Topic: Everything Education / Corrections - the recession proof field!

Not in Ohio. They are cutting jobs like we don’t need corrections staff and they expect the inmates to police themselves. And we’re probably about to see another round of cuts with this new budget they just passed.

Topic: Everything Education / Slashed?

I’m more worried about prison closures.

Topic: The Club House / 20 years and out

Ohio is 30 and out. I wish it was 20, or at least 25.

Topic: Security Central / Tasers in the Jail?

We in Ohio do not use tasers in the state facilities. I’m not sure why. You could all but eliminate cell extraction related injuries, and other physical use of force issues if we could use this method before hands-on force was used. Just the sight of it would be enough for the majority of inmates to comply.

Topic: Letter of The Law / Personal Phone calls?

“I work for the ohio prison system. It’s the same deal here no cell phones unless you are management SRT or Star which are tactical team members.”- walton350

walton, which institution do you work at that SRT has cell phones? I know our STAR/TRT guys have them, but we have yet to receive anything like that for SRT, we are still rockin’ the pagers (which typically do not work).

Topic: The Club House / best shift to learn on

You will only learn a limited amount on 3rd shift. It is slow and a lot of posts are not open at that time. The best (and typically busiest) shift to jump into it all on is 2nd shift. If you are a quick learner, that would be the shift to get the most experience right out of the gate. You can learn a lot from the senior officers on 1st or 3rd shift as well though. The majority of your senior officers are on those two shifts typically, and there is a reason for that. First of all the hours on 2nd shift usually ruin your day. If you are not single, those hours can be trying. Secondly, the senior officers tend to go where there is less work, naturally, one of the benefits of serving your time. But all in all for the learning part of it, 2nd shift would be the place to be to get a lot of first hand experience quickly.

Topic: The Club House / Logbooks

We actually had a big Union Rep at our place tell us during the contract voting period. “Just be glad you have a job,. my neighbors are laid off.” Not we did our best, or yeah it sucks but it’s the best we could muster. It was “if we vote it down, it’s gonna be WAAAAAYYYY worse.” I’ve never seen a union that continually gave and gave and gave, without gaining anything in return. Unions aren’t supposed to give up benefits like this EVERY contract. This union is a joke. We need to go the route the Pennsylvania C/O’s went and drop AFSCME/OCSEA, and start our own, or go with someone else.

Topic: The Club House / Ohio DRC

Jake, I just remember reading the inside jokes about it on the OCSEA forums, I never new you had an actual company. I’m a BIG pepperhead. I’d be interested to know what your selling. Do you have a website or anything?

Topic: The Club House / Ohio DRC

3 to 4 times a week is too much for Shakey, from what I hear he’s too busy making his special hot sauce.

Topic: The Club House / Logbooks

Shakey, the conduct reports and incident reports are cake on the system. The Incident reports are easier, but the conduct reports aren’t all that hard either. We’ve been using them for about 3 years now here at LORCI. No big problems with it yet. What’s up with the OCSEA forum? Ever coming back? Maybe they got scared of people talking about dumping them and starting our own union….

Topic: The Club House / Logbooks

Mudflap, we have a emergency logbook (the old hand written one) incase something malfunctions on the computer we switch to that, but otherwise, we just use the electronic one here at LORCI

Topic: Letter of The Law / Can we deny inmates access to newspapers, magazines as an incentive for better behavior?

“Flood” them with books while they are in Seg, and soon you’ll be cleaning up the flood they created when they plugged the toilet with the materials you just gave them. Be realistic. If you are a long-term “vet” at this as you claim, you should know better how an unruly inmate in Segregation acts. You try to force him to write you reports, I’ll sit over here and laugh at you beating your head against the wall when he tells you to shove your report you know where.

Everyone is over-analyzing this. This is a question of wether to deny an inmate priveledges when they are misbehaving to create an incentive for them to behave well. Of course you should be able to. How else will they learn if there are no consequences for their actions? Yeah they are locked up, now they need to learn to behave and follow rules. If they already knew how to do that, they wouldn’t be here in the first place. So they follow the rules here, they can read whatever the hell they want. If not, there will be consequences, if that happens to involve restricting magazines or newspapers until they behave, so be it.

Topic: Letter of The Law / Can we deny inmates access to newspapers, magazines as an incentive for better behavior?

I don’t think issuing them the latest issue of “King” or whatever other ghetto-booty picture filled rag is really going to open minds or expand their knowledge. I wouldn’t be against them getting something educational, but that only happens in this fantasy world you seem to want to live in. Back here in the real world, they subscribe to the closest thing to porn they are allowed. What really is there to sit back and PONDER on that?

Topic: The Club House / Logbooks

No no routine maintenance times that I have seen. Once in awhile you hit a glitch where it bombs out on you, but you just close it and open it back up and it’s fine. Other than the computer itself crashing, breaking or malfunctioning for some reason, it’s been very successful and the logbook program itself seems pretty solid.

Topic: Security Central / Ohio DOC SRT and STAR

Ozone, I work for Ohio DRC, I am also a member of my institutions SRT team. I wouldn’t say it is hard to get on SRT. You have to finish your year of probation and if there is an opening on the team submit an application. Generally they will be looking to see that you have a clean discipline record, good attendance, and what your response time to your institution would be if you were to be activated. At our institution, I was interviewed by a panel of people, which included our DWO, our Major, our SRT commander, and another SRT instructor. You have to be physically able to pass the PT test for SRT, which isn’t anything outrageous. I didn’t have any inside contacts, so no, you don’t need to “know somebody” to get on the team. How you handle yourself on a day to day basis and in stressful situations goes a long way with how they will look at you as far as getting on the team as well. All in all, it’s a good experience, my only complaint is that we should actually train more often than we do (once a month).

Also Ohio has what they call STG (Security Threat Groups) officers as far as the Gang related intel goes. They offer courses at Ohio’s Corrections Training Academy for those who are interested.

Topic: The Club House / Logbooks

We switched from hand written log books to electronics logbooks at our institution prbably close to 2 years ago now.

Topic: The Club House / Ohio DRC

I thought it was pretty strange that nothing was getting out to the papers about the MANCI incidents while voting for the contract was going on, then low and behold as soon as the votes were tallied and turned in, our wonderful union issues a statement and hits the press with it, a week and a half later. This union of ours is a joke. I would love to drop them for a better one that actually has some leverage at the bargaining table.

Topic: Juvenile Jam / gang assessment

“Behavior Modification” = OC & PR-24

Worked in the old days…..

Topic: Health & Wellness / Mandated CPR On Inmates: Good Or Not So Good?

“And I’m sure you must make near what an RN makes! "- PrisonRN

Not really. About $5 less an hour than starting pay for an RN here.

Topic: Letter of The Law / my self

Hey alright, gotta love spam.

Topic: The Club House / Ohio DRC

Our TO was low enough that the few that did bump to CO didn’t force anyone out of a job, because we had plenty of openings. Our admin got moved around, got different titles, and some actually went up a pay grade due to it. How much sense does that make?

Getting ready for the next round of cuts coming. I know they were just waiting for this sad, pathetic excuse for a contract to get approved before they drop the ax again.

Topic: Health & Wellness / Mandated CPR On Inmates: Good Or Not So Good?

“With all due respect, the comment about medical standing around while there is a man down alarm bothered me. Unfortunately we are not trained to respond to those types of things but CO’s ARE trained to do CPR.” -PrisonRN

With all due respect, the nurses in our department recieve the exact same un-armed self defense classes that the CO’s do, annually, just like the CO’s. So it is disheartening to see medical stand around during a man-down alarm. And in a way I’m glad it bothered you. If you don’t have that training, how do you feel safe working around inmates? You should push for that training if you don’t get it now, it may save your or someone else’s life someday. And I’ll bargain with you, give me an Ambu Bag and I’ll be glad to give CPR to anyone as well. I don’t want a crappy disposable mask, give me the same equipment the medical staff is going to be using, and I wouldn’t have any problem with it. Upping me to RN’s pay would be great too. lol

Topic: Everything Education / Reentry practices, concerns

Save your money. Reentry is a joke.

Topic: Juvenile Jam / suicidal juveniles

So much special attention for felons, where is the outcry for depressed people who are innocent? How about we try to solve that problem first.

Topic: Health & Wellness / Mandated CPR On Inmates: Good Or Not So Good?

Now if we can get them to let us do the compressions with our feet….