Originally Posted by TrudyRN
But honestly, in a real crisis, you're pretty much on your own and you can pretty much kiss your life goodbye. That's a sad fact but true, as I see it. The officers must protect themselves and other officers first and there just aren't that many of them, even if they bring in local police, sheriff, marshals or even the state militia/national guard for backup. They will try to help you but you are not their first priority and that's just the truth.
When I was working at a private prison where profit was the priority, not security then ... I would agree with you. But since I've been working for the California state prison system ... I've seen the exact opposite of what you're describing.
I'm constantly impressed with the officers in my facility. For one thing, they don't let a crisis develop. If there's a threat ... they put it down, and they literally put it down within seconds.
Every time I've been on a unit where an inmate gets out of hand, you don't even have a chance to see what happened most of the time because the inmate is already on the ground. The alarm goes off and literally, the second you look up ... the inmate is down.
Just the other day I was walking by the entrance where they were escorting an inmate who started to fight against the officers in the entrance hallway. The CO's literally jumped on top of this inmate to bring him to the ground, telling me to hit the alarm which ... I did.
Literally within two seconds a dozen officers came to assist.
That's how fast they are in putting down threats. And, every time we've had an alarm in medical, even if it was set off by accident, extra officers have come running to make sure we're ok. So I've never felt like nurses aren't a security priority ... actually, they go out of their way to look after us.
If there's a day where they're short on officers then, it's my facility's policy to lock down the yard ... meaning the inmates are restricted to their cells. They don't take any chances if they're short staffed. And they don't hestitate to pay officers overtime to avoid being short staffed. The OT does cost the state a lot of money but, security is the priority.
Also ... every yard is under gun coverage 24 hours a day. That means that there are snipers located on the second floor ready to shoot both inside the buildings and outside in the yards if anything like a riot starts to happen either inside or outside the buildings.
They don't hesitate to use pepper spray either. The other day a couple of inmates got into a fight in their cell and they sprayed the hell out of them ... again, the inmates were down in seconds.
So I really think it depends on where you work. I constantly impressed with the officers at my facility and I feel very safe there.
Would you like to comment?
Re: Prison Nursing....Is it safe?
