Crews

Georgetown, Not sure where to start with what I’d like to say about Georgetown. I spent 23 years there and overall it was probably the best place that I could recommend for most people if they want to work in Corrections. I guess I’ll start with talking about the primary function of Camp Georgetown which is sending the Inmate work crews out into the public and performing various work assignments. Some may view this in their own perspective but here is mine. So back in 87 ‘ they had these wood signs posted on the exterior walls of the the two dorms that had the crew numbers 1-16 ( later 17) engraved on them so each Inmate would know where to meet the Officer to report for work. In those days some of the crews had 12 Inmates on them and many of the crews took a small “school” bus to the work area. What I remember about the gathering of Inmates at the signs on the wall was it worked great if you had the same crew every day but it sucked for a new Officer due to you had to rely on the Inmate to tell you he was on your crew. So it usually meant tracking down the bunch of them and asking the other more "honest" Inmates who had shown up who was on the crew. It was very chaotic on the black top area gathering your crew because of the 190 or so of the inmates in the jail close to 160 would go out to work. That changed dramatically by the end of my 23 years there. I let myself get off track a bit there I wanted to tell a story about being trained to take a crew out. They had this unwritten procedure which was followed if they had enough staff and not followed if they were short on help and that was they would send a new Officer out with a Officer who knew the the ropes. So they did send me out for two days with another Officer. I’ll leave out names but he had been around a while at Georgetown. He knew how it worked and that was important to me to get off on the right foot. It just so happens that they have these jobs there that only come up once in a while and the first day I went out was one of these jobs. We had to go to Utica with several other crews and unload tractor trailers at a warehouse. The food the trucks carried was for charities and was taken to various churches and community centers through out the area. There was a lot to unload and the first thing that made me think ”what the heck” was the Officers were joining in and helping unload. I doubt very much that we should have done this but I joined right in too. We formed long lines and hand over hand we unloaded all the trucks. I remember it was the first day I ever worked up a sweat while working in Corrections. Then we loaded smaller trucks up and helped deliver the food items out into the various areas. Huge bags of rice and bulk items were the norm in those days. Later we did something similar at a much smaller scale and we would unload junk food along with the other foodstuffs. . Which seems a bit ridiculous if your mission is to help feed the needy. But off we went in the bus and I had no idea where these places were but I was along for the ride. We had unloaded most of the stuff and a couple open ripped bags of rice were all that was left. No place wanted the open bags so I remember we ended up taking them to a small farm and feeding the pigs.. That seemed strange to me but this was a new place and Blue is Blue..No one would find out until 24 years later.. It all would have been thrown out anyways but what shocked me about this was all the Inamtes now knew where the farmer lived. If this farmer had a job working in the jail is up to you to decide. haha! All I know is I wouldn’t have did this on my own, but I hadn’t worked at Georgetown very long in fact only about two days! The thing I really disliked in those days at Georgetown was not much in the way of procedure to help a new Officer out. I and many others then and sometimes now, who didn’t know how to get to a work assignment were actually told to ask the Inmates. Which I did and I must say other than one long ride around Syracuse one day they pretty much did tell you where you had to go.. In 87’ and a few years after, once you left you were on your own. No cell phones and very poor radio communication due to all the hills in the area. Everyone pretty much gets through it though and it becomes old hat after a while. Now I haven’t even touched on the work crews who cut down trees but I’ll write about that next time.