Friday, July 31, 2009

My God (Goddess?) what a day!!!

So, anybody who has spent time here knows that I work in a prison.

On Fridays we have administrative segregation committee, that is where the guys who are confined 23 hours a day for whatever reason will come to see a three member panel and we will decide what to do with them. Most of the time there are only about 7 or 8 scheduled, but we have had days of 20 or more. Those days are the LONG days.

I think I've explained that I'm the grievance officer where I work, so a lot of the time I am totally alone. Except for whiny offenders, of course. I rarely get to do adseg committee anymore, which explains why I get totally excited about something that promises to be irritating more often than not.

So, this morning started out perfectly normal and I was excited because I get to do committee. Yeah!!! Then the shit hit the fan... we had three guys who apparently were involved in a fight last weekend. We found the one who got hit, with blood all over him. Then the officers found another one (the one they thought did the hitting) and locked him up. Then one showed up at the shift commander's office and said he was actually doing the hitting.

Now, the weird thing here is guys don't normally tell on themselves. So, (I say that word a lot) we thought he was lying; but we locked him up anyway. Well, we went back and forth this morning and finally decided the one who admitted to hitting was telling the truth.

Then we had another guy who wanted to threaten some staff while on the phone with his wife (girlfriend?sister?), so we had to see him.

Fast forward a few hours and by 2:30 this afternoon I had written three violations, two for the fight and one for the threats over the phone.

Then my boss calls me back in and says "Why didn't you all cut the guy making the hooch loose?" I don't effin' know, I am not (NOT) in charge here. So, we convened an emergency committee at 3:30 this afternoon to let him out of our adseg unit. For the record, hooch is prison made alcohol. They gather all the fruit they can steal from food service and mix it with god knows what else and some bread and voila! You have hooch!! Except this guy's violation didn't get read in time and we can't hold him anymore. Woops! Our bad, we can't punish you anymore because we didn't follow the policy.

By the time I left my office at 5:15pm they still hadn't released the guy with the hooch from 5 house, but I was going home. With the assurance of the sgt that he would be released as soon as chow is over.

I am soooooo glad it is the weekend! And, in other good news, I get to pick up the babies on Sunday. Yeah!!!

3 comments:

  1. Sounds like fun! Sorta like trying to keep a family of teenage boys in order, I guess.

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  2. Wildness. I worked in a prison as an RN for a month or so--it was a temp gig--and I freaking loved it.

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  3. @The Mother- it is a lot of fun, most days. Other days, like today, I worry a lot. Those are the days with all the fights and medical emergencies and officers needing assistance.

    @Aunt Becky- I love it almost every day. It is my favorite adrenaline rush, well aside from sex that is! :)

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