to perhaps telling them to sit down cuz that would just anger them even more you need to show patience empathy and understanding people
in jail the prisoners yes they've committed crimes and some of them are absolutely awful however some of them are trapped just taken a wrong made a wrong decision taking a wrong turn you just need to show a bit of empathy a bit of understanding cuz at the end of the day you are still human beings you need to deescalate the situation as best as you can just bring it down from 100 to zero and just try and find some common ground to start talking about to start having a conversation if that means talking about football
sport women whatever it might be you start talking about something you might have a common interest in once you've got that report how can I assist you how can I help you this is what I will do and if you say that to him once you ask when you're an actual prison officer make sure you follow through with it build these relationships up so there are the key points I think will really help you in a in the prison officer roleplay scenarios your assessment day so during the role plays there will be a camera in
the corner of the room this is when I did it now I don't know if it's all online where you just do it in front of the computer screen which I think is quite not very realistic at all when I do it there's a camera in the corner of the room and you walk in you're not you're not aware of the camera you you know you're just doing what you're doing but they're not looking for you to be perfect they're not looking for you to know the lingo and the correct processes they just need to
see the key points from you they need to see you can listen you can have a bit of a presence you can share patience and empathy and you can deescalate situations and maybe just simple things like you can actually hold a conversation you're not nervous you are confident in your ability that you can deal with people speak to people for example the first guy that was very aggressive in my personal space if I kind of took a step back if I kind of walked out of the room if I kind of was aggressive back to
him that's that's start alarm bells to the people that are watching it that assessing you you might have the right personality for the job and the person that self harmed if you didn't really show care inside or any empathy and you kind of dismissed it again that might Ring the Alarm Bells you might have the right personality for that kind of situation so you really need to just kind of hone in on these few things I've spoke about and just adapt that to every ever scenario you're going to be you're going to be role playing
so I hope that's helped short video today but um there's not too much I can give you obviously role playing is how you are as a person your personality how you react to things and obviously that's individual to you I can't give you the correct answers or the correct way to do things it's just down to you be yourself obviously take on board what I've said the next episode of LMA Oscar is going to be a week in the Life episode 4 thanks for listening ta
