Originally Posted by
frimble3
And, if your town is in a location where access to the county lock-up might be problematic at times, and you have cells, you probably want two cells, separated by a little more than an arm's length. Or three cells. So when you arrest both belligerant drunks in a bar fight, you don't have to house them together.
+1... And you can't put males with females, juveniles with adults, or (in most jurisdictions) pre-trial incarcerated prisoners with post-trial convicted prisoners (although that may happen more often than is desirable due to limited logistics and/or resources).
And violent with non-violent, and a whole lot more. And heaven help you if the prisoner has immediate medical needs which you ignore. Which is another reason why small departments are going to get rid of prisoners as fast as you can. And why a corrections officer and a police officer are two different beasts, although closely related.
One story I heard is about this police officer who starts to arrest a guy on a minor misdemeanor charge. The guy freaks, and has a massive coronary. This is on Friday evening of a long weekend. Officer goes with the ambulance to hospital. Officer gets to sit outside surgery all Friday night, before another officer can relieve him.
Booking has not been completed on the guy, since the police can't get anywhere near him. He's in ICU, and is not allowed into the patient's room. He can't be transferred to county custody, because the guy in charge of county is ducking the calls. And the whole thing is really stupid, until you think about the money.
Police department has to use up a crap load of their overtime budget (in a three man department) sitting at the hospital. The country jail doesn't have to pay overtime to cover the hospital. (Remember this is a long weekend. Many are on vacation.)
Then the hospital bill comes in. Which is the responsibility of the police department because the guy doesn't have health insurance. And since the county jail hasn't taken over, the county isn't responsible. A very big hospital bill. Into the six figures. A couple of rounds of CPR. Initial surgery and a followup surgery.
Finally on Tuesday, the police department gets a judge to grant PR (no cash) bail for the guy. (The bail bondsman wouldn't set bail because of the guy's condition and the fact that booking hadn't been completed.)
Net cost to the town was a lot of money. Police chief's comment was "Why couldn't the guy have waited until we dumped him on county." Not much they could do in this situation, but this is one reason why police departments want a real jail to take over quickly. They have more resources for taking care of people.
By the way, the guy died about a week later.
Best of luck,
Jim Clark-Dawe