How Darth Vader Prevented a Stabbing in a Youth Justice Centre
By Stephan Friedrich
Original article:
Back when I worked in a youth detention centre, every day was a day of defusing potential violence. One develops very quickly, the skills necessary for creatively avoiding getting hurt. This is because all the young detainees are likely to have endured a very traumatic early childhood, and as a result are more prone to protective reactions, hyper vigilance, and aggression. So the best methods are not to wait until the incident erupts and apply a range of torturous ‘restraint’ procedures that further traumatise the young person and leave workers wondering how on earth they are making a difference.
On the contrary, many youth justice workers become very adept at using techniques that change the young person’s thinking, and that through humour, and the patient development of real rapport, remind him (it was an all male centre) that he is safe.
One day I heard some yelling out from the kitchen, a co-worker poked her head out of the kitchen and said ‘you better come in, its Luke’. I walked into the dining room and found workers in a wide circle around Luke, with the other boys looking on. I had a good rapport with Luke so I approached. He had a wild and triggered look in his eye, ready to pounce and he was holding a fork out in front of him. I wasn’t sure what had started this, and nobody seemed to know. Frequent requests to put the fork down were being met with hostility.
As I approached he snarled, ready to attack, and yelled out,
“F*** off! I’ll stab ya, ya dog!!”
I then had an idea, and just went with it; I covered my mouth and started making heavy Darth Vader mechanical breathing sounds. My co-worker Mark, a very funny man caught on, through some kind of team telepathy, and began to hum the theme from Star Wars.
Luke looked a little confused, I could tell we were beginning to settle the fight/flight mode, bypassing the amygdala and appealing to his Cortex, where the memories of our previous funny conversations about the Star Wars movies were held.
He remained on alert and still looked ready to attack though.
Then, in my best Darth Vader voice I said,
“Luke… Luke…. USE THE FORK LUKE”.
In that moment the aggression disappeared, and he said,
“You’re a goose. You’re both gooses”
Mark held out his hand and gently took the fork, and then ushered him out of the room to take a walk with him.
Without being compassionate and creative, this event could have had disastrous consequences, While there are many times in which use of force, even lethal force is unavoidable, I think of the many times that young people and adults with a mental illness have been unnecessarily restrained or even shot as they threatened workers, public or police with sharp objects.
In this case sure, we could just have pounced on him taken the fork and put him into the ‘isolation room’. And sure, sometimes that has to happen, but at what cost? Injuries, retraumatisation, ethical compromise, and the destruction of rapport and trust.
In this case, we did not play the battle game. we made a new game. Too often we engage in the battle with a young person, and it is never positive. we had a trusting team, in tune with each other, we trusted that Luke was not bad, but that he was triggered and needed help, and that was what we were paid to do, and what would result in a better sleep after the shift was over.