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JudicialRestraints posted:they think they can take advantage of the system to their benefit Yes that certainly something you never see outside supermax prisons. I can see how the guards have a hard time dealing with it mentally so they ignore someone collapsing in a cell.
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Aug 1, 2010 22:25
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mew force shoelace posted:I don't think it's rational but I think the sense is that people who get wrongly put in jail weren't the nicest people to begin with, and honestly that may well be true. America loves 'any punishment for any crime" in general. So if a drug addict gets thrown in prison for a murder he didn't commit, it's pretty much okay to a lot of people. It's seen as a minor injustice. you're missing my point again. My point is that you should tell whoever uses the argument of "I obey the law, it could never happen to me" that wrongful conviction could happen to anyone. Even them. i'm aware of the Just World Syndrome or whatever it's called.
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Aug 1, 2010 22:58
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21stCentury posted:My point is that you should tell whoever uses the argument of "I obey the law, it could never happen to me" that wrongful conviction could happen to anyone. Even them. Except a lot of the people that say it aren't the sort of people that get wrongfully convicted very often. It's most people that they see as below them anyway and see it as unfortunate but still something the people brought upon themselves by being ruffians or whatever euphemism for "poor people" that happens to fit.
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Aug 2, 2010 00:36
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HidingFromGoro posted:So when these paperwork mix-ups occur do you guys at least count it toward the PLRA exhaustion requirement? No. They still have to file complaints and do administrative exhaustion and yes I've seen prison guards loving up paperwork used as a PLRA strike against an inmate who complains. Toasticle posted:Yes that certainly something you never see outside supermax prisons. I can see how the guards have a hard time dealing with it mentally so they ignore someone collapsing in a cell. The guards in question honestly thought the prisoner was faking it and hiding a knife under his body so that he could stab them when they came into the cell. This sort of thing does and has happened. That said, we occasionally run into prisoners with legit claims and we do what we can to compensate and protect them. It just always feels like too little too late to me.
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Aug 2, 2010 01:07
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Fire posted:DnD/LF/Smart People response: "Fuuuuuuck I swear part of the problem here is popular culture. Our screens and books are full of noble, honest, responsible cops who solve important crimes and are understanding with witnesses, and if they ever meet the occasional bent cop they expose them and all is well. There just seems to be a total disconnect to reality, which I imagine to be somewhere between the Wire and Bad Lieutenant: New Orleans. I just realised I totally undermined my point by referencing yet more popular culture. oh well.
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Aug 2, 2010 04:40
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people should be rioting in the streets!" 
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The New Black posted:I swear part of the problem here is popular culture. Our screens and books are full of noble, honest, responsible cops who solve important crimes and are understanding with witnesses, and if they ever meet the occasional bent cop they expose them and all is well. There just seems to be a total disconnect to reality, which I imagine to be somewhere between the Wire and Bad Lieutenant: New Orleans. No to mention how the importance of cops is very polarized. Most people either love every cop with their undying love or they hate them to the point of advocating their murder. Not a whole lot of middle ground it seems.
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Aug 2, 2010 04:43
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The New Black posted:I swear part of the problem here is popular culture. Our screens and books are full of noble, honest, responsible cops who solve important crimes and are understanding with witnesses, and if they ever meet the occasional bent cop they expose them and all is well. There just seems to be a total disconnect to reality, which I imagine to be somewhere between the Wire and Bad Lieutenant: New Orleans. On the other hand, you have examples like Detective Stabler from Law and Order: SVU who is clearly a bad cop, but we are meant to admire him for it because he's abusing (suspected) sex offenders.
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Aug 2, 2010 05:11
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PT6A posted:On the other hand, you have examples like Detective Stabler from Law and Order: SVU who is clearly a bad cop, but we are meant to admire him for it because he's abusing (suspected) sex offenders. I always saw him as a character of sympathy but I guess it depends on your own projection. I mean the characters whole life has been completely destroyed by his job.
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Aug 2, 2010 05:15
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lemonadesweetheart posted:I always saw him as a character of sympathy but I guess it depends on your own projection. I mean the characters whole life has been completely destroyed by his job. Well, yes, you are meant to feel sympathy for him, and maybe his life has been "completely destroyed by his job." But that has nothing to do with how the show portrays the way he carries out his job, and whether the viewer is meant to think the way he carries it out is appropriate.
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Aug 2, 2010 05:17
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lemonadesweetheart posted:I always saw him as a character of sympathy but I guess it depends on your own projection. I mean the characters whole life has been completely destroyed by his job. He's a man who frequently beats, threatens, and generally abuses suspects with little proof other then 'yup he's got a van and a mustache' or whatever, and he's one of the 'once a sex offender for any minor way, always a sex offender IN ALL THE WORST WAYS LET'S MURDER THEM ALL FOR THE GOOD OF SOCIETY'. I guess I can get him being a character who brings out pathos, but sympathy always eluded me. For real my first episode of SVU ever was when one of my friends was all 'oh hey you like Law and Order, you should see this one' and it was some one where he actively posed as a former sex offender to live next to and constantly harass and tempt a dude who was clearly trying to go straight and get his life together, and then in the end big shock he snaps and goes back to sex offending so we have to shoot him. My friend and I then had about an hour long argument because I said 'wow it was really breaking the mold of Law and Order to make a main character cop the bad guy of the show'. Apparently I was supposed to go "AHA I knew he was a no good monster all along"?
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Aug 2, 2010 07:42
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shotgunbadger posted:He's a man who frequently beats, threatens, and generally abuses suspects with little proof other then 'yup he's got a van and a mustache' or whatever, and he's one of the 'once a sex offender for any minor way, always a sex offender IN ALL THE WORST WAYS LET'S MURDER THEM ALL FOR THE GOOD OF SOCIETY'. I guess I can get him being a character who brings out pathos, but sympathy always eluded me. I should probably state now before this goes any further, I do not sympathize with what he does or how he does it. He isn't a hero in any sense of the word. His life is a mess but I don't think he is a bad person despite the horrible things and what makes it tragic is that I think in his own hosed up way he tries to be a good person. It was the same with Vic Mackey in the Shield. And let's not kid ourselves here, it's a fictionally characterization of what is probably the worst of the worst when it comes to law enforcement.
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Aug 2, 2010 07:49
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mew force shoelace posted:It *IS* surprising because every country has prisons but it's not something that happens to any other system as far as I can tell. It's not a natural inevitable consequence, it's just something America accepts for some reason. "Do this" referred to the failure to defend inmates from each other. I think the breakdown of norms against inmate-on-inmate violence (including rape) is a fairly inevitable consequence of this failure.
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Aug 2, 2010 08:02
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lemonadesweetheart posted:I should probably state now before this goes any further, I do not sympathize with what he does or how he does it. He isn't a hero in any sense of the word. His life is a mess but I don't think he is a bad person despite the horrible things and what makes it tragic is that I think in his own hosed up way he tries to be a good person. It was the same with Vic Mackey in the Shield. And let's not kid ourselves here, it's a fictionally characterization of what is probably the worst of the worst when it comes to law enforcement. The problem is the way the show wants you to see it. You are meant to think his life is hosed up, but it's hosed up because he puts everything into his job, a job that the show wants you to think is being performed well. Much like Jack Bauer's torture of suspected terrorists, we are meant to think civil liberties only apply when the person isn't suspected of a crime like terrorism/child molestation. The actual character doesn't matter so much; the issue is the way the show portrays police actions. Nor is every bad cop in real life necessarily an evil person--they may have planted a weapon on a dead suspect they ran over after tazing in a moment of panic, for example, and stuck to their story out of fear (just using the facts in that article as an example, not trying to make a statement about the real case)--but that doesn't mean they shouldn't be locked up for it.
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Aug 2, 2010 08:05
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Sir John Falstaff posted:The problem is the way the show wants you to see it. You are meant to think his life is hosed up, but it's hosed up because he puts everything into his job, a job that the show wants you to think is being performed well. Much like Jack Bauer's torture of suspected terrorists, we are meant to think civil liberties only apply when the person isn't suspected of a crime like terrorism/child molestation. The actual character doesn't matter so much; the issue is the way the show portrays police actions. I'm not disputing any of this though, I just have sympathy for the way the system chews up the people who work in it or rather how that is portrayed in the TV show SVU.
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Aug 2, 2010 08:13
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Jeb Bush 2012 posted:"Do this" referred to the failure to defend inmates from each other. I think the breakdown of norms against inmate-on-inmate violence (including rape) is a fairly inevitable consequence of this failure. Can you find other examples? Like I said there has been a kajillion examples of a bunch of bad people all together at various times in history without it becoming rapetoberfest.
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Aug 2, 2010 12:00
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mew force shoelace posted:Can you find other examples? Like I said there has been a kajillion examples of a bunch of bad people all together at various times in history without it becoming rapetoberfest. I think he's agreeing with you? The reason rape is prevalent is not because the people inside are good, bad or clinically insane. It's because the conditions are inhumane. If you put any thousand people in a concrete box, give them no personal space, beat them and randomly shove them in segregation for months at a time, things will get violent very quickly and irreversibly. Now you just need to harshly punish all inmate-on-inmate violence except rape and you have yourself a rape dungeon! 
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Aug 2, 2010 13:55
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Broken Knees Club posted:I think he's agreeing with you? The reason rape is prevalent is not because the people inside are good, bad or clinically insane. It's because the conditions are inhumane. If you put any thousand people in a concrete box, give them no personal space, beat them and randomly shove them in segregation for months at a time, things will get violent very quickly and irreversibly. Thats what I am questioning, we have a bad prison system but it's not like we are the first country on earth to have one. As far as I know russian gulags, nazi prison camps and midevil dungeons weren't also rapeatoriums. Like maybe I'm wrong and they were, but as far as I can tell we have something weird and unique to get the rape thing. When it's not a natural inevitable consequence of just "bad prisoning"
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Aug 2, 2010 14:34
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PT6A posted:On the other hand, you have examples like Detective Stabler from Law and Order: SVU who is clearly a bad cop, but we are meant to admire him for it because he's abusing (suspected) sex offenders. The only time he really crossed over into 'bad guy' territory was during that episode when they were hunting down an international child pornography ring and he had to go to..I want to say Amsterdam but it may have been more eastern european than central/west and he literally beat the everliving crap out of one of the guys they brought in after getting the nod from the local detective he was working with (a chick, can't remember her name). I think it was more to illustrate how different police work is between us and them. The only local (as in NYC) case of beating the crap out of a perp wasn't actually shown on screen but rather implied when Fin and Munch took the drug dealer that knew where that cop's heroin addicted daughter was 'out back' and got the answer out of him. SVU is pretty ham fisted with how they deal with cases overall though, especially drug cases but don't get me started, I watched way to many hours of that show and combine that with the fact that I come from a household with a long history in NYC law enforcement and I could go on for hours..
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Aug 2, 2010 15:46
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TyroneGoldstein posted:The only time he really crossed over into 'bad guy' territory was during that episode when they were hunting down an international child pornography ring and he had to go to..I want to say Amsterdam but it may have been more eastern european than central/west and he literally beat the everliving crap out of one of the guys they brought in after getting the nod from the local detective he was working with (a chick, can't remember her name). I think it was more to illustrate how different police work is between us and them. Nah, he is a bad cop, as are most cops in media, none of them follow any sort of legal procedure. Of course part of that is they only do things that make good tv, but a lot is the "but he gets results!" where we know the guy he's bullying or tricking or roughing up or arresting with no proof is a real bad guy and justice is served.
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Aug 2, 2010 15:58
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TyroneGoldstein posted:The only time he really crossed over into 'bad guy' territory was during that episode when they were hunting down an international child pornography ring and he had to go to..I want to say Amsterdam but it may have been more eastern european than central/west and he literally beat the everliving crap out of one of the guys they brought in after getting the nod from the local detective he was working with (a chick, can't remember her name). I think it was more to illustrate how different police work is between us and them. Reminder that he literally followed a just released dude around for days going 'hey, hey, hey let's rape someone, come on what are ya a pussy, let's rape someone, come oooon' and then when he did go 'fine gently caress it let's rape someone' we were supposed to go 'oh poo poo Stabler was right all along!' He's a bad cop and it's disgusting that in this country he's a 'good guy' who we're supposed to go 'aaaw he works so hard and these drat bleeding hearts keep telling he can't 'break the law' because a dude is sketchy!'
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Aug 2, 2010 16:06
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mew force shoelace posted:Nah, he is a bad cop, as are most cops in media, none of them follow any sort of legal procedure. Of course part of that is they only do things that make good tv, but a lot is the "but he gets results!" where we know the guy he's bullying or tricking or roughing up or arresting with no proof is a real bad guy and justice is served. We'll have to disagree on whether or not he's a 'bad' cop in intent, but I do agree fully about how he, as well as other television detectives do what 'makes good TV'. People really wouldn't want to watch some angry mid life crisis having detective sit there and basically fill out forms in triplicate and excruciating detail about crime scenes they worked. Reading those on the smoking gun is fun but its really dry stuff unless you're into procedural stuff or are, in fact, a cop. What disturbs me more about cop shows than anything else is how almost every person they bring in is actually guilty and there's very little gray area or travel in the various perps' motives or feelings. Real life isn't that clean cut. It goes back to what I said about the way SVU deals with drug cases. Cabot's exit from the show, which was probably one of the biggest drug cases they ever did, was a perfect example of hammy ham fisted 'made for TV' policing, where there are no good guys except for the cops, the bad guys are willing to blow up Law Enforcement agents at a whim for insulting their sexual prowess and ADA's don't scare easily. This paints a very convenient picture about the drug war that plays directly into how many middle of the road Americans feel about the players in that game. shotgunbadger posted:Reminder that he literally followed a just released dude around for days going 'hey, hey, hey let's rape someone, come on what are ya a pussy, let's rape someone, come oooon' and then when he did go 'fine gently caress it let's rape someone' we were supposed to go 'oh poo poo Stabler was right all along!' See, this one I didn't actually see. I stopped watching about 2 years ago when they decided it would be better to take it more on a dramatic human interest tip, a la Criminal Intent, rather than what it was for like the first like 8 seasons. Thanks for the heads up. Edit: Wait..didn't he get thrown off a roof in that episode after the dude snapped? TyroneGoldstein fucked around with this message at 16:11 on Aug 2, 2010 |
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Aug 2, 2010 16:08
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TyroneGoldstein posted:We'll have to disagree on whether or not he's a 'bad' cop in intent, but I do agree fully about how he, as well as other television detectives do what 'makes good TV'. People really wouldn't want to watch some angry mid life crisis having detective sit there and basically fill out forms in triplicate and excruciating detail about crime scenes they worked. Reading those on the smoking gun is fun but its really dry stuff unless you're into procedural stuff or are, in fact, a cop. All I remember about the end is that big shock, the guy being emotionally manipulated by someone who is an expert in the mind of his kind of offender went out and grabbed some girl to rape (which, I love the fact that it seemed to honestly shock Stabler as if he wasn't prepared for it, as if he thought the dude would just go 'yea rape is awesome!' and they could swarm) and they took her to some garage and it ended in Stabler freeing her and somehow the dude died and it was ok because he was gonna rape someone. I'm pretty sure this was over two years ago though, but hey gently caress it there have been so many episodes of all the different Law and Orders maybe not.
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Aug 2, 2010 16:19
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TyroneGoldstein posted:We'll have to disagree on whether or not he's a 'bad' cop in intent, but I do agree fully about how he, as well as other television detectives do what 'makes good TV'. People really wouldn't want to watch some angry mid life crisis having detective sit there and basically fill out forms in triplicate and excruciating detail about crime scenes they worked. Reading those on the smoking gun is fun but its really dry stuff unless you're into procedural stuff or are, in fact, a cop. In the end they won't show all the paper work and really dull stuff, but tv cops are very very bad people. It is only in that they are always right that their techniques seem acceptable. They solve most crimes by doing things that are flat out illegal.
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Aug 2, 2010 16:24
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mew force shoelace posted:In the end they won't show all the paper work and really dull stuff, but tv cops are very very bad people. It is only in that they are always right that their techniques seem acceptable. They solve most crimes by doing things that are flat out illegal. Which, I suspect, is why no one watched it.
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Aug 2, 2010 17:16
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JudicialRestraints posted:No. They still have to file complaints and do administrative exhaustion and yes I've seen prison guards loving up paperwork used as a PLRA strike against an inmate who complains. Regarding the asthma attack death, we had something similar happen to an inmate at our facility. Same type of situation. Violent inmate who had just been put in the hole a week prior for assaulting staff and another inmate and had attempted to assault staff while in in the hole. Guy died from complications related to his (at the time unknown) medical condition because before anyone could enter the cell to tend to him we had to suit up a team in full body armor/extraction gear because it was feared that the inmate was faking it in order to get another chance to assault staff. It wasn't a case of "gently caress that guy, let him die". There were serious (and legitimate) concerns that this was just another prelude to an assault on staff. As soon we got in the cell and the nurses radioed in the emergency he was at the ER across the street within 5 minutes and then transferred later via air ambulance to a hospital attached to one of the state universities that was better equipped to treat him.
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Aug 2, 2010 19:45
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How did we go from a thread on Prisons to a thread about a TV show about cops? To stay on point to the thread, I think its loving sad that the correctional officers that work in the prisons are paid more than teachers, but then again it pretty much props up some of the small towns around me. If you drive about an hour south of San Antonio, TX, you will hit Beeville where the economy is pretty much driven by the 3 prisons there. Its the Prison industrial complex. blackguy32 fucked around with this message at 22:50 on Aug 2, 2010 |
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Aug 2, 2010 22:34
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blackguy32 posted:How did we go from a thread on Prisons to a thread about a TV show about cops? One of the prime examples for me of the prison industrial complex has been the activities of California's prison guard unions, which actively push for longer sentences, stricter "three strikes" laws, more prisons, and other efforts that contribute to creating more jobs for prison guards. (This isn't even addressing their efforts to weaken penalties on prison guards caught abusing prisoners, etc.) The clear connection drawn between more incarceration and more jobs/money there is particularly horrifying. While ordinarily I am a union supporter, those unions have a lot to answer for. http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=correcting_the_guards
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Aug 3, 2010 00:38
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eyeshitinyourserial posted:I'm curious as to what you how you would characterize your percentages of frivolous versus complaints with merit that you deal with. Could you also provide (with identifying info removed of course) some examples of the b.s. suits filed that you've had to deal with? I'd say about 4/5 are frivolous. The ones that aren't frivolous generally target the health services unit which is chronically understaffed. My understanding is that it's really easy for someone in health services to burn out and just stop caring about inmates which leads to bad results.
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Aug 3, 2010 00:59
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JudicialRestraints posted:The guards in question honestly thought the prisoner was faking it and hiding a knife under his body so that he could stab them when they came into the cell. This sort of thing does and has happened.
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Aug 3, 2010 01:41
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Doppelganger posted:I can't believe you're saying this like it's acceptable. Nurses can't even say "he's faking it, don't bother", and they're trained medical professionals. But some guy who barely graduated high school and became a corrections officer is qualified to determine a real medical emergency from a fake one? No, gently caress that. If they can't safely deal with a prisoner who may be trying a surprise attack that they're already anticipating, something needs to be improved. Nurses in prison can say "he's faking it, don't bother" actually. Again, I'm not saying I approve (and the guy in question did have a nurse look at him but he had to get shackled and restrained first and the nurse basically confirmed he wasn't going to die and left).
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Aug 3, 2010 03:56
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Doppelganger posted:I can't believe you're saying this like it's acceptable. Nurses can't even say "he's faking it, don't bother", and they're trained medical professionals. But some guy who barely graduated high school and became a corrections officer is qualified to determine a real medical emergency from a fake one? No, gently caress that. If they can't safely deal with a prisoner who may be trying a surprise attack that they're already anticipating, something needs to be improved. Firstly, nice mis-characterization of prison staff re: barely graduated high school. Many of the people I worked with held BAs (most in criminal justice) but some in other fields like myself. To make Lt., Capt., counselor, unit manager and higher required a BA and in some cases a masters. Secondly regarding safely dealing with a possible surprise attack from a known violent offender? They've already got procedures in place. Sorry that you have no understanding of what making it safe entails. Part of making it safe is ensuring that there are enough staff on hand to get the individual into restraints to prevent said surprise attack. You don't rush into a cell, particularly with an inmate who has been violent in the past, without sufficient staff to handle the situation and protective gear in place should it be a case of "faking it". Line staff don't make a call on if it is a medical emergency, they call the nurses to come over since the first rule of first aide is to not move the victim unless directed by qualified medical personnel. Unresponsive inmate? Call the health center and they come over with 2 to 3 nurses and a gurney loaded with monitoring equipment, a defib unit, oxygen, and sundry other medical equipment. The nurses (who are not security personnel, nor are they trained in the same manner) will not enter the cell until the scene is secured - much like EMS and fire rescue won't enter a scene until the police have secured it in situations involving violent suspects. JudicialRestraints posted:I'd say about 4/5 are frivolous. The ones that aren't frivolous generally target the health services unit which is chronically understaffed. My understanding is that it's really easy for someone in health services to burn out and just stop caring about inmates which leads to bad results. I was named in a couple of frivolous suits. The most notable was an inmate claiming violations of his civil rights among other things (such as failing to follow DOC procedures and due process through the appeals system) regarding a situation involving his mail. We physically read (or scanned as we rarely read them in depth) inmate's mail to ensure that it was all on the up and up. We got a call from IIRC a district attorney's office regarding one of our inmates trying to contact his victim via mail to a third party. This was in direct violation of his sentencing which barred contact with his (minor) victim (sex abuse). We started monitoring his phone calls and I was responsible for vetting his mail. Found him attempting to do so on two occasions. He was locked up in the hole and had his mailing privileges suspended. It was a long ordeal with him trying it two more times after his mail privileges were reinstated. I'm curious Judicial. What's the most absurd claim you've handled?
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Aug 3, 2010 07:27
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Are you aware that if inmates were treated like humans instead of animals that need to be broken, you'd probably have a lot less trouble with inmates who file frivolous lawsuits and fake dying to stab a guard? Plus, I'm no expert, but I would think that frivolous lawsuits and inmates faking death to stab a guard aren't good reasons to leave inmates hanging when they're raped or dying.
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Aug 3, 2010 16:49
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eyeshitinyourserial posted:I was named in a couple of frivolous suits. The most notable was an inmate claiming violations of his civil rights among other things (such as failing to follow DOC procedures and due process through the appeals system) regarding a situation involving his mail. We physically read (or scanned as we rarely read them in depth) inmate's mail to ensure that it was all on the up and up. We got a call from IIRC a district attorney's office regarding one of our inmates trying to contact his victim via mail to a third party. This was in direct violation of his sentencing which barred contact with his (minor) victim (sex abuse). We started monitoring his phone calls and I was responsible for vetting his mail. Found him attempting to do so on two occasions. He was locked up in the hole and had his mailing privileges suspended. It was a long ordeal with him trying it two more times after his mail privileges were reinstated. Mail is a pretty common one (they have a 1st Amendment right to it). The most ridiculous case I've worked on involved an inmate trying to keep photos of bikini clad women in his cell and suing for a first amendment violation when the prison officials tried to take it away from him. E~~I think he should have been able to keep them, but the prison decided that they were a 'security risk' which I'm not so sure about~~E I've also seen a version of the claim you're talking about, but with an abused ex-wife. Eyes, what's your experience with the upper echelons of DOC (like captain/deputy warden on up). I've seen a few possibly valid claims against those guys for retaliation. Some of the most responsible officers I've known have been Lieutenants/Captains, but I've seen some poo poo that at least strongly indicated retaliation against noisy inmates.
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Aug 3, 2010 17:07
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blackguy32 posted:How did we go from a thread on Prisons to a thread about a TV show about cops? Don't forget all those inmates increase the clout of local politicians, since they get counted as (nonvoting) constituents via the scheme known as prison gerrymandering.
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Aug 3, 2010 19:54
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HidingFromGoro posted:Don't forget all those inmates increase the clout of local politicians, since they get counted as (nonvoting) constituents via the scheme known as prison gerrymandering. Wow, this is literally worse than the three-fifths compromise.
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Aug 3, 2010 21:32
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21stCentury posted:Are you aware that if inmates were treated like humans instead of animals that need to be broken, you'd probably have a lot less trouble with inmates who file frivolous lawsuits and fake dying to stab a guard? quote:Plus, I'm no expert, but I would think that frivolous lawsuits and inmates faking death to stab a guard aren't good reasons to leave inmates hanging when they're raped or dying. We used to run drills to check for and improve response time. Our average was that we could have sufficient security staff to handle situations to anywhere in the institution in less than 30 seconds. Medical was about 45 to 60 seconds since they had to haul a gurney with loaded with all their equipment. That's better response time than you'll find on the streets. Funny you should mention "hanging" as that is something else addressed in training. If you find an inmate who has hung himself in the cell (doesn't have to be done from the ceiling - can be done give a bed sheet and 1ft of clearance under the bottom bunk between the bunk and the floor) the first instinct is to rush in and try to get them down. That's exactly what you're not supposed to do as there is the potential for it being a "setup" if not by the guy who hung himself, but the cell mates. First, clear the cell and wait until another staff member arrives. Its no different (for the medical staff) than how EMS personnel will not enter the scene of a violent crime until its secured.
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Aug 3, 2010 21:46
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I'm making this separate from my other post as its a bit lengthier and not connected to the other topic.JudicialRestraints posted:Mail is a pretty common one (they have a 1st Amendment right to it). quote:I've also seen a version of the claim you're talking about, but with an abused ex-wife. Well our captains were all pretty decent, fair, level headed guys. Unless it was an assault situation (on staff or inmates), most of the times they'd have us bring disruptive inmates over to the shift captains office (sometimes in cuffs sometimes not - depends on the situation) and we'd set down and essentially have a mediation/conflict resolution session. Sometimes the inmate would be sent back to the unit with no sanctions other than a "talking to" by the captain (no threats or intimidation - just a stop acting like an rear end and start behaving like an adult male kind of thing). Sometimes the inmate would get sent back to the unit with a major or minor report being written. Sometimes they'd go to the hole (along with recieving a major report) and sometimes (though never in front of the inmate) the captain would side with the inmate and tell the staff to lighten up. I had one captain in particular that was phenomenal at his job - did it for 25 years until he was fired because the new warden didn't like him. It was literally a personality conflict and he was terminated for a b.s. reason and there were some HIPPA violations on the part of the warden as well resulting in that captain winning a $1mil lawsuit and his retirement (he was only 3 years away). That man could talk anyone into and out of anything and I have watched him do it on many occasions, talking an inmate down from harming himself, talking an non-cooperative inmate out of his cell etc. I think what was key to his success was never expecting anything less than the inmate to own up to being/behaving like an responsible adult. He was also a compassionate man. Inmates family member is dying, inmate is having a rough time (mentally/emotionally), and the inmate has no money on his books for a phone call? He'd bring the inmate over and have him use the office phone on the state's dime to spend a few minutes talking with his family. To be honest, I thought of him more as a grandfather figure for both myself and the inmates (as I was only 23 when I started working there) than as "The Captain". Now that's not to say he didn't come down hard on both inmates and staff when they really hosed up. He had a very well defined line of what constituted a talking to versus some kind of sanction/punishment. At the line staff level, yep I've seen some of retaliatory b.s. but most of it wasn't so much as retaliatory as becoming jaded when dealing with certain inmates who had a history of causing problems. Beyond the captains were the AUMs and UM (unit managers). They too were mostly fair individuals and I never personally saw any retaliatory actions out of them. Where I did see it was in the administrative staff. Our new warden (he showed up 2 years after I was there) was a piece of work. He really really disliked white inmates and it was readily apparent (and yes he was black). The white inmates were consistently handed down tougher sanctions through our administrative law judge (also black) on the order of the warden. I left because of that warden. Not because of the race issues, but because he took what was a well run and safe institution and turned it into a nightmare for staff and inmates. Within a year of him taking over we saw staff and inmate assaults increase by something around 500%. Thankfully he was just terminated about 2 months ago after a small riot broke out in which 8 staff were assaulted. The director of the DOC had been keeping an eye on him for a while and finally was ordered by the governor to remove him.
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Aug 3, 2010 21:51
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HidingFromGoro posted:Don't forget all those inmates increase the clout of local politicians, since they get counted as (nonvoting) constituents via the scheme known as prison gerrymandering. Holy crap, that is one part of the prison-industrial complex I never knew about. Thank you for posting this.
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Aug 3, 2010 21:52
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eyeshitinyourserial posted:Ah. Well please tell that to the inmate that tried to kill one of assitant unit mangaers. He lived on the honor unit. Rooms looked like a college dorm. Wooden doors just like you'd find in the interior of a commercial building with no way to lock inmates in the cell. The lock that was on the door, they had the key to it. TV, new release movies on rotation in the DVD changer (and fed to cable hookups in the cell), PS2s, open yard privileges all day long from 8am to 10pm including access to the gym/fitness center at any time during their open yard, 3x the normal spending limit on commissary purchases, etc etc.
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Aug 3, 2010 22:00
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eyeshitinyourserial posted:Ah. Well please tell that to the inmate that tried to kill one of assitant unit mangaers. He lived on the honor unit. I'm curious: why did the inmate try to do that? Obviously since he was allowed in a unit with decent facilities he must've been pretty well-behaved earlier. I find it very difficult to believe that a person who is afforded (comparatively) enormous privileges will attempt something as drastic as murder without any reason at all.
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Aug 3, 2010 22:18
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