Jan 2, 2011

<----This is the C Block of Unit 3 as indicated on the post. The lockers and bunks go together for the 60 inmates who sleep on bunks each night. The other 60 are in the cell surrounding the outside bottom and top. Notice they are solid doors and not covered in bars.


Tonight was pretty eventful. It was my second night in the new unit. The sergeant was still letting me get accustomed to this unit so i was kinda floating around to all of the sections. The first part of the night i was in the block doing searches. Were supposed to do 2 searches in each block, each night. They wanted to make sure that my search skills were good so they let me perform all 4 of the searches for the unit that night. I had done a few searches during my training but we had not found anything. Well wouldn't ya know that the first cell we search we found some porno pictures stashed under the guys mattress. Its not really a big deal cause its nothing that is gonna cause a lot of trouble but it is still considered contraband. So after we take those we search the rest of his stuff. Well each week the inmates do a clothing exchange. They go and pick up a new set of 4 shirts, 4 pants, 4 boxers and some socks that have been washed. They are supposed to turn in the dirty clothes when they are done with them. Well we search this guys cell and find 10 pair of pants. Me and the other c/o were just amazed at how many clothes this guy had. Since it was just petty stuff that's not really a big deal, all that happened was the guy lost his porno pictures and we took several pairs of pants. The rest of the searches were clear of anything they aren't supposed to have. We had to do 2 bunk/locker searches also. So ended up being 2 cells in one block and 2 bunks w/ lockers in the other. When doing searches you check everything. You start from the top and go to the bottom. Whether its in the top of the cell or the top of the locker that goes with each bunk bed. You have to search even the dumbest things. From inside tennis shoes to unopened boxes of soap that may have been resealed to hide a cell phone. I try to be as respectful of these guys things as possible when doing searches. I make sure when flipping through the book that i ask if there are any bookmarks. That way ill know that they are trying to keep a particular page and not lose it. I try and put everything back just like i found it, almost like i was never there. The guys really appreciate that and i know it will help me gain their respect in the long run.


A little while later we had an incident with one of our officers. She is in her 60's....i think. She looks it. Either way she was walking around the unit. Well as i told you in an earlier post, inmates do everything at the prison. Mop the floors, take out trash, clean showers and bathrooms, mow the grass and take care of all the flower beds. Well an inmate had just finished mopping the floor in the hallway for C block and didn't put out any wet floor signs but had just told the officer that the floor was wet. Well the officer must not have hear the inmate and went walking through the hallway without looking and slipped and fell. When she fell she broke her elbow, bruised her knee and sprained her back. All the inmates immediately rushed to the windows and the open cell block door and started laughing and staring at her laying on the floor. We tried to surround her as mush as possible but its kinda hard to keep 240 guys from seeing something. So anyway they took her off to the hospital and that's where they found out all the medical stuff. So with that happening, it put us one person short which means that i'm gonna have to work by myself for sure on Wednesday in the block. It is gonna be an interesting night. One that i will make sure and document so that i can tell everyone about it.