Friday, August 26, 2011

Naked Men!!!

I was only working half a day that Thursday morning.  I had a doctor appointment that afternoon, and then we were headed for a weekend of fun in Vacaville.

I had a session from the Reception Center.  (These were inmates directly from the county jails who had not been classified yet.)  They had to be escorted over by correctional officers,  and when they were finished in the library I called to have the officers return and escort them back to their building.

When the officers returned for the inmates, I noticed that instead of the usual two officers, there were at least four.  I opened the door, and the first officer said, "We need to strip search these inmates so you'll need to step out, mam."  I stepped outside in the blazing sun and wondered what the heck was going on.  Shortly afterwards, my three inmate clerks were escorted out of the library, in handcuffs, down to the program office.  I was confused and concerned.  One of the officers told me he would explain it all when they were finished.

After the completion of the strip search, the reception center inmates were returned to their building.  One of the officers, who is a friend, came over and asked me, "Do the inmates just come over here to do legal research?"  I told him, "No, they come to check out recreational reading books."  He said, "Oh, okay.  We were wondering why one of the inmates who has only 40 days to the house (which means he's going home) wanted to come to the library.  There has been a problem in that building with tobacco and we thought maybe there was tobacco being passed in the library."  Fortunately, no tobacco was found on any of the inmates, including my clerks.  I shudder to think if there had been because then I probably would have been under suspicion.

That being cleared up I then had another concern.  I had the awful image of nasty, naked men in my library.  Granted I didn't see them but I knew they were there.

When my inmate clerks returned, they were angry about the incident as they had been strip searched down in the program office.  I let them grump about it for a few minutes.  Then I told them, "Okay, I understand and I'm sorry that it happened.  However, I am dealing with the images in my mind of nasty naked men in the library."  One of my clerks, knowing my love of actor Mark Harmon, said, "What if it were Mark Harmon naked in the library?"  I replied, "Well, that's a different story."  He then asked, "If they told you to step out so they could strip search Mark Harmon, would you go?"  I said, "Heck no, I'd make them go."

We all had a good laugh, and I think we all felt better.