Jail Staffing

[Don]

How do you guys feel about jail staffing. Should it be done with deputies, should it be done with corrections officers, or should it be a mixture of both?

I

[JKT]

In general, most of the confinement area should be staffed with CO's or Jailers (whichever is the local vernacular-it's Jailer or Detention Officer here). However there are some specialty areas, such as Transport (Medical and Transfer), that should be Deputies or Dual Certified Peace Officer/Jailer (etc).

Recently, there was a case of an area State Prison unit that transported an inmate to a local Hospital. Prison policies were disregarded, due to the apparent nature of the injury (he stated that he had swallowed a p38-style can opener). The inmate was supposedly bleeding internally and the medical staff rushed him to the Hospital. upon his arrival, two of the three guards had left the inmate in an exam room with the third guard, who allowed the inmate to cover himself while he urinated. While covered, he produced a handcuff key from a body oriface, and released himself, then produced a "fake gun" (which didn't look all that real).

The inmate then took two nurses hostage.

Meanwhile, the three guards (one of which was armed) exited the exam room. The one armed guard drew his weapon, then RAN from the area.

After allegedly (still pending) repeatedly sexually assaulting the two nurses, the inmate surrendered to the City PD SWAT team.

In my opinion, and others with whom I work, if the guards had had adequate training in restraint procedures and officer safety, there would be no pending trail of the inamte.

What it boils down to is this: There are some areas of MOST Detention Facilities/Jails that should be, at the least, specially trained.

Sorry about the rant-touchy subject.

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Optimistic pessimist: Hope for the best, but expect the worst.

Jack

[Don]

One county that I worked for used primarily C.O.s to staff their jail. Then when they had rioting (lettuce riots in the fields in the

[JKT]

Don, we have a combination here, also. Some of "older" hands are dual certified as Jailers and Peace Officers.

There are times that some of us are called to work details "outside" and it comes in handy to have the dual certs.

I'm one of those that didn't really like working the street, so I went back into Detention. (Started as a Dispatcher, went through the Academy, went on the street/jail/street/jail). Street jobs were with two other Departments, Jail with my current Department. Total 19 months Dispatch, 5 years street, 14 Jail, for a grand total of 21 years http://www.officer.com/ubb/frown.gif .

Damn, I feel old http://www.officer.com/ubb/wink.gif

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Optimistic pessimist: Hope for the best, but expect the worst.

Jack

[tcsd1236]

When I started in the jail, there were some older officers who had been hired as Deputies and had retained that title when civil service came into being and the Corrections Officer title was created.
They eventually had to get all of the Deps out of the jail bercause it was a contract issue; the deps were making substantially more money for doing the same work, and it was coming up during every contract negotiation. So they made a point of retiring or promoting every jail deputy to the Road patrol.

[Tackleberry]

Our prison is staffed entirely of Correctional Officers, although we do have a sheriff's department they are seperate from our department. We are very lucky in that we get very good training and our department has very qualified instructors for everything. We have an Emergency Response Team which I am a member of and train right along side other police SWAT teams and prison ERT's. Our department has very good equipment and we are pretty stockpiled for anything that might happen. We also have Transport teams who I am also a member of who are trained for any transports. Mostly all I'd say 90% of the transport teams are compiled of ERT members so we have some of the very best training if things go wrong. I feel very badly for other departments who skimp on officer training because they are only setting themselves up for a disaster. I wouldn't care if we are called CO's or deputies or if they worked with us either. As long as the quality of people and training was there who cares what your title is??


Tac

[Guard Dog]

I have always been in the LE side of our agnecy but think one of the dumbest things our county ever did was to change from merited deputy sheriff's in the jail to non merited correctional officers. The whole idea was to save money. They figured they could pay the CO's less money than the deputies. Jailers get 5 weeks Academy, LEO is 14 weeks. It has as created a whole tangled web of problems.

Since the CO's are not by state law Law Enforcement officers they can't make an arrest. If people turn themselves into the jail the must call a deputy to serve the warrant. Turn over has gone up dramatically. The CO's mostly want LE jobs and leave in droves to other agencies since they can't transfer to the road here in the future. They are not in the same pension program so they do not have as good a pension as the LEO's.

We are not alone on this. Many counties went to correctional officers instead of deputies in the jail and many are going back the way it was.


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"We herd sheep, we drive cattle, we lead people. Lead me, follow me, or get out of my way." General George S. Patton

[JKT]

Originally posted by Guard Dog:
I have always been in the LE side of our agency but think one of the dumbest things our county ever did was to change from merited deputy sheriff's in the jail to non merited correctional officers. The whole idea was to save money. They figured they could pay the CO's less money than the deputies. Jailers get 5 weeks Academy, LEO is 14 weeks. It has as created a whole tangled web of problems.

Since the CO's are not by state law Law Enforcement officers they can't make an arrest. If people turn themselves into the jail the must call a deputy to serve the warrant. Turn over has gone up dramatically. The CO's mostly want LE jobs and leave in droves to other agencies since they can't transfer to the road here in the future. They are not in the same pension program so they do not have as good a pension as the LEO's.

We are not alone on this. Many counties went to correctional officers instead of deputies in the jail and many are going back the way it was.

I've seen similar things happen. It's bad enough with the seperation (or division) between the LE side and the Detention side here. We have always been seen as the "step-children" with the department; a necessary evil.

Strangely enough, our Detention Division employs 175 Officers and the Law Enforcement Division employs about 75 and get paid about $4,000 per year over the starting base, while the Detention Division is mostly making base salary. Even the Officers that are dual certified.

Currently, there are no incentives, such as pay for college hours, certificates, etc. Our Administration has tried to implement this, but the County Commissioners (purse string guys) wanted to include it in the salary, not as a bonus. And it needs to be a bonus (IMHO). I really like my current assignment, but there are days when civilian employment really, really looks inviting. Except that I'm not really qualified for most of the jobs in this area.

10 years to eligibility for retirement http://www.officer.com/ubb/rolleyes.gif

BTW, Guard Dog, since we do have Peace Officers on staff in the Jail, we usually don't have the problem serving warrants, although, I have seen some non-PO's execute warrants, and cringed, but they went through anyway without challenge. But, I can see that coming one of these days.

OK, rant over http://www.officer.com/ubb/biggrin.gif



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Optimistic pessimist: Hope for the best, but expect the worst.

Jack