Safe Within the Walls: Communication, Control, and De-Escalation of Mentally Ill and Aggressive Inmates for Correctional Officers in Prison Facilities

by Ellis Amdur

The first sections of this audiobook are concerned with the development of a safety mindset and techniques to develop and hone intuition. This also includes what we can do to achieve a state of integrity and powerful calm. The author offers specific strategies, including a method of breathing, for the purpose of maintaining calm in crisis situations.

The next sections, the heart of the book, discuss specific behaviors ranging from confusion and obsessive concerns to psychosis, mania, and acute disorganization. In one very important section, the author discusses interactions with opportunistic and manipulative individuals, people who present a danger to the psychological and physical well-being of anyone with whom they come in contact. This is followed by a section on the recognition of patterns of behavior that suggest suicidal intent, best-practice communication, and interventions for frontline officers, who must deal with the suicidal inmate first.

Next is a discussion of aggression, whether directed at the correctional officer or others. These sections focus how to de-escalate and control aggressive and chaotic inmates once a crisis is in play. De-escalation tactics are specific–one learns how to immediately recognize what mode of aggression the other person is displaying, and then they can quickly and effectively implement the de-escalation tactics that are best suited to deal with it.

Finally, in essential appendices, the book presents protocols on positional and compression asphyxiation (authored by Dr. Gary Vilke), and a protocol specific to correctional officers on excited delirium (authored by Lieutenant Michael Paulus, ret.)

Rather than abstract information that is more useful in a consulting room than in the field, Safe Within the Walls is tactically based from start to finish. Safe Within the Walls is ideal to use as a core text to set up a comprehensive program within a prison to protect both inmates with mental illness and correctional officers.

Audible Audio

First published December 18, 2019

About the author

Ellis Amdur balances two careers, that as a crisis intervention specialist, through his company, Edgework and as a 50+ year practitioner of traditional Japanese martial arts. His writing meets right in the middle.
Among his non-fiction works are thirteen profession-specific books on verbal de-escalation of aggression, two books for hostage negotiators, two on the art of tactical communication with hostile individuals, one on the art of psychotherapy, and has edited a book by Evelyn & Shelley Amdur on the former's career as a hospice social worker.

He has written and published three books on martial arts, the iconoclastic Dueling with Osensei: Old School, a work on classical martial traditions and Hidden in Plain Sight, on esoteric knowledge within various martial traditions.

In fiction, he is a co-author of the graphic novel, Cimmaronin, and the author of two novels, The Girl with the Face of the Moon, and Lost Boy. His third novel, Little Bird & the Tiger, set in Meiji Japan, is due for release in 2023.

His books are considered unique in that he uses his own experiences, often hair-raising or outrageous, as illustrations of the principles about which he writes, but it is also backed by solid research, and boots-on-the-ground experience.