Jailhouse Rock
Loudon County Justice Center from view of student on bus.
Have you ever wondered about the thing that take place inside the domain of the lawbreakers? Well, you are in luck. The Criminal Justice teacher, Mr. Fallis, and Skills USA took a trip to the Loudon County Jail on Friday the 20th.
The tour begins with the whole group entering a door to the visitation center where the drinks from the vending machine are sixty cents and there are small visitation rooms. A look inside one of the booths shows a tiny room with a two way glass and a phone. The tour continues when the class gets to the booking room. The tour guide, Corporal Martin, showed the class how booking and searches work.
A subject is put against a wall where they are searched. An aggressive subject would be put in a restraint chair. The arresting officer would take the person to the camera after the search to get pictured and fingerprinted. They would be put in temporary holding until there is a place for them in the actual cells in one of the seven blocks.
Then the class was escorted to the rec room. This is where inmates go to play cards, walk around, or write on the walls. They are offered inside or outside rec for three hours. Corporal Martin guides the group to a room full of buttons, camera screens, and phones.
The buttons are for opening doors and gates. The camera screens watch almost every inch of the jail. The phones ring all the time. One female is in charge of the whole room, and she has to watch the cameras for anything out of place, open doors for officers, and answer the phones with as many as ten people on hold.
In addition to the class’s knowledge about the jail, they learned about tasers and it’s uses. Corporal Martin told the class about the taser that is commonly used when fights break out and showed them how it sounds and looks like when it goes off for five seconds. The class learned that five seconds is actually a really long time.
Alyssa Webb (10) went on the field trip with the Criminal Justice class. “The jail was a good learning experience for everyone,” Webb says. “You learned how the jail system works and learned how the inmates live their lives in the jail.” Webb thinks the field trip was interesting and helped her understand corrections better.
