You’ve seen the video. Robert Brooks, handcuffed, is being beaten to death while correctional officers stand around with their hands in their pockets. You probably felt rage at the officers throwing punches. Maybe you told yourself, “That would never be me.”
But here’s the question that should haunt every one of us in corrections, “Would you have been the one standing there, watching?”
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The real story of what happened at Marcy Correctional Facility on December 9, 2024, is the circle of officers who stood there. Who saw a man being killed and did nothing. Some eventually joined in. None stepped forward to stop the killing.
After more than 30 years working in and training correctional staff, I can tell you something that should disturb you. This bystander behavior wasn’t an anomaly. It was cultural.
Those officers had watched misconduct before. They’d stood by before. They’d learned, through a thousand small moments, that loyalty to the uniform meant looking the other way. And on December 9, that learned behavior became complicity in murder.
Culture change starts with you
You can’t change your department’s culture by complaining about leadership. You can’t ethics-train your way out of a culture that rewards cowardice. There’s only one way to transform a toxic culture and it starts with the hardest person you’ll ever have to lead, yourself.
This isn’t comfortable. I know because I’ve lived it. I’ve been the officer who intervened, who reported, who refused to play along. I’ve been shunned, passed over for promotion and labeled as disloyal. But I’ve also seen what happens when you have the courage to stand alone.
Eventually, you don’t stand alone anymore.
When you see something wrong, will you have the courage to step forward?
Because if you won’t, then you’re part of the toxic culture you’re complaining about.
Understanding the bystander effect in corrections
Several factors explain why officers fail to intervene when they witness misconduct.
Cultural norms. A culture of loyalty to fellow officers can discourage intervention, even when misconduct occurs. Officers may fear being ostracized or labeled as disloyal, a rat or someone who can’t be trusted. In tight-knit correctional environments, this social pressure can feel insurmountable.
Fear of retaliation. Officers may hesitate to report or act against problematic behaviors due to fear of negative consequences, such as being passed over for promotions, being assigned to undesirable posts or facing other forms of reprisal. In some facilities, officers who report misconduct face harassment or even threats.
Diffusion of responsibility. When multiple officers are present, there can be a reduced sense of personal responsibility to intervene. Each officer assumes someone else with more rank, more experience or more authority will act. The result? No one acts.
Systemic barriers to change. The bystander effect within correctional departments becomes a systemic issue that perpetuates harmful practices and prevents accountability and organizational growth. When standing by becomes normalized, it becomes nearly impossible to break the cycle without individual courage.
These aren’t excuses. They are explanations and understanding them is the first step toward breaking the pattern.
Myth of top-down culture change
I often hear officers talk about the culture where they work. They complain about the bosses and how they don’t do anything to improve the culture. They sit through ethics training, but watch superiors act unethically. They see administrators preach accountability while protecting their friends from consequences.
You can’t force others to change, no matter your position. Administrators can mandate training, update policies and issue directives, but they cannot mandate courage. They cannot police their way into a culture where officers do the right thing when no one is watching.
There is only one way to bring about change in your agency. You must model the change you want to see. When you model ethics, leadership and courage, you will give other officers the strength to follow your lead, to become agents of change themselves. Culture doesn’t change from the top down. It changes officer by officer, shift by shift and decision by decision.
Cost and reward of moral courage
I was the supervisor of a segregation unit. I had an officer who was always trying to prove how tough he was, but only when the inmates were cuffed. He would intentionally tighten the cuffs to cause the inmate to pull back or react to the pain. He would use the inmate’s reaction as an excuse to slam them into the wall or put them on the floor.
He proved nothing. But he upset the entire unit. He caused unnecessary uses of force. He put other officers in danger when they had to respond to his manufactured incidents. At first, I gave him the benefit of the doubt. Maybe he was just inexperienced or didn’t realize how his actions affected others.
The more I paid attention, the more I discovered what he was doing. This was intentional. This was a pattern.
I pulled him aside and confronted him about what he was doing. I told him I would not allow this behavior to continue. He told me to mind my own business.
If you’ve worked in a segregation unit, then you know the bond that develops between officers who are dealing with a housing unit full of problem inmates every day. That bond keeps you safe, sane and coming back shift after shift. But that bond cannot exist when you have an officer intentionally antagonizing inmates or causing injury or pain for his own gratification.
I made the decision the next morning not to let him on the unit. Instead, I escorted the officer to the captain’s office to report on the officer’s behavior.
The aftermath was exactly what I expected. Some officers didn’t want to work with me anymore. I was labeled as someone who couldn’t be trusted. Others would talk behind my back.
It’s uncomfortable to be shunned, isolated or labeled. But one thing about doing a job for so long, I get to see things with depth and perspective across many years.
Yes, some staff refused to work with me. But good officers who wanted to do the job right quietly showed up. They wanted to work in a safe unit, where good decisions were made, where they didn’t have to worry about getting involved in misconduct or covering for it. They wanted to go home at the end of their shift, knowing they’d done their job with integrity.
Over time, I discovered something powerful. When I stand up for what’s right, I give permission to others who have been wanting to do the same thing. I break the spell of the bystander effect. I prove that intervention is possible, that retaliation isn’t inevitable, that doing the right thing doesn’t have to mean the end of your career.
The officers who distanced themselves? Most of them moved on, transferred out or burned out. The officers who quietly showed up? They became the core of a unit that functioned professionally, safely and with integrity.
Again, the question isn’t whether misconduct exists in your facility. It does. The question is, “What will you do when you see it?”
