Thursday, March 02, 2006

A note to all callers be they family, friends, whomever of any of our prisoners:

1. We go not give out information of any kind about any of our prisoners. Period. End of discussion. Call the attorney. Period. End of discussion.

2. You can get huffy with me all you want, but it is much more likely that I will stonewall if you do. Policy is policy and you being rude is not going to break me. I will not go against our policy no matter what your special situation is.

3. When I explain our policy about prisoner information, I also give you the advice to contact the prisoner’s attorney. If the attorney is not helping you then consider getting a new attorney.

4. I cannot make your loved one call you. They have access to phones any time they want. If they are not calling you then they must not want to talk to you.

5. You calling me to insist that they need to be released today does not mean they will be released today. We do nothing without an order from the court, which is on a signed, certified piece of paper from the judge himself.

6. We do not give out information of any kind about any of our prisoners. Period. End of discussion. Call the attorney. Period. End of discussion.

7. Do not make me repeat myself more than twice. I’ll be happy to repeat the initial statement a second time to clarify. The third time you insist that I must give you information is when I will lose patience with you and threaten to terminate the call.

8. Remember that I am the one who works for the agency. I know what I’m talking about more often than not. If I don’t know something, I will always give you a different person to talk to or to call.

9. I’ll repeat this one a third time, since that does seem to be the charm: We do not give out information of any kind about any of our prisoners. Period. End of discussion. Call the attorney. Period. End of discussion.

Yes, I’ve had a couple of callers today who insisted that I was to give them information about their prisoner loved one and then got condescending and huffy with me when I stuck to my guns. I don’t raise my voice with these people, but there’s a definite chill in my voice when I’m perturbed. My office got a little frosty this morning.