Council learns more about city jail matrons
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The Jamestown Police Department is still looking to hire three matrons to fill positions created last year in response to a change in state law.
During a recent City Council Public Safety Committee meeting, Councilman Jeremy Engquist, D-At Large and committee chairman, asked what training matrons were required to have, along with their qualifications.
"Training wise for the job, there's not really any training," Police Chief Scott Forster said. "It's basically you come in, there's an officer always there, and you just have to go do a check on the cell if there's a female in the cell. Then you come back to your seat."
Engquist clarified that male officers are not allowed to go back to check on female prisoners in the cell. Councilwoman Regina Brackman, D-Ward 3 and council president, asked if the matrons would do searches as well. Forster said matrons do not do searches and with the department's male and female cells, a male officer cannot put a female in the female cells by themselves. A matron or other female officer has to be there with them.
"If any female is put into the cell an officer will do it with the company of a female officer or matron," Forster said. "There is a fob system and the matron can do that alone and they always come back to where the jailers are sitting."
The position is an on-call position, so if there are no female prisoners at the time the matrons will not get called in. Forster said there is a call list, and that there were six matrons on the list but three are no longer there, so right now the department has three matrons on the list and are looking to hire three more. Call-in wise the police department calls whoever is at the top of the list and continues down until someone responds.
"We had them for a very long time, and then we lost all of them and didn't have them for a while," Forster said. "Now it's a state mandate and we're just trying to get more back in. There's no training, you basically just sit in the booking room with the officer and at a certain time you go check on the female prisoner and then you come back. If there's ever any issues you just leave the jail. There's no issues with other prisoners or anything like that."
Some interest has already been expressed since the department posted the job. The public safety committee approved the resolution to hire three matrons to fill the vacant on-call positions.