June 21st

What a night!
First off, some background that I SHOULD have written about last week and didn't get around to. Last week on Friday, the inmates in section three of my unit, the IMU status inmates, started yelling because they wanted to talk to the lieutenant. They didn't get an immediate response, so they behaved like any three year old, or inmate, would. They started yelling disrespectful comments at me and banging their doors. So I wrote seven disciplinary reports for disrespect and disobedience of an order.
Yup, NOW they are a bunch of happy campers.

So last night I get to work, and right off the guy I relieved said it was one of those days. They had a bunch of tension in section one from the shitbombing that happened last week. They did a bunch of moving people around between the two DSU sections to try to settle things down a bit.

Then the corporal that is working the floor in my unit informs me they are going to do a courtesy move. She was going to move an inmate from behind glass to one of the corner cells. (We have four to five cells in each section that have plexiglass attached to the front. This is where we put inmates most likely to shitbomb or spit on staff.) So the inmate she wants to move is one of the seven that I wrote up last week. There are two other inmates behind glass in that section that didn't get involved. I pointed out this little bit of logic in front of the lieutenant and it was decided the inmate would stay where he is.

Then they bring a guy from a unit downstairs to fill the empty cell we have up here. There are three staff bringing this guy up. They get to the control center by me and two of them decide to just stop. So I have the corporal walking this inmate onto the tier by himself, with the lieutenant on that tier talking to inmates. I yell to them that MAYBE at least ONE of them might want to finish the escort up to the cell, considering the lieutenant is right there. (All inmate movement in this building is supposed to be two staff on one inmate.) It is people not paying attention to things like this that can really bite you in the ass.
It will be one of those times that someone gets complacent, and that inmate will turn on the tether and hurt someone.

I have started writing this stuff down while I am at work and emailing it home in hopes of doing a better job of keeping the updates more frequent. So I am at work as I write this, only two hours into my twelve hour shift, and I need a drink!

I can't wait to see what the rest of the night has in store for me.

So to add to my annoyance tonight, an inmate in section two, one of the DSU sections, did not get up and out of his cell in a timely manner today when it was his turn for recreation and a shower. So when the lieutenant walked the tier the guy got on his leg and whined for about 15 minutes. I get a call later telling me to let the guy out so he can shower. Nice how the administration talks this great game about holding inmates responsible for their own actions, but then we bend to their wishes after they screwed up.

Another great case of this tonight. The inmates are not supposed to cover the lights in their cells with anything. They try to put paper over the light fixture to dim their cells. Just last week the captain sent an email out syaing we were not to let the inmates hange stuff on the walls or cover the light fixtures. If they do, we are to go in and search their cell and remove these items for them. Well, I had my floor staff tell an inmate in the DSU section four different times to remove the paper from his light. Each time he just put it back up when they left the tier. Finally at 09:50 I called the lieutenant and told him we need to do something because this inmate was blatantly ignoring the orders he was given. His response....."Well, you turn the lights out in ten minutes anyway, right?" This is the sort of thing that just makes me crazy. We try to do the job they tell us to do, but we can't seem to get any management with the balls to back us up anymore. It used to be when an inmate did something like this, we would go in and strip his cell of all but a blanket and let him live with just that for a day or two. They got the message back then and we didn't have to deal with this bullshit so often. Then they wonder why we get the "I don't give a fuck anymore" attitude.

I decided screw it, I am going to write this guy up anyway. And if his light is covered tomorrow night, I will write him again. And the night after that, and the night after that. Eventually they will get tired of seeing all the paper I am dropping on these clowns and maybe one of them will grow a backbone and give us some support. Either that or my typing skills are gonna get a lot better.

Damn, I REALLY need that drink now......