Paladins

Paladins

"No man is an island entire of itself; every man
is a piece of the continent, a part of the main;
if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe
is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as
well as any manner of thy friends or of thine
own were; any man's death diminishes me,
because I am involved in mankind.
And therefore, never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee."

No man is an island' John Donne (1572-1631)

Every man has a purpose under the stars of heaven and to defy his or her own destiny is foolish. Some men have become inspired warriors of the temple. Some live with pen and paper but history will reveal that most men live by the sword and their weapons of choice are common.

Many people will swear that life is an eponymous adventure. A life where you seek your own brand or identity and closely scrutinize it or compare it, willingly or not, to the lives of others.

Because life is divided between good and evil, light and darkness, we take a role to identify it with such realistic elements around us. At times, we are both warrior and cleric in nature giving freely what contains in our soul. Life demands that of us, we clearly have no choice in the matter.

Chance has controlled much of what we live and experience and sometimes, we cannot explain why we did or what we have done in our lives except to call it our fate or destiny.

We combine carefully the will of the heart so that our roles in our own lives and the lives of others can be balanced to the tune of justice and fairness. In some sense, we have become warriors, whether we like it or not, for, at one time or another in our life, we represent to society who we are and create the brand we are yearning for as a part of our calling.

A calling card, a name or brand that tells other who we are and what we do. Something that is unique to your contributions to the world, your community or your family.

In troubled times and darkness, we are the Paladins of the world. A knight, warrior or combatant aspect that is commonly related to the days of kings and knights around the large wooden table where chivalry was born. Some of the rules are fictionalized while others are created in most practical non-fictional and real circumstances.

Nothing is perfect, and everything is done to meet the challenges of the times we are facing. Chivalric behavior is dying and needs to make a comeback but society is harsh in judgment and toxic in behaviors. It will not succumb to goodness without a good fight or a good character to wage the battles.

To be a good guy, a person who wears the white hat and combats the daily rigors of darkness and evil, we have become weary of the toils and sweat brought upon us by wars and skirmishes that are often fought on the morality of the times and the values of the past.

As it may be, we carry on the flag of morality and chose to never surrender. We are, in essence, the bodyguards of the righteous and the slayers of evil. That’s what Paladins do and that is who we are. Patriots with the desire to combat evil – the bearers of the cross but soldiers in deeds.

The religious aspect is never easy. To be a believer in a non-believing world can be cruel in enduring the constant assaults on character and beliefs. We are targeted for our principles and behaviors. Some view us as a knight in shining armor while others consider is their enemy of life. For them, hate and discourse is their main favor – it is how they chose to live. It’s like a flashback to the days of darkness where fear and plagues ran high emotions of middle ages and revolutions.

Those days were filled with deception and lies to gain power and influence. No different today where there are alignments and entities of corruptive men and women who chose to follow the disorder and chaos of greed that rules their desire to rule the world around them.

Many of us have the free-will to choose to be the representatives of the bold and courageous historical Paladins whose purported role was to be someone’s bodyguard or protector. To shield them from harm or evil and to be the right-handed soul or fist of God. Mere mortals, they are many who have taken up the sword of justice and defend all those who protect the believers of Christianity or other right-handed crusades of justice and freedom.

In life’s simple terms, a Paladin is thus a simple warrior, a Ronin, or a very strong-willed and charismatic character without a master. He or she travels near or afar and protects the weak and frail from the harms of doom and evil.

A soldier in the fight against Satan, a Paladin must be skilled and proficient in the use of weapons of the tongue and of the sword. In most cases, it carries no specific message but to prevent the diabolic spells of evil to consume those who are innocent and weak. They are here to shield us against the stimuli of darkness and diabolical formations.

Some say that a Paladin is gifted with special powers. Blessings from the days of Merlin and knights of the round table of the Renaissance days. Folklore has us believing that they carry special blessing or magical capabilities such as healing, protection and countering evil.

This myth goes as far as claiming that they can also protect you from the undead or unliving. Admitting that this is sheer nonsense, there are truths to what they can do to keep us from harm that are sometimes unexplainable or logical to the human mind. No matter what you think, they are the real warriors of righteousness and the true protectors for humanity to exist in peace.  

A stretch of the imagination perhaps, but in life, nothing is impossible if you believe in what is called black magic or exotic potions. Neither a priest or cleric in possession of religious capabilities, he or she travels afar and alone to those who need their protection.

Hence, therefore, a Paladin is first and foremost a warrior, skilled in the weaponry necessary to defeat the evil. A militant defender of our way of life, a crusader for our rights to speak and to live with the freedoms guaranteed by our Constitution and Bill of Rights.

Their faith in God protects us as their role of protector sometimes drifts into the scopes of the cleric, they are still and always remained, the faithful warriors who are there to keep us safe from maltreatment, death, and perils.

So, a Paladin stands for what is good and order. A structure in our life on the straight and narrow road to follow to salvation and eternity. A spellcaster by nature, myth or design but merely a mortal influence and not the creator or maker.

Their presence is to merely give us a chance to decide between right and wrong, and the lawful good of mankind. A chance for a nearly perfect alignment with the divinity that possesses us. A redeemer, a confessionist or source to ask for forgiveness of those trespassed against us.

Their presence is pure and without the toxic poisons around us. They do not lie, possess false interpretations of the law and moral values. They are possessors of strength, wisdom, and inspiration. Their weapons of goodness are stealth in nature and you must be fully aware of their presence in order to receive their blessings and gifts that will protect you.

Their work is based on your alignment with God and the parables of good nature. The golden rule and all those promulgated verses that are written to enhance your life and to give your body and soul the strength to fight evil. So are the burdens of the Paladins.

There is no room for breaching their code of conduct. In life, there is the presence of a man or beast. It is the code of conduct for the Paladin to offer you the path of the lawful good and prevent the loss of your individual goodness in the world around you. It’s up to them to soak up the toxicity of the world and give you fresh air to breathe and the strength to carry out your purpose.

Thus, it is true that when all is said or written about the powers of the Paladins, they are our champions of justice. Unlike the characters of the Marvel series, they are mortal, and they are real. They are the destroyers of evil and tear down the walls of their evil opponents that attack you.

In some cases, they must be holistic and heal your spirits as they are damaged by the diseased curses that assault your soul. They know that without your strength, your morale or your spirit at the top of your finest condition, you cannot defeat the darkness and lose the benefits of all the good things that surround you.

Most of their abilities are similar to but of a lower level than the cleric's abilities. They are mere agents of the angels who care and nurture your earthly needs and desires and wants.

A Paladin is not chosen or hired to do the biddings of God. This warrior is inspired by the actions of those who stood against the walls of evil. They do not claim to be a knight a shining armor or a soldier of fortune. The mere requirement for a Paladin is to act on their own and give what they can to make your life better or safer.

A coat of armor, a code of conduct and a command presence in someone’s life are all that is required for the Paladin to help another. A chance to align or re-align the rules that govern your lifestyle and change your life from disorder to order.

But beware, there are those who are the anti-Christ and “anti-Paladins” who utter the complete order opposite to the proper rules we are given to live by. They are bringers of darkness and despair.

The villains who have worked so hard to destroy the goodness inside of you and cause chaos in your life. Whereas the Paladin is charismatic in a charming or trustworthy way, an anti-Paladin's charisma came from the roots of fear as human beings are easily frightening or manipulated in behavior.

Arizona Legislators - open letter about Consent Decrees

Open Letter about Consent Decrees

After working for 25 years in the prison systems of New Mexico and Arizona, as a senior prison administrator, it is with a high probability that Arizona legislators will soon be facing a Federal Court consent decree that will deploy numerous court monitors into their statewide prison operation. It is without any doubt that court-mandated inspectors will begin an independent review of all prison operational systems including the mental health and medical services bureaus as related to the pending consent decree.

What is a Consent Decree? A consent decree is an agreement or legal settlement reached between parties that allow for a dispute to be resolved without liability or an admission of guilt. In the criminal justice system, they can be used to settle a class action suit against a correctional system by a group of inmates and are most often about abridgment of civil rights.

If the Ryan vs. Parsons lawsuit is not met to a satisfactory level, a consent decree is the next order of business by those attorneys representing the inmates. At the moment private prisons are not included in the current lawsuit. The court may or may not order private prisons to be included but regardless of scope in the order, many significant changes will be directed to be done. If included, the costs will multiply exponentially for the taxpayers.

Prison officials and legislators will have to lay out additional costs for these court-appointed monitors, not employed by the state, to review documentation and practices on every specific flaw or deficiency discovered in the Ryan vs. Parsons lawsuit and it will also include all state-related lawsuit settlements to be included in the evaluations and checklists.

This will not only incur a very heavy operational burden on the labor of the state but on the finances of the state budget as well. The state budget is already the largest of the state and will soon grow exponentially to meet federal demands of the state prison administration to come into compliance of the order. This order is a living order, it will change based on findings and does not just address operational or procedural matters, but staffing, physical plant and other logistic improvements including computer use of databases and inmate programs.

The state can expect court monitors to particularly pay close attention to the existing protocols and verify that all documentation required is done in a legitimate verifiable manner.

Correctional officers and employees who work in the statewide prison system will be subject to training and remedial training as findings are disclosed. The same applies to nursing and mental health staff who will be drawn away from their primary care responsibilities and spent most of their time focusing on the legal environment rather than the custodial care standards. That is certainly the case when it comes to consent decrees. These legal injunctions can involve any area of incarceration with a primary focus on standards of delivery services related to mental health and medical health care.

To be sure legislators and taxpayers understand the consequences of a federal court order, they must prepare to carry additional financial and logistical burdens, not in the present budget. The chain of events is both laborious and complex. Attorneys will demand access to many areas of the consent decree with permission of the court to conduct inspections.

Court monitors are appointed by the presiding judge and are usually national experts in the area they will review. Because consent decrees often involve a wide array of processes and functions in a facility, there is usually a team of monitors appointed in a settlement. Sometimes lawyers for the plaintiff will accompany the monitors during the visit.

Monitors periodically survey care delivery to determine that the stipulations of the decree are being met. They will likely review written documentation and take actions such as:

a.    Examine, review and amend Director Instructions, Institutional policies, and procedures, post orders

b.    Recommend Inmate Programs for higher quality inmate improvement activities

c.    Inspect mental and medical records (current and closed)

d.    Inspect and review legal access

e.     Administrative Segregation

f.     PREA assault/ physical and mental abuse records

g.    Review due process of the disciplinary systems and inmate grievances

h.    They will also interview managers and frontline staff about current and past processes.

i.      Inspect living conditions including sanitation, temperature controls, repair orders and other function related to occupational building codes and standards

j.      Visitation and legal visits, phone calls

k.    General inspections of Classification and placements

l.      Food service, nutrition, hydration

m.  Library access (non-legal), mail and recreation / exercise

n.    Not limited to these areas above as any finding can change the course of action to be taken and correct the procedure immediately

Expect frequent unannounced tours of housing and medical units and inmates questioned about current security practices related to their availability to quality improvement activities and health care processes such as how they request to see a health care provider and whether security (custodial) system are user-friendly to such arrangements or appointments.

During tours, officers may be questioned about every aspect of their post assignments including suicide precautions or emergency medical procedures. If suicide or inmate safety is at issue, housing areas may be viewed for structural conditions that could be unsafe. Under a consent decree, expect physical plant changes to be made to comply with the standard or court-ordered expectation.

Once a site visit is completed, monitors report to the court on compliance or improvement toward compliance for the specifics of the consent decree to the judge. This may be in the form of a verbal report but most definitely in writing. Continued compliance will lead to the lifting of judicial oversight.

However, history shows that such lifting of oversight does not occur for many years and often with many additional modification and changes ordered to be covered by the state. It took the State of New Mexico to get out from under the Duran Consent Decree for more than 12 years. Cook County Jail was released from federal oversight after 40 years of monitoring and changes.

The Arizona Department of Corrections will lose all control of local and statewide functions under a consent decree. Simply states, the department is expected to do their job to the best of their ability and abide by court-ordered changes or modifications. Although you will hear a theme that monitors, and administrators are on the same team, they are not. It is a silent competition to either comply or defend with existing practices. This results in a structured procedure that will include but not limit to:

• To review policies and procedures to be sure staff is correctly following them. Changes will be made to address findings.
• Do ensure valid documentation is kept and maintained with good supporting documentation available for submission to the courts.
• Mandate additional or special any staff training that may occur in preparation for a monitor visit.
• Expect staff to honestly answer any questions from a monitor team member.
• Look for documentation consistency and determine if there are falsified or altered documentation. This includes deadlines and other specific policy related standards.

As legislators and gatekeepers to the budget, it is in your best interest to get involved in the litigation process before Arizona is engaged and ordered into a consent decree. The expense, burdens, and liabilities are endless when you submit the entire corrections system to the oversight of a court, judge, and monitors who get paid for finding faults with your systems.

Respectfully,

Carl ToersBijns

Virtue Signaling - inside jails and prisons

The power of “Virtue Signaling” inside jails or prisons

Social media and the mainstream media has created a very superficial means to address grievances, incidents of concern, fear, shock and even hatred by creating an emotional outburst or display of some value of morality or ethical grounds. What is really a lazy and easy way of creating a message to provoke empathy by others is a dangerous tool to be aware of inside prisons.in society, it is often abused to an extent that it causes conflict on the streets through protesters clashing with each other.

Prisoners are known to be master manipulators and giving them another tool to play against staff is very concerning. Look at what we are dealing with here. What we supervise, manage or control are great pretenders. People who learn quickly of the lessons learned by others and because they are a variety of educated, uneducated and immature individuals, they learn quickly how to use the tools of social media to apply them to their own reasons to protest, find things to be offensive or sometimes downright resist law and institutional order. In other words, its designed to change the mindset of others around them.

What has the term come to mean? A common term or purpose of this kind of behavior is to gain approval of something that they think has a “moral value.” However, the reality is that they are more of a hypocrite with their message because, inside themselves, it is not a reality. They don’t believe it, participate in it or just don’t bother to actually get involved in it. In other words, they are gestures, just mere gestures. Gestures without any commitment. Sounds familiar doesn’t it as you can put a name to the person who does this on your cellblock or unit. Of course, there are always exceptions to the rule and find those individuals who are staunch and strong headed believers.

Don’t get me wrong – there are some who are sincere but few at the best. They may act in the name of religion, traditional charity causes, anti-violence towards women or even speak up for LGBT people. It may be in the name of charity to raise money for cancer or gun control or standing against domestic violence and now, it has grown into a deeper political arena of immigration, saving the Earth and many more. In other words, they pretend to be social warriors but inside our prisons the may become warriors of a different kind. It may benefit them to do this in front of others to make a social statement or position for power or influence but in reality, they are fake.

Virtue signaling is about getting people to come to your side for your own purpose. This is not new, but we never applied a politically correct term to the behaviors. We must recognize that its just another buzzword we need to consider meaningless but in a prison setting, it may not be harmless. It can cause tempers to flare, emotions to create chaos, and most of all unite former enemies together for a common cause. In no certain stretch of the imagination, should you consider it harmless?

It has caused riots in the past with what started as a food strike or protest, unfair discipline or many other grievances that were eventually found baseless in nature. In a matter of minutes, hours, or even days or weeks, a ‘social warrior’ stirred into an emotional stage can turn into a real warrior that wants to fight, destroy property, hold hostages or just run amuck tearing things up and assaulting staff. By no means, this is not just meaningless cliché but if taken lightly, a potentially menacing situation. Virtue signaling is more than making something or someone looks foolish – it has a significant reason to exist and although it may be hypocritical in nature, people who do this outwardly signal their intentions or purposes to incite other people into a cause.

All it does in most social circles is provoke some stares, even glares, which is what prisoners want to claim or accuse staff of disrespect. They want to stand out as the kind of person who defends truth and righteousness in a social climate that allegedly tries to suppress it. Can you see the relevance inside the joint yet? In all reality, it is a great recruitment tool for gangs, religious extremism or just unification of the environment – us versus them.

A good manipulator can project a feeling that they are right and show that others join his or her cause to let the administration or custodial staff they are formed as a group now and that they are “one of them.” In comparing these acts to so-called “virtue-signaling” gestures, it's like changing one’s avatar considering a hate-motivated tragedy, you can see more similarities than differences.

They’re outward displays of one’s [group or gang] moral or ethical values that obviously don’t lead to any substantial change. Their real function is to express that one belongs to the brave underdogs who speak up for what’s right. For some it is “what’s right” and entails care and empathy; in the eyes of others, it’s tradition and truth. They’re all virtues nonetheless and connected to the environment. It can upset the tranquility of a safe and secure prison if ignored. This message was written to build an awareness of its existence.

Young prisoners are rife with “vice signaling.” They have a game going on that is based on the morality of right and wrong. Consider this a tug of war between law and order as well as the institutional rules applied to them. The problem is that their right and wrong can differ immensely with those of others. Vice signaling is more than pranks – its sinful acts inclined to be filled with violence and total disregard to life and being exposed to these vices inside prisons, you can only imagine to what extent this problem exists.

“Virtue signaling” can be a positive tool but in the prisons, the mindset is survival and power and surrounded by the morality of strong versus the weak and cruelty and selfishness. The staff has a responsibility to recognize their simple words and deeds of righteousness and be able to determine whether they can truly be inspiring or destructive in nature - after all, words and deeds of wickedness sure can be.

So, in these times, it is most beneficial to examine motive and behaviors instead of calling someone a mere virtue signaler. As staff responsible for a safe and secure environment we ought to step back and examine what’s really going on. Are they trying to inspire others or motivate destructive or violent behaviors? Are they looking to comply or resist and are they trying to become socially accepted within a group that shares a strong belief or are they just sharing a social viewpoint that others agree with? Keep in mind the opportunity of extremism and radicalization as the root of such practices.

In any of these cases, beware of others taking advantage of new democratized platforms to share values – it has become a strong team building tool for various groups or causes. While token expressions might not directly change anything in this world, they can have an indelible impact on the minds of other prisoners and cause dissent or chaos – a designed process created by provocation and hate. If just one person is inspired, a threat could be building if the resolution is destructive or assaultive behaviors.