Orient Road Jail

On Tuesday the class took a trip to the Orient Rd. Jail. It was here where we were taken on a tour of the jail by Major Robert Lucas. The tour started with Major Lucas taking us through the entire booking process. This large holding room is where every person that is arrested is brought to. From vandalizing to murder, everyone’s process starts in this room.
The first stage of the booking process is the intake section. It is here where they take all of the person’s belongings. The next step is property. In this step they take a picture of all of the person’s valuables for record. Major Lucas stated that all of their valuables are returned to them when they are able to leave Orient Rd. The next step in the booking process is finger printing. The information received from the finger printing section is given to every agency in the state of Florida. When the person is done with finger printing, he/she moves on to medical. The last step of the process is called classification, and after this they are put in to the general population of the Orient Road Jail.
This stuff is all very fascinating and interesting, but it is also extremely important to a reporter. The reason is because of all the information compiled in this process, the only part of it that is not available to the public is the medical portion. This means that the incident reports, intake records, property claims, finger printing information, and video evidence from the room itself (including the holding cells) is all public record.
Here are some interesting facts that were given throughout our trip: On September 23rd (the day of our trip) there were and estimated 1,400 inmates at the Orient Rd. Jail; The Orient Rd. Jail is 1 of only 120 direct supervision jails in the United States; An estimated 200 people are brought there per day and around 72,000 per year.