(The following is a letter I sent to Sheriff Jim Winder this morning, April 13, 2010, on the day my son is being released. I waited until today to send this letter because of my son’s safety and incidents of harassment from guards).
My 19 year old (turned 20 in jail) was sent to CATS by a judge for violating his probation with failed drug tests. He deserved it and his mother and I were actually glad he was sentenced. Something needed to happen. The judge did the right thing by throwing him in jail.
Prior to that sentence, his criminal defense attorney took us into a conference room and warned us that jail visiting was going to be a nightmare only eagerly made possible by jail personnel. He went on to say that they are “underpaid, overworked, under-appreciated and really don’t like people very much.” He said that we needed to brace ourselves to deal with what we would encounter from “the employees at the jail. They are not there to be helpful. Get used to it.”
Those were his stern words from 26 years’ experience. And after 4months, I can honestly say that he was 100% dead-on correct. I’m disgusted and angry with what we experienced dealing with jail personnel and systems.
Your web site counsels people: “When a person is incarcerated, he/she is not the only one being introduced to the jail environment. The experience can be challenging and confusing to friends and family as well.”
What your advice didn’t mention was your jail personnel will double-down and make sure that an innocent friend or family member lives a nightmare of their making every chance they get an opportunity to quote the “rulebook.” You know, the rulebook they adhere to when it suits them. Or, they can alternatively behave like Jesus amongst the beggars when they decide it suits them to let a rule slip.
1 - Complaint:
From the first day we had the pleasure of walking into the Metro Jail, we were treated like a nuisance by every smug individual sitting on the other side of the counter. When they are ready and feel like it, they will stop staring at their computer screens and actually look up at someone who’s been standing there patiently waiting. That is, only if they are through chatting with the person sitting next to them about family and soccer and grocery prices. There’s no keyboard activity, just lots and lots and intent staring. Then, they turn, drop their smiles and ask you what you want. Not, “How can I assist you?” or “How can I help you?” or “What can I do for you?” Indifference, cold replies, hair-trigger confrontational attitudes, and, really, a total lack of any skills in dealing with the public at large or a specific segment of the public called “visitors.”
At Metro, this goes for commissary account clerks, visit-scheduling clerks, and especially with the young, male officers behind the counter that give out locker keys. They deserve some kind of award for being that bad of an example, right there out in public. As a taxpayer and life-long citizen of Salt Lake City, I resent helping to pay for people to treat me so poorly. I’m not talking about greeting me with a smile. I’m talking about being treated like a loser or that I have a contagious disease and shouldn’t even be there! You naturally have questions your first couple of visits, and getting a faceful of attitude from some stranger who I know in my heart doesn’t have my level of education, experience, military background , contributions to community well-being or charitable volunteerism. When I do not want to be anywhere near that building it is ridiculous to be treated that way. Those young turks with sidearms and paramilitary uniforms who run the metal detectors at Metro are a sad bunch. They look like military rejects or MP’s who have little other training than “containment and security.”
What happened to Professionalism? Pride in doing a good job? Helping people who need help? Basic Customer service training? Public service from public servants? Budget woes? So, we hire and train the worst of the worst because we can’t afford to hire good people? It doesn’t cost anything to be a human toward other humans in a bad situation. Particularly when one of us CHOSE to be there and it wasn’t me! It was the jailers (and by extension, my son)and the counter help and the guards who chose to be there. I’m just visiting.
2 – Commissary
My kid is now 20 years old with a 20 year olds’ appetite. So, naturally, that means that he goes to bed hungry every night he’s in jail. He eats all his toothpaste, telling me it’s a delicacy at night. So, we put money in a commissary account and are charged airport boutique prices for crackers and bean paste. That’s all fine and well.
What’s not fine and well is the fact that in 4 months, his commissary orders were totally screwed up four times. Two times his commissary order was submitted and no one said anything about a box not being checked or a number was put in the wrong box. What these people did was wait until it was time to dole out the orders the following week, then they would tell him that he didn’t check the correct box or some other problem and there was no commissary order for him at all.
Why didn’t they tell him that when he submitted his request? Does it ruin all the fun these people have when they get to tell a hungry kid who’s waited a week for his order that he forget to put a check in a box? One of the older inmates finally told him that he would be happy to “grade” his commissary request because “they” will never tell you it needs correcting.
What kind of BS is that? What kind of sick, twisted military basic training torture and intimidation trick is that? I would fire every single person involved with that mess you call commissary. Of course, with budget cuts, I guess you are forced to hire the worst excuse for thinking, competent human beings that you can find.
3 – Visiting Schedules:
On my son’s 20th birthday, I came to see him on a Wednesday night after work. When I got to the counter, I was informed that ”someone had already come to see him” and that there were no more visits allowed, even on his birthday. I walked outside and called my ex-wife, thinking she sneaked in for his birthday. It wasn’t her. That someone turned out to be a special needs-janitor from our church who was in the area and just dropped in to visit. Whoever designed or signed off on a system that lets people take time off work, drive across town and walk up to a counter only to be told that some stranger already took your visit should be fired. Fired!
Interface with the system: The computer systems and user interfaces seem to be extremely cumbersome, not user-friendly and cause bottlenecks at every counter I had to stand in front of. Every time I signed up for a visit, it took the little old lady at Oxbow untold time just to log me in. I’m the same guy who stood there last week, nothing has changed. Same name, same address, same nightmare, different day. She would write down names with a pencil and pad, then transcribe some of the info to the computer, then take a driver’s license, hand out a key and go back to writing things down on scraps of paper. Most of the time, with a line standing at the counter, she sat there just staring intently at her computer screen, waiting for it to do something. She’s the one who told me that the “new” system causes her to go through these acrobatics with the pencil and computer and paper scraps, etc. Pathetic and totally intolerable!
Whoever designed and/or signed off on an operational system that causes so much grief and anxiety, even for jail personnel, should be Fired. I have fired IT people who can’t think like normal human beings. Some, not all, are not mentally well. I had more trouble with a mentally ill IT person than I can tell you. He was actually hospitalized once.
He would design systems that no one in their right mind could use, regardless of training. When I think that you are using an operational system that was probably designed on contract through the County or State Purchasing Department and it Does Not Work, my taxpaying blood boils. Some IT guy signed off on it because HE UNDERSTANDS IT, and no one else does, right?
Timing is Everything and Not Anything: We have been warned repeatedly to show up for a visit at least 15 minutes before visiting time so the “the prisoner can be prepped for the visit.” (Hey, Damon! Your Dad’s here!” How’s that for prep?) I’ve been turned away and made to sit on my hands for 30 minutes five times in 4 months for being within 3 minutes of what the clock on the wall said was exactly, and I mean exactly, 15 minutes.
Sometimes I would be standing at the counter on time, and by the time all the mind-numbing, silent staring at computer screens and note writing with a pencil and scrap of paper stopped, I would be past time when it was my turn to be served. I say “served” with the utmost sarcasm.
Prep time, huh? If that’s the excuse for the draconian 15 minute rule, then how come my kid wasn’t at the counter when I got into the visiting rooms? How come my kid showed up groggy and sleepy 4 times in the past 2 months and told me the guards had just barely awakened him for a visit while I sat there waiting? So, if they aren’t going to use the rules and time available to do their jobs, why am I subjected to this medieval , inflexible exercise? HOW COME THE FAMOUS RULES ONLY WORK IN ONE DIRECTION?
Last Saturday, for my kid’s last visit before release, I was standing at the counter at exactly 12 minutes before the visiting time. That was your wall clock vs. my wrist watch. I asked if she would let it go since there were only 4 people heading into that visit and she refused, citing “the rules.” When I asked what was the big deal over 3 minutes, knowing I was pushing buttons, she responded that it didn’t matter if it was a minute or three, I wasn’t going to visit for another 30 minutes because ”those are the rules and she wasn’t going to lose her job because I was 3 minutes late.” Then she cited the need to “prep the prisoner” for an expected Saturday visit. When I mentioned that this is the way we were treated at Metro when my kid was waiting for a CATS bed to open up, she got angry and said that they were “much more lenient at Oxbow than at Metro!”
And I asked, then, why she wouldn’t let me see my son over the silly three-minute rule, she did what every jail employee has done when you start making logic out of their nonsense: She started shouting, “Sir! Sir! Sir! “ as though shouting “Sir!” was going to produce a magical outcome overriding the ridiculousness of her attitude.
I had two other jail employees shout “Sir! Sir!”Sir!” in my face as a result of asking why there was no basic change for commissary payments (Who takes in money and can’t make simple change?)or why I wasn’t allowed in for a visit when I had been standing at the counter, on time, but the employee couldn’t run the computer effectively enough to process the 5 people standing in line on time.
I figured there must be a class in Conflict Resolution that teaches jail employees to start shouting “Sir! Sir! Sir!” like a fire alarm if they are jostled on their comfy perch behind the counter. At no time have I ever sworn, shouted or name-called a jail employee. What really pisses them off is when a thinking person throws their ridiculous excuses and canned answers out the window. They must feel naked and scared, like a bully who’s just been punched in the nose.
The woman last Saturday told me that if I was standing in line and was late because the line moved slowly, that I would “get in if it was her shift!” I asked her why she wouldn’t let me in for a 3 minute violation ON MY LAST VISIT if she had the benevolence and power to help people stuck in line. That did not go over well.
I’m thinking that because of budget cuts, you are forced to hire people who have no desire or ability to deal with people in stressful situations. I’m talking about those swaggering, sneering, ill-mannered, ill-trained jerks who sit at their computers and won’t even acknowledge your presence until they are through checking basketball scores and asking so-and-so what she brought for lunch.
You know the kind, the people you hire who think, “Well, if you don’t want to be here and treated like an animal, tell your family member not to get thrown in jail!” or, like last Saturday, having my license handed back to me and told, “You know what? You’re not getting in!” because her training didn’t involve using logic, just words in a book called “rules” while she admitted to me that she bends them all the time if she thinks the cause is just. She relented and let me in after her temper tantrum ran its course.
I would love to do a reverse-ride along sometime. Come with me as we visit counters at Metro and Oxbow. I’ll do the talking, you do the observation. We’ll start by scheduling a visit 7 days in advance, move to the commissary station (and ask for change for a $50) and then finally, to the guy who hands out keys and runs the metal detector with a snarl. I wish these people were my employees. Oh, how I wished they were my employees and not protected by being yours.
Finally, my ex-wife called and complained about the commissary debacle and incompetence. I had no idea she called and complained. She went through Tricia Beck, state representative and family friend. Trisha called someone at Valley Mental Health who ruins CATS and they called the jail to ask what was continually wrong with my kids’ commissary orders. Why was it such a challenge for adults to take an order, process it and then actually deliver it? Budget cuts? We had to hire incompetent people? What!?!
So, that week, my son was taken aside by a guard who warned him that word had spread that he was a trouble maker because his mother had been making phone calls and stirring up “problems” for the staff. I still get a chuckle out of that one. Your “staff” sucks. I’m trying to find out if it’s by design and intent, the way you might hire the dog catcher who turns out to hate animals. Complain about egregious situations and get pulled aside and labeled a troublemaker because some incompetent, poor hire can’t seem to function in the position they were hired to occupy. It’s an outrage.
In closing, I will say that if I had the money, I would sue the Sheriff’s Office over what I have witnessed over the past 4 months. I have a new found appreciation for the ACLU. Your jail is a human circus run by people who clearly don’t enjoy their jobs or the environment or the people they are there TO SERVE. Instead, they practice an institutionalized form of harassment and intimidation. I sensed that most of these people are wielding a little power for the first time in their lives. Unsupervised, undisciplined, unprofessional power. I guess that’s the definition of “abuse of power,” isn’t it?
My only wish and hope is that someday, you will be forced to visit a relative or friend or employee in jail. It’s an experience that will have you shaking your head every time you walk out of the building. You’ll be asking yourself, ”How did we let this happen?” and “Who are these people?” and “Why did the Sheriff’s Office hire these skill-less, anti-social people to work with the public?”
As you can no doubt sense, I am outraged. There is something somewhere that’s out of whack. I can’t tell if it’s the hiring process that’s broken or that the bar is set so low, you’re settling for what I’ve just witnessed. I can’t tell, yet, if the County’s HR department makes the “filtering” decisions, and then the Sheriff’s Office conducts interviews and does the actual hiring.
Whatever the process, the system is broken and failing taxpayers. You are not hiring and training the best of the best. There isn’t one person I came in contact with who couldn’t have used some on-the-spot training or retraining or official discipline for doing a poor job.
Is this really the best you can do?
Sincerely,
Bill Lines
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