A form of Terrorism?

There are some idyllic moments, even in prison. A yard in Tucson AZ has trees and flowering bushes in a courtyard and we were often obliged to wait there in between permitted movements from place to place. It was rarely an inconvenience to while away a few minutes beneath a tree, surrounded by some purple flower that smells like baking sweet bread.

One day, I was watching baby Cooper's hawks jumping back and forth on the pine trees above me and listening to the raspy peeps and cackles when another noise sort of... invaded. Some distant arhythmic noise pops like someone making popcorn in a room nearby. I've heard it so often and in so many prisons, it's like getting used to living near a waterfall. Every once in a while, it pushes itself into conscious awareness and, if you're feeling meditative, you are quickly brought back to the reality of being in a prison full of enemies who train to maim and kill me. That is the sound of the firing range. The one beside the prison. Where they are training to kill me.

Sadly, I've been to a lot of prisons: well over 10 in my life. I've never been to one yet that isn't within earshot of a firing range, where the staff train on some regular basis to injure and kill people like me. As for training for interpersonal communication, de-escalation skills, psychology, human behavior... nil. If you ask them about it, their eyes glaze over or they openly mock any training to help them understand prisoners’ actions. Some light reading has shown me various prison's training for interpersonal communications is about a 1-hour class in their initial training course. That is it. Yet the sounds of lethal training are a near constant. And the glee with which they talk of shooting practice... it is sad, but honestly, it’s mostly terrifying.

It took me years to realize how disturbing it is to keep shooting ranges so near the prison. That they shoot people who are fighting anyway is among the more ludicrous methods for crowd control, but I wonder how many people are terrorized by these sounds over the years? How many develop PTSD because of it? How many unlucky ones, most of whom weren't involved in the fight, just too close or too slow to run away, even when they're yelling at us to hit the ground. Only a fool would hit the ground near a fight. That is where they'll shoot!

It's the constant threat... is this conducive to a healthy mental state? I guess that’s what I’m getting at. I’ve over 14 years’ experience in prisons, and I’ve only known 2 people shot and killed by the staff. I've known... more than I can count that have been shot and lived; mostly with birdshot (50 little bbs in a shotgun shell. They rarely kill, but still plenty have been blinded, marred, and scarred for life by such a "less than lethal" method), myself included in this number. I saw a person’s guts blown out by a high-powered rifle and he wasn't even involved in the fight. He lived! Although with what quality I don't know after so many feet of intestine are removed.

How do you define "terrorism"? Britannica says, "the calculated use of violence to create a general climate of fear in a population". That... covers it for us here.