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MY New Release - Insane but not Crazy

 When a person does some terrible things in their life, things that seem to be utterly wasteful, stupid or senseless, like the murder of innocent people or pets, there is split off from the norm to the evil side of the world. At least that appears to be the assessment of the world around us.

Some people would say that this is a mentally ill person and in dire need of help to return their mind back to normal. Their logic is that a normal sane person would not do such a terrible and senseless thing. So what I am trying to do in this book is to illustrate how we can engage in a war that is filled with insanity but throughout it all, we remain normal and not be crazy. Let me explain this concept by rationalizing logic used in the world today.

We live in a world of views that express, decide and judge these things as being insane but not crazy. As you can gather from this logic, the distinction between evil and being mentally ill is a matter of significant concern as for many, it is purely subjective in matter. For this purpose, crazy is linked to evil and if the act was not evil, then we are not crazy.

The world’s patterns of thinking, justifying and explaining these anomalies in life are filled with biases, morals, ethics and other norms are culturally created. One major point of concern in this matter is the burden of responsibility and accountability and the correct way to a person who has done something terrible such as committing a crime against another human being, race or country.

If a person acts from mental ill rather than evil, then it seems somewhat reasonable to regard or judge them to be not accountable for the action(s) or at least, to the degree the person is ill. After all, if something terrible occurs because a person suffers from a physical illness, or a mechanical failure, the person is generally and sometimes legally, not held accountable (exceptions noted).

For example, immediately after doing a tour in Nam, I was stationed at Fort Knox, Kentucky at the 42nd Field Hospital as a dispensary medic. I had the privilege to have my personal vehicle on post when I had a malfunction with my car’s accelerator – it got stuck and caused the car to veer out of control almost hitting a group of officers standing on the sidewalk. Since I was driving normal when the car malfunctioned, and the fact that I didn’t stomp my foot down deliberately or to press the accelerator down to speed up, I had an unexpected seizure of my ability to control it.  At least, that is how the adjutant general attorney explained it to me. However, I was not completely vindicated of the act, as I was demoted from E-5 to E-4 for a violation of our Military Code of Justice. Something I didn’t understand clearly but it was much better than a criminal charge and facing charges as that was told to me at the beginning of this investigation.

Oddly, when the car rocketed down the street, smashing into another car and coming to a stop in someone’s back yard after barely missing the pedestrians, I could have been charged for attempted vehicular manslaughter or other kind of crimes, as the car could have easily plowed over the officer, injuring or killing some of them.

However, since I was not physically in control of my own actions (and they had no reason to think I would do such an act on purpose) I was not held morally accountable. That is, I did nothing wrong. I hope you see where I am going here as this is all based on perceptions and subjective thinking. If a person had intentionally tried to murder this officer with a car, then that would be seen as an evil action. Unless, perhaps, the driver was mentally ill in a way that disabled him in a way comparable to a stroke and since a stroke may cause the car to veer out of control, much like a mechanical failure, a case might be made that the driver might be as “innocent” as the afflicted victim.

There seem to be at least two ways that a mentally ill person might be absolved of moral responsibility (at least to the degree he is mentally ill). Regardless, the person appears to be suffering from what could be classified as a perceptual or interpretative disorder or malfunction.

That is, he may have mental defects that cause him to perceive and interpret reality incorrectly.  For example, a person suffering from extreme paranoia might think that some stranger intends to steal his brain, even if there are no such intention. I am hoping you are staying with me as I detail how we become not just institutionalized in our thinking patterns, but also fall to the games of the ‘establishment.’

In such a case, it seems reasonable to not regard the person as evil if he tries to harm someone —after all, he is acting in what he thinks is legitimate self-defense rather than from a wicked motivation. In contrast, if someone who wanted to kill me to carjack my car or just for fun would be acting in an evil way.

Put in general terms, mental conditions that distort a person’s perception and interpretation of reality might lead him to engage in acts of wrongful violence even though his moral reasoning might remain normal. 

Again, strangely, it seems sensible to consider that such people might be following their conscience as best they can, only they have distorted information to work with in their decision making process and this distortion results from mental illness.

Second, the person might be suffering from what could be regarded as a disorder of judgment. That is, the person’s ability to engage in reasoning is damaged or defective due to a perceived mental illness.

The person might (or might not) have correct information to work with, but the processing is defective in a way that causes a person to make judgments that would be regarded as evil if made by a “normal” person.

For example, a person might infer from the fact that someone is wearing a blue hat that the person should be killed or maybe in the case of the Vietnam War, a person is wearing black pajamas and therefore, should be killed.

One obvious point of concern is that “normal” people are generally bad at reasoning, no anomaly during the war, and commit fallacies with alarming regularity. As such, there would be a need to sort out the sort of reasoning, that is merely bad reasoning from reasoning that would count as being mentally ill.

One-point worth considering is that bad reasoning could be fixed by education and awareness, whereas a mental illness would not be fixed by learning, for example, logic and should be treated by diagnosis and medication or therapy.

A second obvious point of concern is discerning between mental illness as a cause of such judgments and evil as a cause of such judgments. After all, evil people can be seen as having a distorted sense of judgment in regards to value. In fact, some philosophers aka Kant and Socrates regard evil as a mental defect or a form of irrationality.

This has some intuitive appeal—after all, people who do terrible and senseless things would certainly seem to have something wrong with them. Whether this is a moral wrongness or health wrongness is, of course, the big question here. For many war veterans, this is linked to their experiences and perception during their time of service.

One of the main reasons to try to sort out the difference is figuring out whether a person should be treated (cured) or punished (which might also cure the person). As noted above, a person who did something terrible because of mental illness would (to a degree) not be accountable for the act and hence should not be punished (or the punishment should be duly tempered).

For some it is tempting to claim that the choice of evil is an illusion because there is no actual free choice (that is, we do what we do because of the biochemical and electrical workings of the bodies that are us).

As such, people should not be punished, rather they should be repaired. Of course, there is a certain irony in such advice: if we do not have choice, then advising us to not punish makes no sense since we will just do what we do.

The adverse impact of this rationale is the fact that when you apply this to government, there is no distinction made. government is not held accountable or responsible for what they do, carry out or engage in especially when it comes to making war.

So how do you introduce a subject as tender as the Vietnam War without offending anyone who fought this conflict with all his or her body and soul? Why would you even write about things that were so atrociously violent, brutal, mind boggling and controversial and what would justify speaking out against the flow of main stream media and history books when the dust has still not settled.

Controversy causes doubts of whether or not you know the truth in these matters. Can we trust the history books to tell us the truth? Perhaps to some extent, it would be the appropriate source to mention and refer to for war statistics, facts of battles, chronology, and other factual matters that verifiable by military records.

If we understand the truth correctly, without the extra perceptions, was the was a necessary evil or was it justified of being as close to ‘normal’ as life gets?

On the other hand, does the government allow the truth to be printed or would it rather conceal the deception and lies they provided over a long period of time to justify their use of one of the world’s mightiest armed forces in such a small country called the Republic of South Vietnam.

As a war veteran, I mourn the loss of my teammates daily without exceptions. As a former warrior, I seek condolences and forgiveness for what I was a part of during my one-year tour as a medic. It is a fact that for over forty years I carried a lot of guilt inside me.

One such guilt was survivor’s guilt, another kind of guilt was my own conscious, fighting my own morality and mortality. In the end, I suffered no more and no less than most Vietnam Veterans, except that I was spared the agony of Agent Orange and other visible wounds.

How I survived does not matter anymore as that stands for the record to be satisfactory and successful in both family and career paths. What I did or underwent during my recovery time, is now, not much of an issue as it has brought me full circle with life and my heart.

There is nothing more to say except to tell the truth as I have known it to exist. Is it wrong and does it point the blame somewhere else? Yes, I think so; I think the blame belongs to the ‘establishment’ that sent us to a war that was never fully justified.

At least, in my mind, that is how I see it after it was all over and done with and as I visit the Wall in DC to see the names of my fallen comrades, I realize that over 58,307 men and women lost their lives because of the bureaucracy that wanted a war fought in a foreign land under the pretense of stopping communism at the front door and not letting it be fought on American soil.

The hypocrisy in this message is stronger than the truth itself. Our country shamed us into believing we fought a good war, an honorable war and a justified war.

To some, including me, it was an honorable war but not a good war to be fought. This is a paradox that will never be clear to anyone who experienced this warfare.

This war was full of hate, racism, class warfare, political pandering and foreign policy meddling to control the power of the world while sending young men into battle. Battles that were mostly won but not sufficient to win the war.

Politics took a front seat over military victories. The entire conflict was riddled with political agendas and corporate greed that served the rich and punished the poor. Punishment that came in the form of death, injuries, maimed bodies and screwed up minds.

So now it comes down to what we know to be an insane war fought somewhere most people today have already forgotten. Why are American soldiers who engaged in a brutal war for years being punished for their loyalty and devotion to God and Country? Why does duty have such a bitter taste in my mouth, or is it the guilt that puts the salt in the wounds and cause us to suffer until eternity?

It is with high hopes that after reading my book, you become somewhat better educated, aware and cognizant of how the soldier’s mind was twisted, tortured and damaged by the war and its visual, mental and physical distortions as well as the fact that no human being can endure such an assault or onslaught on their humanity and morals without denting or impacting their reality where they have been and what they have endured.

This does not mean that I am making excuses for those who became criminals under our system of laws. The laws are there for a purpose. At the same time, the laws should distinguish the difference between mental illness and evil. I believe there are too many veterans locked up in jails and prisons who are not evil but in their own world, did things that they thought were normal or without malice or indiscriminate harm towards others.

Excluding those who plan or commit premeditated crimes, I believe many others are victims of a subjective prosecutor, jury or judge who do not understand how the mind breaks down when exposed to harsh and toxic conditions day after day, year after year, without rest, sleep, a relief of psychological guilt or anxiety and more.

On a case by case basis, we would find many veterans who served with honor during their tour of duty, who gave their all in any way they could or felt it should have been delivered or done but labeled evil and put away for crimes, punishable by many years behind bars with no chance for treatment or recovery of their own losses. 

TONY'S VOICE & LAW

Purging experience is never a good thing for the State of Arizona Department of Corrections

A

s the Arizona’s Department of Corrections (ADOC) suffers daily staff shortages and critical mass situations, the control of the agency has fallen under the control of Republican legislators and our Governor who occupy the offices that funds and oversees such public services. Within this email, I want to relay some concerns that demonstrates the emasculation of our correctional forces and the tempting desire to destroy it for reasons that point to the proliferation for more private prison services.

While the services of correctional services have long been inadequate and insufficient for public and employee safety, there has been a weak attempt to recruit and select qualified personnel of integrity and honor needed to fill such positions. In the meantime, the agency has replaced and purged qualified and good men and women with strong integrity & values from administrative ranks and replaced them with individuals who share the desire of the power brokers to devastate the agency into ruins and allow privatization to pick up the tab for public safety of our prisons.

Since 2009, we have endured the increasing influence of new politically correct guidelines but was ultimately given one that was simply too offensive to the men and women in key administrative and mid-level supervisory positions, creating a mass exodus of qualified people through early retirements or resignations.

In the meantime, we are under assault of more PC directives that are insufficient to protect the lives of staff and inmates and directly impacts good public safety. We should all take notice. The director took a sworn oath of office to uphold the state constitution and the US Constitution. This oath has been denigrated and indicates that the governor needs to re-evaluate his positon on public prisons and remove the current director from office.

A purge of experience is never good. If it continues, what will the agency be like in a few more years?

Whenever this matter comes up, the union and every officer, are told not to talk to the media or press about the staff shortage situation as well as the deterioration of the agency from within as infra-structures are seriously suffering major damages and no repairs are in sight for such recoveries. They are purging everyone and if you want to keep your job just keep your mouth shut. Now this trend appears to be accelerating.

Since Charles Ryan took office, former Governor Brewer and present governor Ducey have given him free rein in destroying the agency for the betterment of privatization. The more the public prisons failed, the better the private industry looks from their view. Things have gotten so bad during this purge that people are starting to speak out about the atrocities and mismanagements when silence was kept intact before.

Today there is a deliberate attempt to reshape our prison systems and the change or reform will be justified through administrative or management failures. Every day, they are removing those who don’t follow or adhere to the new policies written to appease failure. This administration protects their own with stalled requests for public document information and investigations.

 In an election climate that reeks of economic chaos, we may be overlooking a greater threat to our future. Diversity has been replaced by division of the rank and file. Employees wounded or injured in workplace violence or attacks are being denied reasonable accommodations to heal and return to full duty in an effort to identify as the workplace violence as an acceptable condition of employment. This includes blunt trauma, sharpened instruments or prison made knives, rapes, physical and sexual assaults and many more.

Under the leadership of Charles Ryan, the agency has suffered as never before. He instituted an insane policy which has caused an unprecedented number of staff and inmate suicides and PTSD rates among our state employees and depression and anxiety in their families. The public is unwise and heeds no attention to the failures related to the Parsons vs. Ryan healthcare lawsuit but the families of these victims have reached out to many legislators, attorneys, or some news reporters, to have someone help their sons and daughters inside prisons.

The officers are being grossly neglected. They haven’t received a raise since 2007 and more cuts are coming, and the administration actually admits losing more than 500 officers in the past years and re-arranges staffing patterns to pat the numbers on paper but leaving officers dangerously low or short on shifts. This loss is blamed on legislative cuts but in all reality, the culture of the agency drives people away and hampers legitimate recruitment attempts to hire new employees.

Just as frightening is the lack of experience or expertise in the agency. Leadership is lacking and poor decisions are made by those on the front lines responding to critical incidents that result in life and death situations.

Through their silence on the matter, a majority of the media are complicit in the cover-ups of events happening inside our prisons. Add those legislators who turn a blind eye to the matter and we should think, that should be enough – and refusing to at least give it a shot to investigate this deficiency in our state prison system is scandalous.

Please watch this video on News 12 on bullying, belittling and berating students - in Scottsdale college

https://www.12news.com/news/investigative/bullied-belittled-and-berated-did-scottsdale-community-college-turn-a-blind-eye/207602847

As a former instructor of students in the criminal justice system, I found this report by Ms. Halloran disturbing and shocking that nothing was done before a death occurred. I honestly feel that if there was some type of intervention was taken by the college, prevention of a suicide was possible. Certainly, as a former chief of the basic training section at a Nationally Accredited Corrections Academy, I saw deep flaws in the entire performance of this teacher. 

First and foremost, much sympathy to the family of this beautiful child. Wendy Halloran humanized this story to the point that the viewer can feel the pain of this gross mistreatment by an instructor who is best identified as an ‘abuser’ rather than a teacher.

The details of her death comes to a sad conclusion that she was driven by various factors to her desperate state of mind when she decided to commit suicide. Factors that are clearly describing a pattern of behaviors that should have been observed and managed by her supervisors and the college, who are ultimately, responsible for her actions and ‘enabling’ her to act out in ways, that destroys, damages or leads to a serious mental status that is similar to humiliating someone to death. Being “direct” does not include being abusive. In fact, had the college cared enough about their own credibility, integrity and abilities to teach young adults the art of equinox training, they would have seen an incompatibility in this instructor from the beginning rather than “enabling” her to act like this.

It is hard for the college to admit they abused this student. Just like it was hard for the student to admit to anyone she was shamed into a despicable state of despair and hopeless mindset by a form of mental torture that resembles a ‘boot camp’ mentality but in this case, the teacher forgets or neglects to build these kids back up after tearing them down. I heard nothing that was labeled or tagged positive reinforcements for their accomplishments.

We have to ask – why did the college give this instructor so much control and why didn’t they ‘rein her in’ when she demonstrated harsh and ‘direct’ dialogues with people vulnerable to such bullying and attending school to seek life quality improvements rather than punishments. They had the power over the teacher but did nothing to stop her. So you have to ask – who was in control? Because they let her get away with her sadistic mannerisms, she created pawns in her hand rather than students wanting to learn and not be afraid of failure or admonishment for falling short of the teacher’s expectations.

This instructor was a manipulator. She manipulated these kids for her own ego and narcissistic needs. She might have appeared normal but she needs help badly. Her obsessive control shows in her mannerism of teaching class. Perhaps she sees her students as she sees these horses, mindless and in need of strict control.

I think she scared the hell out of everybody, perhaps even her own supervisors. Her insecurity lashed out on her students who were very young, impressionable and eager to please adults especially their teachers. They followed her will and she took advantage of that relationship.

To shame someone that they aren’t good enough hurts deeply and creates an abyss of hope and promise that success is even possible. It cuts so deep, they feel through the manipulation, torture and constant abuse, they aren’t worth the time, effort or even the attention to be someone that is able to learn anything, whether it be a horse or another vocation.

This is absolutely an abuse of authority. I can’t even begin to rationalize what would drive a teacher to abuse a student like this except to believe perhaps, at one time in her life, she was abused and now has the authority to ‘get even’ with others.

In some ways, she deserves sympathy for the pathetic person she is or has become. Her future as a teacher in now in deep doubt as the college will have to decide to retain her or fire her. This relationship by the instructor and her students was most unnecessarily rude in nature and unmannerly as an employee or educator. The college was left with no other choice to defend her actions because to fire her, would be an admission of guilt that they failed to act to protect the students and that’s a gross violation of trust and integrity for educators.

Let me list the factors of shaming this student to her death – she was likely a very bright girl and threatened the teacher’s own intelligence or control of their conversations. This caused resentment and more abuse because the student had the power instead of the teacher.

Since this relationship was based on power and authority rather than intellectual or educational grounds, the teacher wanted to take control and she did by being direct and harsh and at times, intimidating and cruel.

Tantrums in the classroom are very disruptive and the student usually gets the blame for any interruptions due to the manipulation factor. I am certain that this teacher never attempted to fix any flaws but rather, focused on flaws and shamed her by bullying her in front of her classmates or when isolated.

She not only shamed her to death, she scared her to death. She knew the student needed her approval to successfully finish the college course and move on. When the teacher took control and exerted her power over her, she threatened the student with failure and that’s a no win position for the student.

This entire episode is about abuse and control. Sad it had to end like this.  However, Wendy Halloran did a fantastic job revealing the background factors that gave me insight on this instructor. I might be wrong on some of my comments but overall, this teach was unfit and unqualified to teach our young people in a structured and what was supposed to be an educational environment. 

Hell behind the CPAP mask - self help information book on OSA

Boredom - Spontaneous and Solicited inside prisons

Spontaneous and Solicited Boredom inside a Prison

Without getting into the morality or veracity of how prisons are being run or operated and whether or not they are within our legitimately statutory or constitutional guidelines in reference to human rights and confinement conditions decreed by the courts, it has been widely expressed that under the dehumanizing conditions of prison life, it is reasonable to say that the state of boredom has come to pervade the experience of everyday life inside the penitentiary.

This collective boredom can be the trigger mechanism to spawn not only moments of illicit excitement (as prisons are schools of enhanced criminality as well as a house of repentance) but larger arenas of short-lived crimes committed against boredom itself, but a stimulus for a larger flow or migration of political and cultural rebellion spread out over time sentenced and served.

Thus it is safe to describe this collection of boredom inside a large jail or prison as an institutionalized form of boredom due to ambient beats or tones in relationship to its various sets of rules and cultural behaviors in various levels of societal expectations or innovations.

Every penal system has a brand or culture of its own and fosters daily under the pressure of mental stress, intellectual excitement (thrill seekers or adrenalin junkies) and therefore offers a rebellion of its own at times. Hence, a collective or institutional boredom is an overall form of a human(s) engagement(s) with time, space, rules, criminality and other factors explored to determine what prisoners do when they get bored.

Like out in the streets, institutional boredom can be destructive in nature and needs to be addressed to avoid social disruptions or criminal activities from taking over their efforts to do their time constructively and with some acceptable form of rehabilitative efforts to come out a reformed person.

Anyone who denies that boredom does not impact criminality, violence, property destruction, disturbances or other negative environmental dynamics has not studied the mannerism of those incarcerated for a lengthy amount of time and how they do their time. take into consideration a few other factors to add to the triggers of boredom and you have yourself a collective cause that are the basic foundation of crimes, riots, looting and destruction of property when activated under another reason or pretense.

Boredom can be quickly accelerated into a vested ‘interest’ to participate and cause or create a larger scene. One can invest in the act of incitement by merely shouting encouragement or actually act out with their own activities or engagements demonstrating approval, cohesion and rebellion.

This is how the boredom is quickly and spontaneously spread into an organized or collective effort to exhibit a sense of approval, whatever the cause, grievance or complaint might be at the time of such demonstrations. Even tacit approval, by silence, can bring a collective effort to its peak or climax if the tone and energy afforded and applied matches the wills of those participating.

Encouragement can come in many forms – (chants) talk along, mocking or repeating, laughing and yelling or some other form of human engagement that displays some sort of anthem or affirmation of something e.g. allegiance through a show of cohesiveness and heavy taunting. This is especially true in gangs.

Realistically, through some common or conflicting gang audiences, this method of communicating, may in fact be translated into lyrics, or [rap] songs that represent their moods or ideologies with a pretense or disguise these lyrics are just that, songs, but in reality their mantra for behaviors and claiming or expressing their membership of the gang.

Such collective boredom strategies may be a form of organizing or dis-organizing illicit or unauthorized gatherings while reinstating their presence and body of force and power / control on those present at the time including correctional staff. In a prison setting this could be done even when every individual is locked up in a single cell as they collectively chant or taunt those who oppose them. Thus the freedom to join in these impulses is solicited and inviting a common cause or resistance.

Moreover, such activists or instigators are in reality a symptomatic example of other problems that should not be ignored in everyday existence. Remember that everything in human life exists within the boundaries of buying and selling; a web of exploitative and demeaning activities and behaviors that undermine the security and order of any facility.

By their mere example of behavior, they could trigger or force a demonstration of resistance that threatens the everyday routine of any large jail or prison and if not picked up, could cause apocalyptic consequences. Most people would heed such a warning and alert those in charge something is happening and the place is filled with a banner of subversive activities. A ghost of things to come that is ever present in every penal institution everywhere.

This cultural undercurrent must be observed or detected to avoid a more aggressively animated unexpected uprising. The disregarding of such behaviors allows tension and other stressors to percolate and if it remains unaddressed, it serves as a fuel by creating an incendiary cultural dogma of the group’s desired wishes or demands to be heard or mediated with in order to resolve any undetermined grievances before the place blows up.   

One cannot deny that whenever such howling incantations of these type of activities are present, there is in fact a critique that turns out or reveals that boredom or too much leisure time was directly involved in such demonstrations. Hopefully, nobody will say that boredoms are minor details and address such conditions in a timely manner with secondary points of interest to discuss or mediate for resolution.

Boredom is the tool of insurgents. The politics of boredom straddle criminality and excitement. Boredom may be displayed as graffiti, vandalism, fights, theft, sexual assaults and much more. With the agenda of mass incarceration and overpopulated jails and prisons, boredom has emerged as some sort of motive for aggression and a conceptual building block for activism and critique of the environment. This by itself allows boredom to expand into broader social and cultural condition at the whim of the activists or demonstrators.

Keep in mind, revolutions are real or imagined creations for the possibilities to change social and political justice. There is a strong relationship between boredom, revolutions or disruptions and criminality. Having the condition of boredom multiplies exponentially the reasons for incitement, excitement and is implicit in institutionalized worlds like prisons.

Merely based on penitentiary related customs and practices, there is a precarious tradition to destroy or riot whenever conditions are unsatisfactory or when faced with any other pragmatic situation that may need attention.  

Boredom as defined inside a large jail or prison could encompass features such as bureaucratic rationalization, too much efficiency, excessive routinization, excessive or insufficient regulation, too much standardization and others familiar to stifle the human engagement to be productive or creative whenever incarcerated for a long period of time.

The more repetitive the environment is, the more boredom is created and thus the population senses no progress and becomes idle and frustrated. In plain English – whenever overcome by the dulling sameness of the day, the more boredom is created.

Here at last is the paradox of boredom and institutionalization – the agency wants regulation and consistency in their programs – the population suffers on sameness and dullness. Thus the challenge is to emerge with some human measures of worth, values and address the quirks of individualities and create some incentive to provide a personal innovation to combat boredom.

Taking into consideration that obedience to rules and regulation is rationalized as success, this process takes away the independence of minds and creates problems for the rulebooks due to misbehaviors and other resistance motives. Therefore, an unusual rise or growth in disciplinary or misconduct is a red flag for potential disruptions within the population.

Success should be measured in defusing or recover a sustainable balance for moderation and at the same time, find things to do in everyday life to counter-point the dullness and make the individual existence meaningful with some kind of approved democratic participation in the construction of their everyday life.

The administration should find a balance between legitimate mental exertions and physical or labor interests inside their facilities eliminating or reducing negative forces that exert hate or discernment, personal discouragement and irrational thinking and emotional disruptions which do not escape and escalate with due time.

Today, public schools serve as rehearsal halls for mental hospitals and jails/prisons emerge as training centers for boredom through the enforcement of a tedium agenda. To repeat this trajectory from schools to prisons is a dangerous path to continue on as it has an emotional buildup that is rarely addressed through constructive means or programs.

Children today are being programmed and orientated into a state of disciplined efficiency. Working assembly lines or fast food franchises are mass-producing instruments of boredom and when re-instituted inside a jail or prison, the process is continued without any freedom for individuality to appear and invigorate the mind and body onto a new path.

One can begin to see how the mechanics of conformity create a schedule of dullness and sameness to a large degree in the everyday life and more so inside a prison. This would be a positive attribute if the population was to remain under some level of mind control or a rigid trained insightful means of behaving but the fact is, in order to prepare them for release, we have to find ways to cut out the rigidities of their sameness and create individuals who may think and behave to conform to society’s rules which are much more liberal and filled with more freedoms than inside the joint.

As an alternative, we must seek an open circle of control rather than the closed circle they [prisoners] have been orientated under and conformed to strict rules while incarcerated. This could be addressed through custody levels as the lower custody levels allow more individuality than the higher more rigid custody levels.

Research shows that boredom creates alienation, estrangement of relationships etc. as their minds are not adequately occupied. It would appear that if there was some change infused into the everyday life the monotony is reduced, and relief is found making it more bearable and creative that may even include some excitement for the lack of a better word.

Delving into the emotional aspect of boredom, we find despair as one fatalistic element as well as resistance. This would be exasperated for those who are mentally ill and contemplate suicide. One can create radicalism through boredom as those who resist boredom seek alternatives that are either constructive or destructive in nature.

Sabotage is another aspect of boredom. The idea to interrupt the normal or sameness experienced daily becomes a challenge to disrupt to interrupt life’s mind-numbing repetition. Researchers argue that boredom is indeed a counter-revolutionary device meaning it might mean a fight against the dehumanizing process of standardization.

The advantage of some traditionally situated individuals who serve in the armed forces is the fact that they may be sparked or stimulated by the chance of war, deployment, combat or anything else that differs from everyday life. Thus life is calculated by situations that produce risks and uncertainties.