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Padded Cells
Hi All,
Can I ask for your help? I am planning to build a padded cell but can
not find any authentic information regarding the make up of the floor
area. All the pictures, mostly `play' ones, that I have seen appear to
be quite firm or even solid which would aid self harm which is the whole
point of the room. I am also aware that there would be an obvious need
to clean the area so heavy padding unless totally waterproof would cause
problems. Can anyone help me with either clear pictures of a real cell
or a written description (even a brief one!).
These are the replies and information we have received so far ~
You might consider using wrestling mats. I believe that these were used
in some institutions. They were ordered to fit a particular room or the
rooms were sized to available mats. They are generally waterproof and
easily cleaned. If the room is about the same size as the matt it would
work like wall to wall carpeting expect that the matt would be removable.
Combined with restraints the patient would be protected from doing excessive
harm to themselves. You could combine the restraints with diapers and then
the only fluids you would have would be saliva. I hope your project comes
together successfully. ntd67 how Safety (padded) Cells must be configured for local detention facilities... A safety cell shall: * Contain a minimum of 48 square feet of floor area with no one floor dimension being less than 6 feet and a clear ceiling height of 8 or more feet; * Be limited to one inmate; * Contain a flushing ring toilet, capable of accepting solid waste, mounted flush with the floor, the controls for which must be located outside of the cell; * Be padded * Be equipped with a variable intensity, security-type lighting fixture which is inaccessible to the inmate occupant, control of which is located outside of the cell; * Provide one or more vertical view panels not more than 4 inches wide nor less than 24 inches long which shall provide a view of the entire room; and, * Provide a food pass with lockable shutter, no more than 4 inches high, and located between 26 inches and 32 inches as measured from the bottom of the food pass to the floor. * Any wall or ceiling mounted devices must be inaccessible to the inmate occupant. Padding: In safety cells, padding must cover the entire floor, doors, and walls and everything on them to a clear height of 8 feet. All such padded cells must be equipped with a tamper- resistant fire sprinkler as approved by the state fire marshal. All padding must be: * Approved for use by the state fire marshal; * Nonporous to facilitate cleaning; * At least 1?2-inch thick; * Of a unitary or laminated construction to prevent its destruction by teeth, hand tearing or small metal objects; * Firmly bonded to all padded surfaces to prevent tearing or ripping; and, * Without any exposed seams susceptible to tearing or ripping. Not all cell padding material has been approved by the State Fire Marshal. For this and other reasons, it is important that in planning a facility, the staff and the architect confer with the State Fire Marshal. Padding is a high maintenance item. Since padding is very expensive to replace or repair, it is a good strategy to try to prevent potential damage via careful design and use of padded areas. Although this regulation requires padding in safety cells to reach only to a height of eight feet, if the ceiling is higher, consider extending the padding to the ceiling of the cell to reduce the possibility that an inmate might get enough of a finger hold on its top edge to strip the padding off the wall. It is important, too, that the door be flush with the inside wall to eliminate edges or corners whereby the inmate might be able to pull away the padding. More on safety cells: Safety cells are designed to minimize the risk of accidents and injuries and are required to have at least 48 square feet to reduce the possibility of self-inflicted injuries. It is especially important that safety cells be designed with a clear ceiling height of at least eight feet to prevent tampering with light fixtures, sprinklers, and other mechanical features in the cell. The purpose of the four-inch wide vertical view panels, required in this section, is to allow facility staff to see all of the safety cell without having to enter the cell, while still protecting the inmate from self-inflicted injury. Due to the width of these view panels, it may be necessary to have more than one view panel to see the entire space. There have been instances in which the cell padding has been bevelled around the view panel into this cell. While this detail may prohibit an inmate from tearing at the wall padding, it may also allow an inmate an opportunity to bang his or her head against the hard surface of the view panel. The original intent for the four-inch maximum width for the view panel, as well as the food pass, was to provide a wide enough space for both without providing a location for the inmate to injure him or herself. If the padding is bevelled around the view panel, the intent of the safety cell padding is lost. The view panel with padding cannot exceed a maximum of four inches wide. Padding must cover the entire floor, the doors, the walls and everything on them to a clear height of eight feet. For this reason, locating the audio monitoring device in a ceiling mounted fixture is recommended. If this cell is provided with a wall mounted intercom station, the cover plate would need to be covered with cell padding to a maximum width of four inches. Hope this helps!"unixispower" As you already know from my request that you come back on Juno. As for the floor this may not be what you are looking for as it does not come movie land or TV land but from a place foreign to some, a place called realityland. While on a tour of a Youth Guidance facility I did not pay a lot of attention to the padded room. But I can say there were three layers of foam rubber about .375 thick each say about ten mm for a total just over an inch. The foam was about the hardness or softness of Jap Flap rubber sandals. The padding went up the walls about five foot 1.5M. The padded part was yellow. the floor slanted down to a drain in the centre. The surface was made from vinyl over the most tear resistant polyester like Sail Cloth. The vinyl gave the floor and walls a surface like Naugahide and the vinyl could be dissolved with a solvent of Tetrahydroflouran, think of it as OxyCycloButane or -CH2-CH2-CH2-CH2-O To dissolve the surface was necessary to have any patch bond with and not just lay on to peel off. As for the drain there was a three inch circle with small holes all yellow. The vinyl compound can be found in some hardware stores for dipping handles of pliers and the sort. PVC pipe glue thinner is probably mostly THF. Look for vinyl upholstery patching glue and check the ingredients. But for cost effectiveness the compound should come in gallons. If I knew that I would need to report I would have examined more closely. Maybe not what you see in the movies but that is how they did it. A follow up message ....... That's Great. Now that you mention it the lights in the yellow room were in the ceiling about ten foot high. Higher than the hallway. And they were covered with some kind of a panel. The corners of the padding were not rounded very much. At the door way maybe a one inch radius. There were two cameras in opposite high corners. And a glass window from the blue colour must be an inch thick, eighteen inch by twenty four tall and recessed a bit from the inner wall. Something to consider is to possibly go to some medium or low security facility with some story about a collage film class project, bring still cameras and measuring tape to document the room and pretend to be most interest in the corner and the door to reproduce the room as you can not just borrow theirs because of the movie lights and bulky camera stand. If your still cameras are not permitted just take notes and sketches. For the most convincing cover story find someone actually doing the film class. The following are actual specifications for a padded cell including a flush fitting floor toilet. Technical specification one Technical specification two Technical specification three Detention Cell Padding Specification PDF file HERE Cell Toilet PDF file HERE Small picture of padded wall and camera HERE
Report -
Clallam County Jail
Facility, Port Angeles, Washington
One of the issues brought up by Schulmeister's friend and family was for the jail to provide 24-7 cameras in every holding cell. Too easily, Margaret farmer relates to what that would mean if it was you who were being held. How would you like to be constantly monitored? That would mean absolutely no privacy, not even while using the toilet. As it is, the guards do rounds check every 30 minutes. You can easily imagine how precious that interval between being watched is. “Sometimes anger is a healthy response, pounding on the wall, yelling. That way, we at least know they are o.k.”
Farmer
recalls how it felt to be behind bars herself. Three or four years after she
begun working here, she accidentally locked herself inside one of the holding
cells. “It is really different on that side!” In those days the guards
didn't have radios and it took some time before someone discovered where she
was and provided her release.
If the
Corrections Officers have any reason what so ever to think that someone
brought to their facility may be suicidal, that inmate is placed in what
amounts to be a padded cell. It is definitely isolated. It is painted pale
yellow. There is a hole in the centre of this cell that has a type of screen
over it. This is the toilet. This cell is starkly lit and camera monitored.
It's stifling, claustrophobic and carries a heavy oppressive atmosphere that
no guard in the jail would desire anyone to have to experience. However, for
someone that is known to be a danger to him or others, it is there to use. The
bright side is: an inmate can only be held in this cell up to a certain time
limit before the staff is required to call a Mental Health Professional.
Speaking of
mental health, “Our staff can't work with this negativity with out it getting
to you.” They support one another in allowing time off and counselling.
“There is a lot of human misery here.”
Real life? A young Norma Jean (MARILYN MONROE), caught up in the web of drugs and film industry pressures, turned to psychiatry to alleviate her problems. One of Marilyn's psychiatrists was Dr Marianne Kris, who received Monroe five days a week for therapy. Kris later prescribed the actress the powerful barbiturates that would eventually kill her. After a particularly nasty session, Kris committed Marilyn Monroe to a mental institution, where she was locked in a padded cell for two days. Monroe pounded the door hysterically until her hands bled. After her release, she fired Kris. St John's Hospital in Aylesbury "I was really shocked when I woke up and I was like on a canvas, rubber mattress, two rubber pillows, and a canvas night dress, and two canvas rugs, and very cold because you can't wrap yourself warm in them and when I shouted out `Where am I?', and the Sister came and she said, `You're in Broadmoor'" "There used to be two dormitories, and they were both housed thirty patients in each and they was so close together, the beds, you used to have one patient up.. one down, one up, reverse so you wouldn't be breathing into one another's faces during the night." "I was put in the padded cell at the hospital [St John's]. It was awful being in the padded cell because everything's padded, all the floors, the door was padded, so nobody could hear you, so if you suffer from agoraphobia then it used to be terrible, what I mean 'cause you knew, you couldn't knock anywhere because they couldn't hear you. They had a little spy hole on the door, which they would look in to see if you was all right now and again." Clifford Beers’ 1908 A Mind That Found Itself ISBN: 1419102338 Kessinger Publishing Company Shuttled from one asylum to another as his parents struggled to pay for his care, Beers suffered inhumane treatment by “typical eighteen-dollar a month attendants.” His book details how he was laced so tightly into a straitjacket that he suffered intolerable pain and had difficulty breathing; locked in an airless and filthy padded cell; and choked, knocked down, and cursed regularly. 'The Franciscan', Dayton, Ohio Aside from physical treatment, the Franciscan provided psychiatric services. Two separate wards catered to mental patients--one for adolescents, the other for adults. The adolescent ward in particular was used for long-term care, and was therefore heavily isolated from the rest of the hospital. We had to walk through four separate sets of security doors before we were in the main ward. These wings contained patient rooms with plexiglass and wire mesh over the windows. The nurses' stations and doctors' offices could be locked up securely. And each psych ward contained actual padded cells. (Picture looking in showing door detail) Standing inside the padded cells was sobering. It's incredible to think that violent, mentally ill people spent hours in these rooms, but that's what must have happened. Each padded cell had a plexiglass-covered camera in an upper corner so the patient could be observed. Japan "Protection Cells" (hogobo) are special cells that exist in prisons and detention centres, ostensibly to detain prisoners who are a danger either to themselves or others, those who have caused wilful damage to facilities, tried to escape or refused to follow instructions. In practice prisoners or detainees who commit even relatively minor infringements against the rules have been punished with detention in a "protection cell". Prisoners detained in "hogobo" may be restrained with leather or metal handcuffs attached to a leather belt, or with a straitjacket. In some cases they have to remain in handcuffs for days on end (in which case they cannot use their hands to eat and cannot undress to defecate). Officially, "protection cells" are not supposed to be used as a form of punishment. Minor infractions of these rules may be punished with lengthy periods in solitary confinement, sometimes in "protection cells". Punishment may also be meted out in the form of reduced payment for work or reduced exercise entitlement. While all prison inmates can potentially fall victim to this web of rules, foreign prisoners are at a particular disadvantage if they cannot speak, understand or read Japanese. Clallam County Juvenile Services, Port Angeles, Washington Most juveniles enter the Juvenile Services
Detention Facility via police escort having been picked up on a recent offense
or an outstanding warrant or court order. The Sally Port is the security
entrance used by Law Enforcement. Police Dispatch calls the Control Room to
inform the staff that an officer is in route with a juvenile. The Control Room
Officer electronically opens the gate to allow the officer's car to enter,
parking just inside the secure gate. The gate then closes before the officer
allows the youth to exit the vehicle.
Australia When I was Counsel assisting the RCIADIC in NT, the old Katherine police
cells still had iron rings set in the floor to chain prisoners. They were
dilapidated, with no running water source, save the toilet bowl. A new Police
and Emergency Services Complex was built. Little expense was spared. More
importantly, close attention was paid to the recommendations of the Interim
Report of the RCIADIC. It was intended to prevent suicides by hanging. The
intention was rigorously pursued. The result decreased the opportunities to kill
yourself, but at the expense of probably increasing the desire to kill yourself.
It was technically good, but inhuman in design. Amongst various features was the
padded cell. An experienced and commonsensical office-in-charge of the watch
house swore he would never use the cell. That is if someone needed to be in a
padded cell, he or she shouldn't be in his watch house. Immediately next to the
padded cell, was the single juvenile cell. It was a bare box of a room, without
hanging points, without windows, without any sense of a world outside and which
resonated like a drum at the slightest noise. PADDED CELL Lively tour of Bunbury complex (Police News 2001) Down in Bunbury recently, staff and immediate families were invited to walk through the new District Police complex in Wittenoom Street just before Bunbury officers moved into the premises from 14 to 16 November. The staff walk-through event was on 11 November and this was seen as a gracious invitation from the OIC as it also included a lunch-time barbie. It must be pointed out that the Bunbury complex has been fitted out with state-of-the-art equipment, not least of which is the new padded cell situated in the detention area. Additionally, the Supervisors Office is decked out with the usual monitoring screens, intercom to individual cells and infra-red control to the padded cell. Everything was flowing along smoothly, with visiting members and their families enjoying the scenic tour being provided by a well-known sergeant. It is at this point that we stress that names have been withheld to protect both the innocent and the guilty. The tour by staff families was still going smoothly and eventually reached the holding cells. “Gee, look Mum,” remarked one 10- year-old daughter of a staff member, “a padded cell.” This daughter and her mother who are the family of another Bunbury-based Sergeant stationed in Bunbury) thought they would take a quick tour INSIDE the cell while their husband and father went to the Supervisor’s room to show other staff the infa red set-up. However, on entering the cell, the mother did not expect her 15-year-old son to close the door to the padded cell (as 15-year-old sons do) and then push it past the point of no return so it was double locked. Now, as the initial sergeant conducting the tour thought he would also show those present how the alarm system worked he decided to press the duress alarm, which promptly started to echo throughout the building and surrounding Central Business District. Very funny thought all – until they realised that nobody had the bloody key!! A few desperate phone calls later by the OIC resulted in the building supervisor returning from his fishing trip ten miles out to sea so he could unlock the cell with the only key available. End result – all ended well. Mother and daughter survived their one-hour ordeal in the padded cell. They had the honour of being the first people to be incarcerated in the cells of the Bunbury Police Station. Nothing like keeping it in the family Jimmy Boyle, A Sense of Freedom Canongate Publishing, 1977, ISBN: 0 903 937 19 0 I lay with my thoughts on the cell floor in the early hours of the morning, thoroughly frustrated and angry at all that had gone on and I had cracked. I ran at the metal door and banged at it all that I could, which brought the night patrol in. The noises wakened the rest of the prisoners and they too joined in calling the screws all the names under the sun. The night screws called for reinforcements and opened my cell door. They had a strait-jacket with them and after a struggle I was locked into it, getting some bruises in the process. I was thrown into a padded cell, which was an ordinary cell covered with rough canvas pads. I lay on the cushioned floor struggling with the strait-jacket. It's a very strange experience being locked into one of these as the upper part of the body is completely helpless, even to the extent that one has to do the toilet in it. The rest of the prisoners had ceased their noise but I continued to struggle and by some miraculous means or other managed to break free of the jacket. |
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