WHAT GOES ON AT THE STATION?

When I went and stayed at the poice station, I stayed during the night shift. I got there around 10:40, and went into a room where they were doing what was called 'Roll Call'. 'Roll Call' is where you basically check in and show that your there, and then you're told what's going on in the city, what to look out for and all sorts of things. After that, you're given your assignment. There are three different assignments you can get. Assistant dispatcher, Jailer, or you can go out on the road and make sure that no-one is up to any mischief. The assistant dispatcher takes calls that are coming in when the dispatcher is already on the phone. The one night that I was there, the assistant dispatcher didn't have to do much, because there weren't many calls. The Jailer is responsible for taking care of the prisoner's, he books them, feeds them, answers a lot of their questions, gives them any medications that they may need to take and so on. While I was there, there was only one arrest. They brought him in, had him take his shoe laces out of his shoes (so that he wouldn't hang himself), take all of his belongings out of his pockets and put them in a plastic bin, and the Jailer filled out a card that showed everything that he put in the bin, to make sure that he would get everything back. When and if the prisoner posted bail, he would get all his belongins back, unless he was carrying something that was illegal. After that, the Jailer took him to get his fingerprints, this was really neat, because instead of having to use all that messy ink, they put his fingerprints on a piece of glass, and then it basically scanned them, and showed up on a computer screen, and they printed them right off. After this, they went to a computer to get all of his information like his height, weight, age, sex, etc. There were four warrants out for this guy's arrest, and that also goes into the information. Next, they took him to get his picture, and then took him to his cell. After that, the Jailer went to the food closet to get a sweet snack for one of the prisoner's who claimed that he was diabetic. That was basically the Jailer's whole job that night.

The most important job of the night were that of the police out driving on the road making sure nobody was causing trouble. They would go to one site, and check on things, and then when they were done with that, fill out their paperwork, then get a new assignment. Policemen now have in-car computers, and there are timers on them that will show how long they have been doing something. If they are filling out paperwork, then the computer can send a default message to the dispatcher that they're busy or a message that they are en route to a scene. It can also send a message that shows they are on scene. When the message displays AVAILABLE, then the dispatcher can radio them and tell them where to go. If there is nothing to be done, then they can sit out with their radar guns and write tickets. At the particular police department that I stayed at, the officer's had to write a minimum of one ticket during their shift.

As you can see, a police department is a lot more then just sitting around shooting a breeze. You are always doing something, whether it be writing tickets or responding to calls.