Tuesday, October 13, 2009

Closing The Windows

It's that time of year again. We have to close and secure all of the cell windows. Unlike in a regular house where they can open and close them at will, we have to remove a heavy steel screen and close each window ourselves by hand.

It also means that we have to cuff both offenders, open the door, take them out and wrestle this heavy frame out, close the window, put the frame back and relock it. What a pain in the butt.

I have tried for years to get them to put the latches on the outside of the windows. That way one guy with a ladder could open or close the whole house in about an hour with no reason to take the inmates out of the cells at all.

I guess that makes too much sense. When you start making sense here, people get suspicious and think you are up to something. Like trying to get out of work.

I'm just thinking.... one hundred cells we have to enter one at a time. We only have one window key and one tool for pulling the frames out so we can only do one cell at a time. We have on an average one hundred and fifty inmates in the house. And every single one of them has to come out of the cell to close the window. Plus the fact that the chances of getting hurt wrestling that heavy frame.... that is almost a certainty. KP dropped one of them on his finger tonight. I've done that and it doesn't feel good. Almost every year some staff member gets hurt by the window frames.

If we did it my way we could just weld those frames shut and never have to mess with them again.

It'll never happen.

3 comments:

  1. Yeah!! The windows are closed!!!! I know it's a pain in the a$$, and there should be clasps on the outside. It would be much simpler and make more sense, like you said. On the bright side...it's much quieter when you're walking into the house.

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  2. WOW! I feel that I'm not alone. How we the so called grunts if you will of the working class, see how we can improve things because we work in a first hand situation and we know it will work.

    The probelm is most of the people that it would need to change it are our political class that has never even stepped foot in a correctional setting, let alone ever done our job.

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  3. Peggy Sue- I love it outside when the windows are closed. They should be that way all the time. Why did we ever allow them to speak?

    Anon- You aren't alone. You know what they say... those who can't do, teach. Those who can't teach go into administration. And, apparently, those who suck at administration are chosen to rule.

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