This past Saturday, I was privileged enough to be able to schedule a job-shadow with a Washington County Corrections Deputy. This meant I would be following along side a deputy over the course of an 8 hour shift helping out where able, but mainly just watching and asking questions to gain a better understanding of the job.
For the majority of the night we worked intake where all arrestees are patted down, photographed, given an ID bracelet, and all possessions inventoried and bagged. This all occurs before the arrestee is allowed in any other part of the Jail facility to await their actual booking. Essentially this is the prisoner handoff point from officer/deputy to the jail staff.
Right off the bat when I began the shift, we had one come in. He looked like a runner. Turns out we were all wrong.
(click the link for the full article)
Now, I know exactly what happens when someone breaks into a house and fondles the sleeping adult male occupant:
His shiner was much worse about 30 minutes after the booking photo was taken.
Later in the evening we processed another kid who had been pistol-whipped by an individual to whom he had attempted to sell a stolen truck. Seems the kid had just had his nose fixed by a doctor from another encounter with a different individual. Needless to say, he wasn’t having a good day.
When intake was slow, we also did a fed bed moves of inmates which involved just escorting them from one “pod” to another “pod”. This also included walking an inmate out of the maximum security pod and downgrading him to a lower risk “pod”.
All in all, the shift was busy enough to be interesting, but quiet enough that there aren’t too many stories to tell. I can’t imagine what it is like when the place gets busy. While I found the shift to be quite interesting, relaying those interests would seem minor, insignificant and uninteresting to most people. I did find it amusing that I was asked no less than 5 times and within 30 seconds of meeting the deputies: “So, when are you going to apply?”, with a follow up by 2 of the deputies I ran across again later in the night: “So, you’re going to apply, right?”.
What was even more flattering was the encouragement at the end of the ride-along and job-shadow shifts from both of the deputies I was paired with to apply to the Sheriff’s Reserves. I got the feeling that they wouldn’t have encouraged me if they didn’t have a sense that I would do well in the position.
Next up (outside of the normal Tuesday night classes) will be the K-9 demo on October 27th. Given my track record so far in the Citizen’s Academy classes, I have a feeling I will end up as bait during that class.
And yes, I know you are all dying to see the video of me being tasered. I am still waiting on two classmates to burn the videos to disk. I expect to have that no later than November 6th…. so you’ll all just have to wait… rest assured it will be posted here for you all to enjoy when I do get them.
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