Police Academy class #10
Apr. 16th, 2009 12:50 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
agt_spookyClass last night was pretty freaking cool.
But before we get to that, do you remember a few weeks ago that problem student W announced VERY loudly that Supernatural was problem student M's favorite show after they saw my Dean amulet? Nothing happened after that, and I was relieved, but it was short lived, as M threw himself into a chair across from me last night and wanted to talk all about SPN. [facepalm] Thankfully my friend Chris arrived not too long after and saved me. [sigh]
Anyway, last night was our tour of the county jail. The Chief of the jail was the one giving the presentation and the tour and here's a few things we learned:
• Our jail currently has 801 prisoners, 77 of which are female
• 20-30 prisoners are awaiting trial for murder
• If you are sentenced to 364 days or less, you remain in the county jail. Any sentence over 1 year and you're transfered to the state prison
• There are separate pods (20 prisoners per pod) for misdemeanor offenses, felony offenses, prisoners over the age of 40, and a completely separate women's section
• There are also special suicide watch cells
• All of the booking agents are civilians, not police officers
• The original jail was built in 1983 and has steel bars on the cells. The addition was built in 1994 and is state of the art with bullet proof glass on the cells instead of bars, and everything is computer controlled instead of key controlled
• Food is brought directly to the cells, no common cafeteria
• Prisoners are not allowed outside. They have 1/2 hour of gym time each day, and large shutters are opened on the windows to let in fresh air
• Our county jail is commonly referred to as The Hilton compared to the other jails in the area
The tour itself was very eye-opening and very depressing. I also don't know how to describe it except being at the zoo with the animals staring back at you. As soon as we walked into each area the prisoners would come up and press their faces against the glass or start making rude gestures or start pounding on the tables or start yelling. Personally I wasn't bothered by anything I saw, but it made a lot of people uncomfortable. It just made me depressed, thinking about being locked up like that 23 1/2 hours a day.
We got to see the intake area, where the prisoners are first brought in. And the holding cells were quite full. We got to see one prisoner booked and finger printed. We were also taken to the disciplinary segregation section ("the hole"). And wow did the prisoners get riled up in there when they heard us outside.
In one of the wings of the jail we got to go up into one of the control rooms where the guards sit. It's set up so that the guards can see into all three pods in that wing, containing a maximum of 60 prisoners, which are split up on two floors. We also got to go into the main control room for the entire jail that was full of touch-screen computer equipment and 16 video monitors that looked into the hallways and also outside.
Overall it was an eye-opening experience that not many people get to go through - to see behind the scenes of a jail. And trust me, people, it's NOT a place you want to end up at. I give those guards a lot of credit, because it's not a job I'd ever want to do.
After our jail tour we went back to our classroom, where we were split up evenly into two groups for a role-playing exercise that prospective deputies go through in their training academy.
I ended up in Group 1. The 20 of us were to go out in the hallway, as far as we could get from the door, so we couldn't hear what was going on. The remaining 20 students stayed in the classroom to observe us.
The 20 of us in the hallway were then partnered up and I ended up with problem student John. [sigh] We were given rubber guns and holsters.
We were to go in the classroom two at a time, and we had 30 seconds to assess the situation and basically deal with it as if we were two deputies that had been dispatched to a call. It was pretty much like our simulator exercise from last week, but with real people this time. It was again the "Shoot / Don't Shoot" situation.
John and I were the second to the last pair to go, and I was pretty nervous. When it was our turn and we got to the classroom door, our sergeant laid out the basics for us - we're on a domestic violence call. John and I had a few seconds to discuss. I would take the woman and John would take the man. Get them separated as quickly as possible and keep our own bodies turned so that we could keep an eye on each other.
The door opened and as soon as we stepped in, this woman (who was not part of our class, but does these role-playing exercises for the sheriff's department) comes running up to us, waving her hands and yelling at the top of her lungs. Her "husband" was sitting in a chair (that was supposed to be a couch in a living room) and was yelling back at her. I took charge of her while John went over to the man. I tried to get her to calm down, to sit down, to tell me what happened, etc. The two of them were so loud and kept trying to move around, but John and I, with our bodies, kept them separate, while still watching each other out of the corner of our eye..
Suddenly the 30 seconds were up, and our sergeant called John and I over to him. He wanted to know what we thought the threat assessment was of the two people. Basically all they were doing was yelling and screaming. Right? Um, not so much. Our sergeant told us to turn around and what do we see? The woman had a knife tucked in her back waistband, and the man had a gun on the floor between his feet. Neither John or I saw either weapon. [facepalm]
At first I felt terrible, having missed the weapons, but I think my body prevented the woman from turning and showing her back to John, (like she kept trying to do) where he would've seen the knife. And from where I was standing, the man's foot was blocking my view of the gun. And then we found out that NO ONE who had gone ahead of us saw the weapons, either. Talk about a learning experience! There was so much chaos going on with the yelling and screaming that we were too focused on diffusing the situation. We needed to take in the bigger picture of our surroundings. Just goes to show you everything a deputy has to process in 30 seconds or less when they roll up to a call.
So yeah, it was a pretty awesome class. :-)
hit counter dreamweaver
Next week is more role-playing, where we're going to re-enact traffic stops. Yeah, get me behind the wheel of a squad car! Bring it on! :-)
Can't believe that there are only five classes left!
But before we get to that, do you remember a few weeks ago that problem student W announced VERY loudly that Supernatural was problem student M's favorite show after they saw my Dean amulet? Nothing happened after that, and I was relieved, but it was short lived, as M threw himself into a chair across from me last night and wanted to talk all about SPN. [facepalm] Thankfully my friend Chris arrived not too long after and saved me. [sigh]
Anyway, last night was our tour of the county jail. The Chief of the jail was the one giving the presentation and the tour and here's a few things we learned:
• Our jail currently has 801 prisoners, 77 of which are female
• 20-30 prisoners are awaiting trial for murder
• If you are sentenced to 364 days or less, you remain in the county jail. Any sentence over 1 year and you're transfered to the state prison
• There are separate pods (20 prisoners per pod) for misdemeanor offenses, felony offenses, prisoners over the age of 40, and a completely separate women's section
• There are also special suicide watch cells
• All of the booking agents are civilians, not police officers
• The original jail was built in 1983 and has steel bars on the cells. The addition was built in 1994 and is state of the art with bullet proof glass on the cells instead of bars, and everything is computer controlled instead of key controlled
• Food is brought directly to the cells, no common cafeteria
• Prisoners are not allowed outside. They have 1/2 hour of gym time each day, and large shutters are opened on the windows to let in fresh air
• Our county jail is commonly referred to as The Hilton compared to the other jails in the area
The tour itself was very eye-opening and very depressing. I also don't know how to describe it except being at the zoo with the animals staring back at you. As soon as we walked into each area the prisoners would come up and press their faces against the glass or start making rude gestures or start pounding on the tables or start yelling. Personally I wasn't bothered by anything I saw, but it made a lot of people uncomfortable. It just made me depressed, thinking about being locked up like that 23 1/2 hours a day.
We got to see the intake area, where the prisoners are first brought in. And the holding cells were quite full. We got to see one prisoner booked and finger printed. We were also taken to the disciplinary segregation section ("the hole"). And wow did the prisoners get riled up in there when they heard us outside.
In one of the wings of the jail we got to go up into one of the control rooms where the guards sit. It's set up so that the guards can see into all three pods in that wing, containing a maximum of 60 prisoners, which are split up on two floors. We also got to go into the main control room for the entire jail that was full of touch-screen computer equipment and 16 video monitors that looked into the hallways and also outside.
Overall it was an eye-opening experience that not many people get to go through - to see behind the scenes of a jail. And trust me, people, it's NOT a place you want to end up at. I give those guards a lot of credit, because it's not a job I'd ever want to do.
After our jail tour we went back to our classroom, where we were split up evenly into two groups for a role-playing exercise that prospective deputies go through in their training academy.
I ended up in Group 1. The 20 of us were to go out in the hallway, as far as we could get from the door, so we couldn't hear what was going on. The remaining 20 students stayed in the classroom to observe us.
The 20 of us in the hallway were then partnered up and I ended up with problem student John. [sigh] We were given rubber guns and holsters.
We were to go in the classroom two at a time, and we had 30 seconds to assess the situation and basically deal with it as if we were two deputies that had been dispatched to a call. It was pretty much like our simulator exercise from last week, but with real people this time. It was again the "Shoot / Don't Shoot" situation.
John and I were the second to the last pair to go, and I was pretty nervous. When it was our turn and we got to the classroom door, our sergeant laid out the basics for us - we're on a domestic violence call. John and I had a few seconds to discuss. I would take the woman and John would take the man. Get them separated as quickly as possible and keep our own bodies turned so that we could keep an eye on each other.
The door opened and as soon as we stepped in, this woman (who was not part of our class, but does these role-playing exercises for the sheriff's department) comes running up to us, waving her hands and yelling at the top of her lungs. Her "husband" was sitting in a chair (that was supposed to be a couch in a living room) and was yelling back at her. I took charge of her while John went over to the man. I tried to get her to calm down, to sit down, to tell me what happened, etc. The two of them were so loud and kept trying to move around, but John and I, with our bodies, kept them separate, while still watching each other out of the corner of our eye..
Suddenly the 30 seconds were up, and our sergeant called John and I over to him. He wanted to know what we thought the threat assessment was of the two people. Basically all they were doing was yelling and screaming. Right? Um, not so much. Our sergeant told us to turn around and what do we see? The woman had a knife tucked in her back waistband, and the man had a gun on the floor between his feet. Neither John or I saw either weapon. [facepalm]
At first I felt terrible, having missed the weapons, but I think my body prevented the woman from turning and showing her back to John, (like she kept trying to do) where he would've seen the knife. And from where I was standing, the man's foot was blocking my view of the gun. And then we found out that NO ONE who had gone ahead of us saw the weapons, either. Talk about a learning experience! There was so much chaos going on with the yelling and screaming that we were too focused on diffusing the situation. We needed to take in the bigger picture of our surroundings. Just goes to show you everything a deputy has to process in 30 seconds or less when they roll up to a call.
So yeah, it was a pretty awesome class. :-)
hit counter dreamweaver
Next week is more role-playing, where we're going to re-enact traffic stops. Yeah, get me behind the wheel of a squad car! Bring it on! :-)
Can't believe that there are only five classes left!
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2009-04-16 11:17 pm (UTC)"It just made me depressed, thinking about being locked up like that 23 1/2 hours a day." I assume you mean, you'd be depressed being locked up, cause I feel grateful they are off the streets.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-04-17 08:21 pm (UTC)That is SO true, and can turn deadly in a heartbeat.
I assume you mean, you'd be depressed being locked up, cause I feel grateful they are off the streets.
Oh yeah, that's exactly what I meant. Looking at the same four walls day in and day out for years? No thank you!