Transporting any inmate can be dangerous, most of the time the medical staff in any facility don’t want the responsibility of working on the inmate,so they incur sending the inmate to outside facility. The on site doctor is usually paid the same salary if he/she works on one inmate or ten inmates so why work hard. The head of your facility should address this situation. The medical staff as well as the correction staff should not let the inmate know when he/she is going to a clinic, dental or any outside transport move until the transport personnel have the inmate secured and ready to be placed in a secured vehicle, two officers for any inmate any two officers and 1 supervisor if an escape risk. shackled to bed at all times. Check with your departmental rules and regs and your local laws. Do you know what the inmate is in for?, felony, misd. or civil offense and if he/she decides to run will you shoot him/her??? Many senarios can be different especially from state to state and are your personnel trained properly for this?

I handle federal inmate transport as a main position. However, on occasion I and my partner are asked to help out with transporting to and from the hospital and/or ER. When we transport the inmate is placed in “full restraint” (handcuffs, leg irons, belly chain.) On routine trips to the hospital (xrays, lab work, etc.) I tell the inmate he is going ONLY as he is being placed in the restraints. That way he has no way of getting word to outside help. The phones to his cell and those around it are turned off until we return. (Bummer for his cellies and neighbors! lol) My partner and I are both carrying Glocks. I tell the inmate just before getting in the transport van that “I have Tourette’s Syndrome and have not had my meds in a week.” (90% of the time this is a true statement! The other 10% I have only missed the meds a couple of days. lol) Seriously, we have never had a problem. Overnight hospital stays are a whole other Jerry Springer as far as security. Anytime an officer has to stay with an inmate overnight they are armed. Family and friends are not permitted to visit or make calls in to the inmates room. The inmate is not allowed to call out. Hospital staff members are instructed not to give out room information in person or on the phone.

If the inmate is considered an escape risk, every effort is made to have a doctor come to our facility. If the medical problem is not life threatening they don’t go. They see a doc when one CAN come to us.

A couple of times inmates have asked me, “Would you really shoot me?” My standard answer is to state the actual fact: “The gun isn’t for you. I can catch you with all that ‘jewelry’ on. The gun is for any of your friends and family that may have a problem with you staying in my care. But the answer to your question would be yes, if it came down to it.”

So do we Twelve. Usually the third officer is supervisor of some sort. We have varying degrees of transportation restraints as well. Our most secure prisoners wear the black box, a device designed by an ex prisoner that prevents anyone from picking the handcuffs. Pretty neat to see and relatively easy to apply.

At our prison we send two armed officers on any outside medical trip, 3 armed officers if the offender is considered an escape risk.

Michigan corrections agencies utilize their own staff for hospital runs and medical trips. In the event there is less staff than necessary, we have transportation officers that work for the entire complexes and can cover if necessary. We also have a contract with the local ambulance provider and if necessary, it we will send two officers and reduce our movement until we are staffed appropriately.

Tell that to the bigwigs in Ohio. Their “do more with even less” attitude has us understaffed and overcrowded, while they continue to cut jobs within the department. We are currently at an all time high for inmate population throughout the state, and they are doing massive job cuts across the department and planning for more within the next year.

Officer safety is paramount. If a medical trip can’t be done safely, it should not be done at all. Have a doctor make a house call. There really is no exuse for an agency in the United States to not have enough manpower and/or finanacial means to ensure public and officer safety.

The info in the article about medical security, Diligent medical security to save lives, 10/17/07 is good but not practical for agencies that cannot afford or do not have the manpower to devote that many officers to a medical trip. Has anyone else used other tactics regarding transport security?