Step 2: Chart Activities
A: Taking Control of Your Daily Activities
Staffing is a means to an end. Good staffing responds to the ebb and flow of daily activities and to the relative risks that are associated with these activities.
There are some aspects of daily jail operations over which the sheriff and jail manager do not have control, such as when arrestees are brought by local police for initial processing and detention, and when the courts order inmates to be present for proceedings. But sheriffs and their jail administrators do have control over many of the intermittent events that occur each day. However, it is rare to find a daily activity schedule that is actually designed and managed proactively– the majority are the result of decisions made over time by different officials, in response to requests from others. In other words, we often let the “schedule manage us”, not vice versa.
By stepping back and looking at the current patterns of activities, it is possible to identify how current practices create staffing problems and inefficiencies, and subsequently allowing us to address these without necessarily increasing staff.
The first part of this step involves identifying all the programs, activities, support services, and security functions that take place intermittently in the jail and charting the times they occur over the course of a typical week (7 days). This step does not record continuous activities, such as supervising inmates or booking and releasing inmates, which will be examined in Step 4.
In the First Edition of the NIC workbook the process of charting activities was done manually. Since then, the process has been automated through the use of computer-based programs. The Second Edition converted the chart into an Excel spreadsheet. The Third Edition is supplemented by a self-contained program that records, compares and graphs activities, coverage and schedules.
The types of intermittent activities that should be recorded include, but are not limited to:
- Shift change.
- Formal counts or lockdowns.
- Meal service.
- Visiting (public or attorney).
- Sick call.
- Clinic times.
- Administering medications.
- Court appearances.
- Commissary.
- Outdoor exercise.
- Education classes.
- Counseling sessions.
- Library hours.