The Power of Words

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The paraplegic inmate was "relocated to the floor," according to the official statement from the sheriff's office (http://www.tampabay.com/components/video/?bctid=47948381001). Interesting way to describe the event. It almost gives one the impression the inmate was gently lowered to the floor for his own protection. Um...

Words. They can turn a gut-wrenching display of inhumanity in to a clinically necessary protocol in a matter of seconds. If delivered from the veil of authority and power, under the guise of "treatment," one can almost buy anything.

They are no longer cross-gender "strip searches," conducted to demean, humiliate and degrade, but rather they are "unclothed searches" conducted for the inmate's own safety.

The guards at Abu Ghraib initially attempted to described the forced masturbation as a strategy for "keeping the detainees awake." '

Ahh... and then there are those zany Stun Guns. They can no longer, legally, be described as non-lethal weapons. Why? Because they are not. They must now be descibed as "less-than-lethal." Our society had to learn that one the hard way -- hundreds of deaths since they were first implement. Doh!

In its sales pitch, the primary manufacturer of the restraint chair describes its "device," or "correctional tool," application as comparable to that of cupping your hands gently around a distressed bird in an effort to calm it down and protect it from itself. The inmates call it the "devil chair." Umm... interesting dichotomy in describing the same thing.

Words. They can twist logic in to illogic, reverse decency and compasion with one or two substitutions, and infect a collective mindset with laser-like precision.

Then there are those tried and true ones: "resisting" and "noncompliant," They can be used in just about any imaginable correctional scenario, lowered like a blank check on human dignity, and delivered like a permanent flaming line through fundamental human righs with the greatest of ease.

Preemptive taser shots, one, two, three, etc.... they "save lives," according to most law enforcement PR departments. Why chase down the teenager that ran on to the MLB outfield as a prank, as we did for so many years in the past? Now, simply tase him. Zzzzzz! We have saved him!

Words can present the irrational as rational. Back in the early 1930s, a very evil man rose to power and changed the world by using his words -- his ability to twist the truth. He really had little else to use.

The small cages in which inmates are forced to stand (someplace down South) while wearing only too small underwear ("daisy dukes"), for hours on end "under observation" for suicide prevention are not really what they are -- "squirrel cages" -- but, rather, they are "observation cells." It cleans up nicely doesn't it?

Words, however, can only produce half of the conversion. Ultimately, people have to search their souls and either recognize the truth for what it is or accept the blind justification tucked safely under the veil of knowledge.

Walking along a frozen dream, I happen on a solitary man. Who is this man thinking his thoughts on my time, in my space? I wonder, if I am to understand this must I awake? But, when is a frozen dream frozen, for if I am to see it as such must I then be awake? Dreaming through reality is easy and polite. It is narrow imagination on an imaginary canvas.

Half-hearted humanism delivered during a brief window of opportunity is but an ice pick chipping on one's frozen soul. The opportunity is far from frozen -- it arrives and passes many times each day. Opportunities taken can be recognized as divine sparks igniting one's compassion -- one's true identity. Does everyone get these opportunities? Absolutely! It is an opportunity to hear a broken voice as a crushed spirit. It is an opportunity to recognize the faulty foundation on which we stand. The higher one is perched, the greater is the opportunity.

A moral catharsis when nobody is looking or listening is little more than a squirrel caged incarceration of mind and spirit when nobody is thinking.

1. The United States of America locks up more people than any other nation in the world. Think about that. We lock up more people than China and the Russian Federation. We lock up more people than Brazil.

2. Long-term solitary confinement -- a U.S. favorite -- is increasingly common in the United States. The "hole" is used for just about anything these days. The United Nations Committee against Torture defines confinement in supermax prisons and control units as torture.

3. "Electronic weapons," a.k.a. Stun Guns are increasingly common in U.S. correctioinal facilities. People are getting stunned for almost anything these days. I recently read an article where one deputy was fired for tasing his female colleage as a prank. When I read that, I thought to myself... wow, what must he be doing with the "disrespectful" inmates. The United Nations Committee against Torture has concluded that the use of electronic shock devices is torture.

4. In the United States, prisons are the new asylums. In 2006, 65% of people in jail, 56% of people in state prisons, and 45% of people in federal prisons had symptoms of serious mental illness (Source: National Alliance on Mental Illness). Zzzzz!... come out of your cell and stop hearing voices!

Is all this working? Should this punitive mindset be fixing the crime problem? Shouldn't we have less crime than say, China, for example?

Words - they often mean as much by their absence as by their presence. How do correctional nurses navigate the custody culture language? How do nurses partake in these twists and turns and still maintain a simple, yet powerful, nursing standard predicated on humane clinical empathy?