This afternoon we were given a tour of the Hillsborough County Jail by Major Robert Lucas, whose career has spanned over 30 years of law enforcement. During this tour we visited three main facets of the jail before seeing some behind the scenes operations. We first saw the booking room, the holding area and then finished off the tour with a trip to the lockdown facilities.
Upon entering the jail the first place you see is the booking room where anyone that is brought in has to wait to either be booked or wait to make bail. At this point in the process their behavior is paramount to how long their stay could ultimately be. If they act up or show any kind of aggression towards the officer working with them they will be put into a holding cell until they choose to cooperate. Some of the folks that are bought in make bail, those that do can remain in their normal street clothes until they pay bail and are released. For the rest of the individuals that are brought in and cannot make bail they must change into orange jump suits and get escorted to their holding cell. Two unique items we learned about in the booking area was the fact that the people that are brought in actually can make a unlimited amount of phones calls as long as they are cooperative with the staff. This is a strong departure from what is portrayed in the media and on the big screen. Secondly they now use a machine for the people that are actually taken to a cell called the BOSS or the Body Orifice Chair. This chair is used to help determine if someone has something in a cavity that is not found during a routine search.
The holding area that we visited next was nothing out of the ordinary from what was expected. The prisoners seemed to have a lot of freedom in the sense that they were just walking around, playing basketball, and cleaning various things throughout the facility. One thing that did jump out at me was that it was very quite, much quieter than I expected. Following the holding area we went to the lockdown facilities and again it was very quite but the key difference here was that every one of the prisoners was in their cell and none were just milling about.
Some little known facts were also presented throughout our visit like they no longer do the lunch line treatment and their budget this year will be $377,000. In fact 85% of that budget will go to the salaries of the employees working at the jail. All in all it was a very unique experience and one that I will not soon forget. Lastly in regards to media and the jail what surprised me was that at times the jail staff actually found out what was going on through the media, now that sounds like good journalism.
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