Citizen's Academy-Jail

You guessed it we got to see the jail on this class. First the jail supervisor talked to us for awhile before we had the tour. I found this part very interesting but makes since. Story County has 104 bed unit but they necessarily don't use it all because inmates need to be put together in a category or you could have a lawsuit on your hands. They can't take a murder and put them in with a drunk driver because they might not get along in the cell and then you might have a lawsuit. He told us you have to be able to balance the inmates so there are no problems. He told us some statistics about our veisha celebration. Since FRI, SAT and SUN are the major partying he told us that out of those three days this year they put 107 people in jail. Since January 1st 2010 they have processed 7000 people at this jail. I thought that was high since we are not a big city. We do hold federal people in this jail too. Then he told us some stories of two men that was his worst problems that he ever came across. We can ask him questions, then go on the tour. When we toured got to see the laundry area and they showed us that they wear orange clogs instead of tennis shoes. I thought that was funny. Another interesting part on the tour was this area that holds all the cameras of the whole facility. There is someone watching all doorways and inmates and taking phone calls. This person lets people through doors. The big screen had about 40 different cameras going at once. It was alot to watch. No sunlight in this room either. In fact the whole facility doesn't have sunlight. When we toured the inmates they have 3 sections. The women are divided out from the men. Then the men there were two holding areas. One was called a hub where you see on TV they are all together sitting around tables. That looked like 50 people in this area. The next section is secured off because it more for the dangerous inmates. These are sex offenders, murders, suicidal or have health issues.Definitely more security there. Actually the whole jail is really nice. It only is 9 years old and looked like new. They do have the working inmates cook, clean floors and other jobs. There are TVs in the rooms and if bad behavior happens then the tv is off. IF they have good behavior they can read a book at the library. So that is the last class I will have. Tonight I go to my graduation ceremony. Wish me luck!