“Count time, count time. Everyone report to your cells for count! The sooner you’re in, the sooner you’re out!” This is something my partner, Detention Deputy McCall, and I used to say to the inmates when it was time for lockdown.
When we move inmates into their cells for a headcount, it can all seem routine. The truth is this can become a very dangerous and deadly situation at any given moment.
Inmates may refuse orders to return to their cells, become verbally belligerent and physically violent. They may begin destroying property or using issued items to assault correctional staff. This is why every day we must come to work mentally prepared for the worst, keep our head on a swivel and never become complacent.
In this video, we see a tactical team from a Sandoval County, New Mexico, jail ending an inmate riot in a jail pod. The inmates had refused to return to their cells, becoming disorderly, yelling and destroying government property. The tactical team is seen deploying a flashbang grenade into the pod and then moving in and taking control of the inmates. The detention staff did a great job responding to this incident. There were no correctional personnel injuries and everyone went home safe.
After watching the video, let’s review some safety and training considerations.
prison riot response Training plan
As I mentioned, all the personnel in this video did a great job and we can use this experience for training purposes. Always remember to train according to your agency’s policies and procedures and approved non-lethal and lethal tools.
Based on events in the video, we can outline a training plan:
- Order inmates to return to their cells.
- Inmates refuse and show signs of defiance.
- Give verbal order again over the loudspeaker for inmates to return to cells and notify the supervisor. Many agencies have a policy that tells you which situations warrant immediately notifying a supervisor.
- Inmates continue to show a bold resistance and disregard for authority.
- Inmates begin to destroy property.
- Do not rush into the danger zone, wait for back-up and a plan of action.
- Have all your tools ready and available: Pepper ball gun, riot control pepper spray, TASER, flashbang, stun shield, riot gun with bean bags/rubber bullets, handcuffs and flex ties.
- Prepare correctional emergency response team and follow team commanders’ orders.
- Ensure riot safety gear is on and worn properly (protecting ourselves is the priority).
- Identify leaders.
- Deploy non-lethal means of choice on command.
- Move in on command and take out the leaders and/or biggest threats.
- Lockdown entire pod or dorm after all inmate threats are secured with restraints. (This can be done simultaneously as well.)
- Separate leaders from the other inmates. (We used ISO cells.)
- Remove all items from the area that can be used as weapons such as mops, brooms and other loose items.
- Ask officers if anyone is injured.
- Ensure any injured receive medical treatment.
- Collect all evidence for outside charges.
Actions to take after the disturbance ends
After the dust settles, we must reset the tone of our daily operations and resume normal operations. To do that we should follow these steps:
- Keep the problem dorm locked down for 48 hours with no privileges (option).
- Write incident reports identifying inmates who assaulted staff, destroyed property and incited the riot/disturbance.
- Maintain all evidence on a chain of custody form. Bag and tag properly.
- Have jail detectives investigate and file appropriate charges with the state’s attorney’s office.
- Check with all officers involved to ensure they have no physical injury or issues with what occurred during the incident.
- Prepare information for the media.
- Resume normal operations.
Conducting an incident debrief
Debriefing does not have to take place immediately after the incident. It is recommended to give your staff a mental break after a major incident and ask questions a day or two later. Why is it good to have a debriefing? Here are a few reasons:
- Correctional leadership can gather valuable information from frontline officers to improve safety and security.
- Enhances our development of staff communications with each other and middle management.
- Facilitates teamwork in crisis situations.
- We gain experience through strategic discussion and review.
- It helps us develop better training and an understanding of what to look for in future incidents.
- We can learn from answering the following questions: What was happening before the incident started? What happened during the incident? What happened after the incident? What can we learn from this incident going forward?
- Finally, offer support to your personnel. The physical and mental well-being of correctional officers is the number one priority.
