I did some clinical rotations at a correctional facility, and holy shit I did not realize how long processing took some people (30 min is insanely short). I was in a pretty calm city, and there were people there still in the waiting area from the day before consistently who the officers would come down on hard if they dared show frustration. Usually low-level non-violent crimes (there’s always like 3-4 people a shift who can do nothing but gossip about those being processed. Most were possession or DUI in my time there), and always just the absolute bare minimum work from the prison staff. No officer I met gave a single shit about picking up the pace when it was needed, and they certainly didn’t give a shit about the people being processed. It felt like it was being run by highschool bullies. The final straw was watching a doctor argue for far to long about how they absolutely had to send a seizing patient to the hospital, regardless of the fact he went last week.

My short time there convinced me there was nothing I could do as a single nurse in a facility like that, it’s already rotted through.