My Life in Law Enforcement: A True Life Story #15 Jail House Blues

Hey guys! If you read my last post where I have finished rookie school and I'm getting my feet wet in a detention center, you probably picked up on the feeling that I don't like working in a jail. You can see that article here if you missed it: https://steemit.com/story/@bluelightbandit/my-life-in-law-enforcement-a-true-life-story-14-doin-time

It didn't take long for me to despise going in to this place. Just imagine going to your place of work and it being like this... It's was hot in the jail, there was no air conditioning throughout the cell blocks. The only air circulating was from windows that we could open that had a mesh screen covering them. Okay, now combine the heat and stuffy air with the powerful "musk of man" scent from hundreds of male inmates. The inmates were forced to take a shower once they were originally booked in but after they're housed in a cell, it's pretty much up to them to wash their own ass. But as you could imagine, several inmates avoiding taking showers for several days for different reasons, resulted in a very smelly environment. There was only one shower per block so you can imagine it wouldn't be the most pleasant experience in the world but it would beat having to deal with the extreme body odor and drama that it would cause. Some inmates would avoid the shower due to fear of being sexually assaulted, fear of being seen nude and fear of what might be stuck to the walls or floors inside the shower.

It wasn't uncommon for inmates to either inform us about an inmate that desperately needed to shower or the inmates would sometimes take matters in to their own hands by giving the inmate an ultimatum. There's been many times where I've had to take an inmate out of his cell and force him to shower...not very fun, guys. I've also had to move inmates out from a block that had been beaten due to refusing to take a shower. You can't blame the other occupants of the cell block, the smell would get unbearable and I wouldn't want to live like that either. Having to force an inmate to take a shower sucked pretty bad. Often they would let their body odor get so bad that they would be ashamed of themselves and pride would take over, resulting in a combative emotional state.

Okay, now that you've got an idea of what the smell and temperature is like going in to work, now imagine hundreds of men yelling and raising hell as soon as you walk through the door. This isn't a resort in the Hampton's, it's a hot, smelly cluster of cages with a bunch of pissed off men inside them. The inmates are pissed off for many different reasons. One person could be mad because the television isn't working properly and the other could be pissed because he just received a life sentence. When you combine all of the heat, smells, testosterone and emotions from every man in there, you get the perfect recipe for a huge bomb to go off. It was almost guaranteed that as soon as I went in to work, I would have to go do a cell extraction on a violent inmate.

The photo above shows a text book and ideal cell extraction. Unfortunately for me, we didn't have protective gear and extra officers to conduct a proper and safe extraction. I would often attempt to go get a violent inmate by myself but if it was too dangerous, I would wait for an additional officer and the only weapons we had were our hands. We were extremely short staffed just like most of the detention facilities in North Carolina are. We recently had some prison guards murdered by inmates and it was deemed that the prison was too understaffed at the time of the murders. Tasers weren't out at the time, or if they were, they weren't as popular. We did have OC spray but we rarely used it because often we would get contaminated ourselves and it would make subduing the inmate more difficult. But yeah, it was like this pretty much every day when you first go in and it didn't stop with just one unruly inmate. As the evening went on, so did the tempers...

This completes another installment of My Life in Law Enforcement: A True Life Story, a series of chapters talking about my real life experiences going through rookie school and pursuing my career in law enforcement. I will post links to the previous chapters at the bottom of this page if you would like to catch up to speed from day one. Many thanks for your time!

@bluelightbandit