Topic: Letter of The Law / No lunch breaks?

Is there anyway we can remove this crazed person’s account from this website? I feel mentally ill just reading the bullcrap she’s putting up here. Perhaps she should be locked in a rubber-room somewhere far away from computers and people. I wouldn’t be surprised if she tried to present charges against herself for sexual abuse.

Topic: The Club House / Stress and Community Corrections

My of my research for college was conducted in online surveys.

Topic: Letter of The Law / No lunch breaks?

Why do I get the feeling this chick’s default is set to sexual abuse. Maybe you did get molested by your father and maybe that made you crazy. Hence forth, anything and everything that happened to you where anyone touched for any reason, brought you back to that original abuse, thereby making it seem like you were being victimized all over again. Perhaps you should look into getting on some anti-psychotic medications.

Topic: Economy & Stimulus / A Stimulus Method to Get Out of Recession..

I like the way you think Galaxy. What ever happened to “hard time”. Inmates these days get sentenced to prisneyland. Sorry, you screwed up, now you have to pay for your crimes by doing something useful for a change. Why are we still letting them lounge around and watch cable when there’s crap that needs to be done?

Topic: Health & Wellness / Daily Meals

If an emergency arises that prevents proper planning for a full meal, we do sack lunches but if we’re locked down for an extended period of time we do satellite feeding following the regular meal plan. Typically the kitchen puts the food in styrofoam clam-shell trays, stacks ‘em on a food cart and sends them to the units. In the unit we allow eight inmates out their cells at a time to retrieve their food and return to their cells, as gen. pop. cells don’t have bean slots.

Topic: Health & Wellness / Mandated CPR On Inmates: Good Or Not So Good?

I believe CPR certification is mandatory for all public servants. At my facility staff members must perform CPR if an emergency arises. However, we are to do chest compressions only unless we have a breathing mask on hand.

Topic: The Club House / If corrections had a slogan what would it be?

I know this stuff happened a long long time ago but I’m just now joining the party. Anyway, @ realist02. I have a psych. degree from one of the most prestigious colleges in the country and I worked a full time job and a part time job while attending just to partly pay for it so thank you but I will continue to complain about my job as long as my complaints are warranted and substantiated. Anyway, here are another couple slogans.

Prison: Don’t like it? Don’t come here.

Do you work in prison? Then shut up.

The Department of Corrections: The world’s foremost childcare providers.

Corrections: Yes, I will bring you some toilet paper.

Prison: There’s a policy against that.

Topic: The Club House / If corrections had a slogan what would it be?

“Corrections: Because it sounds better than terminations.”

“Corrections: Making better criminals since 1610.”

“Corrections: We’ll take it from here.”

“Prison: You have no idea how this works, do you?”

Topic: The Club House / Right to Work/Unionization

I am not a fan of unions. That being said, Idaho is a right to work state, or as I like to put it, a right to get screwed by your employer state. With no laws on the books concerning work week or hours, my employer has before forced its employees to work up to four sixteen hour shifts in a row and then even tried to intimidate us into coming in on our days off. Unfortunately, in situations like these, if you don’t have a union to protect you from crap like that then you are pretty much just screwed. We don’t have a union so it stands to reason that we also don’t have any staff most of the time. This is not the way things should work. If we had ethics in business, we wouldn’t need unions and if we had ethics in unionization then we wouldn’t need “right to work” laws. I think we all should have the right to be treated well, regardless of business.

Topic: The Club House / Privitazation of some of Ohios' prisons

@comfortably, it seems to be the opposite here in Idaho. I work for a private company but we have no control over which inmates we get or don’t get. IDOC sends us the ones they don’t want to deal with and then blames it on us when they beat each-other up.

As for the way my company works, I do have to say that they are completely profit driven. They only way to get them to pay attention to anything is to tell them it will cost them money. Recently I sent an e-mail to the warden with a couple suggestions to raise morale in my institution. I was told, “if you don’t like they way this place is run, there’s the door.” as well as “We pay you to do a job, isn’t that enough?” Incredible, really. Unfortunately, with the economy the way it is these private companies have a seemingly endless supply of staff so they couldn’t care less how we’re treated and how many people quit because of it.

Topic: The Club House / which shoes or boots?

Corcorans are reasonably comfortable but they’re kind of hard to fit. They are incredibly light for boots though which is nice and they last forever. I’ve had a pair for almost 7 years now. I just replace the insole and keep on trucking. I also have a pair of SWAT brand boots with the air cushion sole. These are quite simply, the most comfortable boot I’ve ever warn. The only problem is that after a year, the leather is cracking quite severely.

Topic: Security Central / Best way to handle unruly inmate

A couple things I learned from a couple of wise men. First, one of my training Sergeants for Verbal Judo said, “if it feels good, don’t say it.” and then one of my psychology professors in college once said, “fear and anger are pretty much interchangeable. If someone is angry, try to figure out why they’re scared.” All in all, your goal is to deescalate the situation. If an inmate is screaming at you, concentrate on what information he’s trying to get across to you rather than concentrating on how he’s choosing to relay that information. Let the inmate know that you hear what he’s saying. Repeat it back so that he knows that you’re listening and then ask him if he has any viable solutions to offer to his particular problem. There’s nothing wrong with asking the question, “is there anything I can do right now to get you to calm down?” If the answer is no, then odds are, you’re not going to get anywhere with this guy and you should respond appropriately.

Topic: The Club House / Comebacks

Inmate: Why are you taking my stuff?
Me: It’s altered.
Inmate: Well, are you going to give me a confiscation sheet?
Me: If you want me to but you should know that if I write paper work about why I took this from you then I also have to write paper work that you were disciplined for having it. Then of course, that means that I have to write disciplinary sanctions for you. Do you still want a confiscation sheet?

Topic: The Club House / Comebacks

Had an inmate get pissed off at me because I took some of his property during a cell search. He said to me, “Don’t make me drop you.” I replied, “Please man, I’ll ride you across this tier like a surf board.” Of course there was an audience, as this happened in the middle of the dayroom and the whole place erupted with laughter.

Topic: Security Central / Offender Movement

The way we move any seg. inmate at my facility is in restraints. We do two officer, hands on, escorts. Seems to work out pretty well. If the inmate gets froggy, the situation can be controlled immediately. Also, because we house Adseg, dd, pc, and other types of seg. inmates in the same units it’s easier to maintain safety and anonymity if we treat them all as disciplinary detention inmates as far as escorts go.

Topic: Security Central / Tasers in the Jail?

We do not use Tasers in my facility in Idaho but I am a great proponent of them. They work better than OC to gain instant compliance and I believe they are actually more humane. If someone is contaminated with OC they experiance that for up to an hour sometimes. With Tasers, the ride lasts five seconds and the pain is over, usually, with no lasting affect other than some muscle soreness in the next day or two. As far as Tasers being used against staff by inmates, again, if you get sprayed by OC then you’re pretty much screwed for the next ten minutes while you try your best to catch glimpes of what’s going on before your eyes slam shut again. You’re totally helpless. If an inmate gets a hold of your Taser, you have a few moments to rush him while he tries to figure out how to use it. If you do get zapped, he’s probably not going to hold the trigger down for the full five and even if he does, when it’s over, you can grab the leads and yank them out or use them to recover your device and immediately get back in the fight. Furthermore, you’re only going to get hit once while with OC they can spray a few times.

Topic: Letter of The Law / No lunch breaks?

At Idaho Correctional Center, run by CCA, we work 12 to 16 hour shifts and are not alotted breaks of any sort.

Topic: Letter of The Law / Mandated overtime?

Idaho DOC was, for a while, not allowing overtime and even mandating furlow days. I, however, work for CCA at an Idaho facility and we have mandated OT. Our system works on a rotating roster. When you work OT, you are moved to the bottom of the list which works well when we only need a few per day but it does get quite out of hand at times. Idaho is a “right to work” state so labor laws are pretty much non-existent