---Graphic Courtesy of Eugene Atherton

IMTS

Facility Emergency Management Philosophy
&
System Components

Training Staff

Many correctional facilities have an emergency plan, with some of those plans being quite detailed and complicated. However, just having a plan does not necessarily guarantee staff will be prepared to use it when faced with an emergency. In many instances, the development of emergency response plans ends up as academic exercises because staff is unable to implement the emergency plans. They are simply too complicated and practiced too infrequently for staff to be familiar with them without having to refer to lengthy manuals each time. Therefore it is important to bridge the rather wide gap that usually exists between having developed a detailed emergency response plan, on the one hand, and, on the other, being able to actually mobilize your correctional facility to respond to any kind of emergency.

An emergency response plan identifies the resources that are available to respond to emergencies, describes policies and procedures that need to be addressed in specific types of emergencies, and may even describe staff roles and functions that need to be performed during the course of an emergency. What such plans often fail to do is describe how staff will go about the business of learning how to structure the institution so as to use the emergency plan to actually respond to an emergency.

Mobilizing a correctional facility has to be almost instinctive for staff. A good analogy is that of the military battle station concept where everyone has a “battle station” to report to and a function to perform in an emergency. Staff must know what to do automatically in an emergency situation. A developing emergency situation is not the time when staff should have to refer to a lengthy, complex document (no matter how detailed and well written) to understand how they and other staff should respond.

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Training Prisoners

Frequently overlooked in the development of emergency response plans is the need to train prisoners how to react to an emergency. Minus a plan, prisoners not involved in an incident, will be just as confused and unprepared for an emergency, and act just as inappropriately as staff lacking proper training.

When developing emergency response plans, administrators usually think only of training staff and think basically of two sides to an emergency, staff and prisoners. Actually, there are three sides; staff, prisoners participating in an incident, and prisoners not involved in the incident.

The history of prison emergencies, however, is that many, if not most prisoners do not wish to participate in a riot, escape attempt, hostage taking, assault on staff, or other major uprising. Their primary concern in an emergency situation is to remain safe and protect their property.

Without training on how to respond to an emergency, prisoners not involved in an incident may wish to observe the incident from locations other than their cells. At worst, they may choose to join those participating in the incident. At best, they may get in the way of responding staff, not allow staff to take count to identify those actually involved in the incident from those just observing, and require staff resources to direct them to areas away from the incident. In addition, knowing who is not involved in an incident prevents staff from knowing who is involved or who is missing, injured, dead, held hostage, or possibly escaped.

Just as staff need to know exactly what to do at the sound of the siren, PA announcement, or other alert to respond to an emergency; prisoners need to know they are expected to quickly return to their cells and remain there until released by staff. This allows staff to quickly assess which prisoners are and are not participating in the incident, and reduces the number of staff who have to deal with the non-incident participating prisoners.

Initial Mobilization Response

Fortunately, virtually all prison emergencies can be managed through the same initial mobilization response. The questions that need to be asked and answered in the very beginning of any emergency are basically the same. These are:

What kind of emergency is it?

Where is the emergency located?

Has security been breached or compromised?

Are the staff that are needed to deal with the emergency currently on site?

Who needs to be notified?

Are all prisoners accounted for?

Is all on-duty staff accounted for?

A useful prison mobilization procedure will assist shift commanders to quickly answer these questions in the beginning stages of an emergency situation, and consists of two major elements: (1) Simplicity; and, (2) Familiarity.

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Simplicity: An Initial Response for all Emergencies

Whether the emergency is a riot, fire, chemical spill, natural disaster, escape, or major mechanical failure; the initial response is always essentially the same:

Upon being alerted to an emergency, all staff, custody and non-custody, respond to a pre-designated location and begin the process of accounting for all staff and prisoners. It is important to stress that all staff must report to pre-designated locations (which may or may not mean remaining at one's post) to be accounted for, given assignments, or held in reserve. Frequently emergency plans describe the response roles for tactical teams, such as SORT teams, and for custody staff. All to often, roles for non-custody staff are not described. Each on-duty staff person should have a well defined role to play, or be a reserve back-up to another person

A command center is established with key administrative staff, and communication is established between the command center and institutional control center. An initial evaluation of the emergency is quickly completed and a determination made by the shift commander as to who must be notified. This is the time when concise check-lists should be used to keep track of completed and uncompleted tasks.

Upon announcing an emergency, all prisoners must return to their cells and remain there until released by staff. This includes prisoners on work assignments, in school, recreating in the yard, at chow, on visits, etc. In other words, ALL PRISONERS are to lock up immediately. There is no finishing a job, completing a school assignment, finishing repetitions in the weight pit, completing a conversation with a visitor, stopping at a vending machine on the way to the cell, or making a quick telephone call home. A prisoner’s response is very simple, stop what ever he is doing and return to his cell.

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Familiarity: The Use of Mobilization Exercises and Security Monitoring Exercises

An emergency plan can be simple and understood by all staff when initially trained, but unless there is regular and frequent practice, staff will not be able to respond to emergencies quickly, appropriately, and with confidence. When faced with an emergency, staff should be able to repeat the drill they have practiced dozens of times for that particular emergency, as opposed to trying to remember a lengthy and complex emergency preparedness document for which they received training months or years ago. The importance of frequent exercises can not be overstated.

Initially, when first training staff on how to mobilize, exercises should be discussed with staff prior to the exercise and their responses discussed and planned. Failure to do so usually results in a failure early on in the exercise. Staff does not learn much and their confidence suffers when this happens.

As staff gains more confidence, drills can be initiated without any prior preparation. As staff become even more proficient, drills can be run without prior notification and involving a variety of simultaneous situations such as a hostage situation, fire in a housing unit, prisoners refusing to clear the yard, and escapes or escape attempts. Key staff should also periodically be removed from an exercise so others have a chance to fill in behind them.

When giving prior notice of an exercise, staff should be warned not to discuss the impending exercise with prisoners less they plan their own response.

It is recommended exercises be conducted monthly, and on different shifts. While there are always excuses for not operating a drill on a particular day or at a particular time, the fact remains that emergencies do not wait until the institution is fully staffed, not involved in special programming, or for good weather. Obviously, an exercise should not be run if doing so would compromise the security of the institution. However, such situations are rare, and staff and prisoners must understand that the signal to mobilize means the end of business as usual for the length of the exercise.

As with staff, prisoners will respond appropriately only if the response is second nature by virtue of having responded so frequently. Regular and frequent (monthly) exercises are necessary to train prisoners that they have just one job in an emergency, to return to their cells. Without frequent reinforcement, prisoners will attempt to finish what ever they are doing, or will try to observe the incident giving rise to the emergency. The longer it takes to secure these prisoners, the longer it will take to respond to the emergency and the grater the possibility of these prisoners joining the trouble makers.

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A Word on Security Monitoring Exercises:

Security Monitoring Exercises (SME’s) are “mini-mobilizations” that establish a mind-set or constant awareness for security and safety issues, and are important pieces of the more comprehensive monthly mobilizations. They consist of security tests that are conducted on almost a daily basis but that do not involve the entire staff or prisoner population. Frequent SME’s keep staff security-minded, frequently detect security breaches, and may serve to prevent real emergencies.

Summary

Correctional facility emergency management plans do not have to be, and in fact should not be, lengthy, complex, and involve only selected staff. The only plan that will be used in an emergency is one that is simple, includes all staff, and is one with which all staff and, to a more limited extent, prisoners are thoroughly familiar.

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