Trip to the Orient Rd. Jail

"Getting in is easy, it's getting out that's the hard part."  -Lieutenant Allen

I actually took notes this time.  I'd like to just talk about my journey through the jail; it's a good enough story.

I got to see the booking area, the records office, the confinement rooms, the general rooms, the common area for inmates, the room with 29 screens showing every security camera view, and the long corridor with some passing inmates.

I actually stated those events backwards because the cops said they would give us a backwards tour.

The first thing I saw once we got into the locked area was a single file line of inmates wearing orange jumpsuits walking down the very open hall.  They were walking along the wall furthest from my group and this one inmate stood out to me.  He was staring at all of us, which I can't blame him, we're a bunch of attractive college students, but he was staring at us like a jackass.  I can't explain it any better, he just looked like a total fool.  The expression on his face was like "ooh who are these people?"  And I wasn't even thinking when I blurted out "the hell you lookin' at, inmate?"  I don't think I said it loud enough for him to hear, but I know I wasn't the only one in my group who wanted to see an inmate do something stupid.  We all wanna see some action happen.  We're journalists.

The first room we got to see was the security camera room.  There were tons of montiors, as I said, 29 screens.  Some of them were showing multiple camera views, just a second from one camera, then it would flash to another camera view.  Real neat stuff.  There were big maps of the jail of each floor on the walls.

Allen told us that 70,000 people get booked in the Orient Road Jail per year.  He said that the average amount of time spent in jail is 28 days, but since the judge started hearing cases within 7 days of an inmate's time in jail, the average lowered to 22 days.

Even though inmates are people who committed crimes, they're still people.  Allen talked about in case of a hurricane, the inmates would be moved to the upper floors of the jail.  With the jail being only 14 feet above sea level, I'm sure one could imagine that place flooding pretty easily.  The jail stays stocked with 3 days of food and water at all times.

We then went to the inmate common area where inmates can watch TV, play cards, twiddle their thumbs, etc.  It's basically where the inmates get come out of their cells and play.  Needless to say, there wasn't much else because if there was any more, people would be like "what's so bad about jail if they have all these things to pass time?"

When the inmates are bad, they go into solitary confinement; the cell for those who don't get along with others.  That place looks terrible.  The inmates in solitary confinement spend 22 hours of the day there.  This is where people go crazy if they aren't already.  The cops had stories of people mutilating themselves in all kinds of disgusting ways that I really don't wish to share (but I will anyway).  One of the cops told us that one guy asphyixiated himself by shoving his bed sheet down his throat.  Another story was about how a man took out one of his family jewels (with his own hands), another about this woman who doesn't bathe, ugh.  I'm already cringing as I type this.

We next visited the inmate courthouse.  I was wondering how the inmates made it down to the courthouse downtown but the one in the jail has two big cameras that feed the footage of the criminal trials to journalists.  It makes it easier so reporters from 7 different stations aren't all trying to film the same trial.  But the inmate courthouse is basically an assembly line trial because as Allen said, there are 70,000 bookings per year.  If the judge worked every single day of the year, he would hear more than 190 cases per day.  And the judge is also a regular human being and has weekends and vacations, so he really sees more than that.

The booking office is where there were no barriers between my class and I and the inmates.  These inmates were looking at us like we were literally dinner.  Pieces of meat.  Some of the girls in my class (including me) were not exactly dressed for the jail.  Many girls were wearing shorts, I think another girl had a dress on, but yeah, a couple of them got some rude remarks from the inmates sitting in the booking office.  So we made a beeline away from them to explore the different aspects of the booking room.  There was the intake section, I guess the first checkpoint for the inmate, then there were the medical, fingerprinting, classification, and property sections.  The medical section is where the inmates medical records are handled in case an inmate is diabetic or needs special care.  The fingerprinting section, well, obviously that's where the inmates get to put some ink on their hands and touch things.  Probably the only place in jail where they can do that.  Classification is basically where the jail staff declares the inmate's case as a high-profile or not. Property is where they take away all the inmate's stuff: clothes, jewelry, possessions, everything.  They strip you down and give it back when the inmate gets out (except the illegal stuff).

Then the public records office, the only place where we learned something we probably would have heard in class.  Verlin Compton (not sure if that's how it's spelled, can't find her information on the internet anywhere) told us what parts of an inmate record is not public record.  She listed off social security numbers, juvenile information, medical records, high profile inmate records, and witness and victim information.

When I left the jail, I had a new nickname: Helmet.  I tried to carpool it there but I didn't try hard enough so I ended up having to take my motorcycle and I had to let the jail's front office staff hang on to my helmet and backpack since we couldn't bring anything into the area inmates have access to.  I wish I could've left my shit in the car.  I don't like being called Helmet.