Police Forces

[CDAT]

Most prisons here in the U.S. built after the 1960s or so, are surrounded only with chain-link fencing. If said perimeter fence isn't monitored and guarded (and/or electrified), there's nothing to stop people from scaling or knocking said fences down. Once outside of the buildings where the inmates are housed- which admittedly might take some doing- I can't imagine it would be that difficult to get past the fencing.

Getting out of the housing units would be trickier, but do y'all really think a couple of hundred men couldn't figure out a way to bust through a few metal doors It would take time and a lot of muscle power, but it's entirely possible.

I'm not proud of this, but the U.S.A. has the largest prison population in the world, and hundreds of prisons run by states, the federal government, and for-profit corporations (not to mention city and county jails, and juvenile detention centers). There are currently at least a half-a-dozen documentary/"reality" shows on television here in the US about prison life, and fictional depictions of said like Oz and Orange is the New Black. I haven't watched every episode of every one of these many prison shows, but I've seen enough to know that:

In some prisons and jails, inmates in gen-pop spend most of their waking hours hanging around in large groups and are only confined to their cells at night. In particularly overcrowded prisons, they live in open-floor dormitory areas.

In others, large groups of inmates work most of the day in laundries, kitchens, and workshops. Such inmates have access to various tools and machinery that would be quite helpful in getting out (assuming they could get into said work areas. See +).

Your characterization that prisoners can't work together and will only end up killing one another is overly simplistic and calls on the basest of stereotypes*. Prisoners have worked together to build/operate stills, pass notes from door to door in the solitary confinement blocks, develop working economies, and run various criminal enterprises from inside prison walls, and continue to do so as I write (and you read). There's simply no logical explanation for why inmates couldn't work together to break out of prison buildings in a life-or-starve-to-death situation.

*Even in supermax prisons, there are engineers, chemists, construction workers, etc. serving time for murder and other high crimes. These are people with knowledge and skills that would be very useful in breaking out of prison.

Yes, the prisoners would be locked inside prison buildings when the guards leave, but unless they are each locked and/or welded into their individual cells, they will eventually be able to get out.

A. I don't think most sane, ethical people would be OK with having a direct hand in the slow death of dozens, if not hundreds or even thousands of people.

B. Yes, there would be quite a few that would reluctantly do it, and even some would do so enthusiastically with little prompting. But, as soon as the prisoners figure out what's going on, there's going to be bedlam. Welding inmates in their cells is much easier said than done.

+To execute the simplest of breakouts, groups of four men, working in rotating shifts, using a metal bench or some other basic ersatz battering ram, could, with several hours (or even days of work), defeat a steel door.

All of the above is just for the United States. In several third world states (at least), prisons are essentially walled in colonies where inmates are largely left to their own devices. There are guards to make sure that they don't get out, and food deliveries, but the inmates essentially have free run of the prison.

Granted, Australian prisons might be very different, so I'll cede to your authority there. I doubt the Aussie prisoners are all that much different from prisoners everywhere else, though.

BTW, have you read Shantaram

As I have said I can not speak for all prisons, jails, federal detention areas just the ones that I have been to. In my area none of them have bars inside they have reinforced steel doors with concrete walls. Only one of them has a chain link fence around it, and that is after you get out of the concrete and steel building. So yes if you can get out of the building it would not be difficult to get out the rest of the way, but getting out of the building with out either some tools and/or outside help would be almost impossible in my opinion.

Now having said that prisoner ingenuity is sometimes nothing short of mind blowing, so what they could come up with I can not say for sure. However the likely hood of having "a couple of hundred men" able to work on any part of it is not going to happen, at most you are going to have maybe twenty. As for the battering ram where are they going to get the ram The most I have seen in a cell is a sink (light gauge steel), a toilet (also light gauge steel), a bunk(s) (thicker steel but still softer tempered), and maybe a shelf(s) (once more soft metal). So none of these will work as a battering ram, so unless they can come up with some idea that I can not (and as I said their ingenuity can sometimes be mind blowing so possible) so far they have no way out.

Now if we expand this out to the work areas for the most part the basic setups do not change none of the tables and such are really study enough to make a good ram, and most of the areas are designed to not have tools that would be very usable to escape with. However the workshops do have tools that could be useful (more likely more useful tools in the maintenance area then the prisoner workshop) but if you are planing on leaving them would you let them have access to this area If you are planing on leaving and not coming back would you not want to take at least most of the easy to move tools

I am not one who thinks that they would not be able to work together, but before we got to the point that they would be left in there cells to die, I do think you would only have the worst of the worst left, all the rest either having been drafted, or released to reduce the number of guards needed. Now yes it is possible that some of these remaining inmates have advanced knowledge that would help they to escape. I am not sure how many of the guards that would be left at this point would really have issues with just locking them up and walking away, as I said I am basing this on there only being the worst of the worst left. So if you only have the murderers, rapists, child molesters and the likes left and likely the ones who are anti-social, I think it is much less likely that the guards will have any attachment to them. It would be entirely possible to have revulsion and/or dislike for them depending on how they have acted during the time that they have been there.

Now lets go on the assumption that they somehow did get a tool that would let them defeat the door (or the wall around the door enough to get the door open) I am guessing that with any hand tool it would take several days at the very lest per door (lets say between two and four day per) the shortest route out of the one that I went to most often was four doors and that was from the holding cells where they placed the inmates that we notified them before hand we would be picking up, from other locations it would double or more the number of doors to get through. So we are looking at between eight and sixteen day for the easy way, now even if it takes half that time (four to eight days) this is assuming that the inmates started right after the guards left, that they did not wait any time. The more time that they waited before they started working (thinking that the guards would be back or whatever) the weaker they would become from lack of food (depending on if/what they had in there cell with them), now they will be able to last for a month or so. But the more hard labor they are doing without food the weaker they will become so tasks will take more time and so on.

[pmulcahy11b]

My nephew was a prison guard before he joined the Army. (He's still in the Army, BTW, but as an Infantryman.) From what he described of his job (at the Huntsville, TX maximum-security facility) being a prison guard at a maximum-security prison is like Napoleon described wars: "Hours of boredom punctuated by minutes of sheer terror."

[Olefin]

Wasnt there a Challenge Magazine article about a bunch of Russian officers who broke out of a prison they were being held in somewhere in New Jersey

[Raellus]

Thanks for sharing your experience, CDAT. You raise and reinforce some important points.

To answer your question re ersatz battering rams, in some prisons, ones with indoor common areas, I've seen metal table-bench combos bolted to the floor (the seniors at the high school I work at once detached and stacked many such tables in the commons as their graduation prank). Once detached, pieces of such could be used as battering rams to attack doors and/or walls. I agree that defeating reinforced steel doors and or concrete walls would take quite a lot of time, but that is something inmates have tons of.

What's stopping prisoners from doing this now is guard supervision. That's the key, IMHO. Without active supervision, prisoners would be free to try anything within their means to get out of prison buildings. This is why, if/when the guards go home (in a SHTF scenario), it would only be a matter of time before inmates would be busting out.

So, the idea that a community near a prison (and with hundreds of prisons in the U.S., there are many such communities) taking it upon themselves to police the local prison, rather than simply turning a blind eye or executing all of the inmates, isn't really far-fetched.

Again, I agree that at a few prisons, guards might take it upon themselves not to leave any inmates alive when they leave, but I think that would be the exception rather than the rule.

[Rockwolf66]

And let us not forget that most prison gangs have members on the outside and ties to non-prison gangs. Such groups would have a vested interest in getting their people out of prison.

I used to live in a prison town and I've made deliveries to said prison. I personally knew a pizza delivery guy who made a wrong turn going to the prison and was stopped by multiple armed guards. The guys with rifles in the towers are not just for keeping the prisoners in but keeping the prisoner's buddies out.

Then you have the various relationships between guards and prisoners. While most guards are totally professional you still get friendships between the guards and inmates. These run from guards who help out an inmate who is trying to reform, guards that do favors for criminals to guards that are criminals. You also get the occasional intimate relationship between guards and prisoners. I can totally see guards at a women's prison taking some of the inmates as concubines when they leave.

It's really a complex subject and it really depends on the prison. Some like Pelican Bay I could see some of the worst prisoner's culled. I could also see attempts to break prisoners out of the SHU.

[swaghauler]

I have to agree with CDAT and Rockwolf66, The prisoners don't exist in a vacuum and some prisoners may actually have good relations with the staff (these are usually referred to as "trustees"). I think that the worst offenders would be marched in front of the other Prisoners and executed by any occupying force (particularly a military one). WHY Because that prison or jail is a VALUABLE RESOURCE! Every correctional facility generally has...

1) A large dining facility which can feed hundreds on short notice.
2) An independent power supply (diesel or natural gas based) to keep things running during an emergency.
3) Communications with the local government that are at least "disaster-resistant" and the ability to coordinate with government agencies.
4) Workshops and Fabrication facilities for a variety of Trades including Carpentry and Metalworking.
5) An Infirmary with the capability to treat at least minor injuries.
6) Security and Surveillance for important equipment storage.
7) Most importantly, a ready "labor force" that they don't have to pay and can push hard without major repercussions among the population.

I think that most facilities will be converted into makeshift production facilities or repair shops with important resources stored there and managed by the "captive labor force" they have at their fingertips.

[Lurken]

I have to agree with CDAT and Rockwolf66, The prisoners don't exist in a vacuum and some prisoners may actually have good relations with the staff (these are usually referred to as "trustees"). I think that the worst offenders would be marched in front of the other Prisoners and executed by any occupying force (particularly a military one). WHY Because that prison or jail is a VALUABLE RESOURCE! Every correctional facility generally has...

1) A large dining facility which can feed hundreds on short notice.
2) An independent power supply (diesel or natural gas based) to keep things running during an emergency.
3) Communications with the local government that are at least "disaster-resistant" and the ability to coordinate with government agencies.
4) Workshops and Fabrication facilities for a variety of Trades including Carpentry and Metalworking.
5) An Infirmary with the capability to treat at least minor injuries.
6) Security and Surveillance for important equipment storage.
7) Most importantly, a ready "labor force" that they don't have to pay and can push hard without major repercussions among the population.

I think that most facilities will be converted into makeshift production facilities or repair shops with important resources stored there and managed by the "captive labor force" they have at their fingertips.

Just butting in to fully agree with this. This is a very likely outcome.

Even if the prisoners get reduced due to emergency drafts or forced labour, the facility stands and should work as an excellent center for a cantonment.

[rcaf_777]

I would figure that you might some former military pers who are now police officer ordered back to full time duty, depending on there skill set while in the army. Some others my leave the police to volunteer for duty. In both case maybe you see retire officers coming back as reserve officers, special deputies or whatever. After the bombs hit you see Sheriffs do stuff like in the last stand

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_Stand_(2013_film)

[WallShadow]

*SNIP* Most police armories were destroyed by firestorms in the aftermath of the nuclear attack. Surviving police armories have been thoroughly culled through by surviving officers or systematically looted. Even most of the destroyed armories were picked over by salvage parties or looters, but there are pockets of police weapons and ammo still remaining in the ruins of police stations.

I hope those folks picking over police armories stopped by the evidence lockers to check out what was being held for trials that will probably never be heard.

[Targan]

Hehehe oh yeah, spot on.
I remember watching the news at various times in the 1990s, where they showed footage of some of Australia's special police units when they were tracking dangerous fugitives in the Aussie bush. You could immediately spot the ones who had some bush knowledge or even just bush walking experience - they were the only ones who were not looking at their feet as they "cleared" the scrub. And sad to say, there weren't many of them with any sort of rural tactical knowledge until the started getting training from the SAS.

A mate of mine is a former Western Australian Police (WAPol) officer, his experiences with some of the officers from the Tactical Response Group (TRG, the West Aussie police special unit) was... well, let's just say less than favourable. In his own words, half of them were decent officers, the other half were cowboys who wanted the prestige of being in the "elite" unit.

The TRG have a few nicknames and none of the ones I've heard are positive...
The Terribly Rough Guys is probably the least negative (but it's also the one that many WAPol officers used when talking about the TRG).
Another, based on their fairly common ability to raid the wrong house when attempting to capture dangerous criminals was Totally (w)Rong Grid. You don't get nicknames like that unless you're consistently fucking up.

One of my DIs in basic training, an Army Reserve infantry corporal, was also West Australian Police Tactical Response Group. This was back in the early 90s. He was an egotistical pretty-boy wanker, but he seemed to be a proficient soldier.

[Legbreaker]

He was an egotistical pretty-boy wanker...

Met a few of them, less the "good soldier" bit, almost exclusively from Uni regiments. Must be the whole fast track promotion thing they used to do to get commissioned.

[StainlessSteelCynic]

Going back to one of the negative experiences my mate had with the Tactical Response Group (this was during the early 1990s in Perth, West. Aus.)
While he was still a general duties officer my mate was based at a station in a neighbourhood that had a pretty bad reputation in Perth. There were blocks of flats full of government housing tenants next to the police station and one of those residents decided to get pissy with his wife and threatened to kill her.

She nicks off down to the cop shop with the kids, which was in line of sight of their particular flat and reports the incident. Apparently hubby watched from the balcony.
So my mate (who was in normal police uniform at the time - important for later) and a senior officer who I believe was doing an inspection of the station at the time, go up to talk to the man in question.
Now the senior officer was a switched on fella and obviously quite experienced, he told my mate not to stand in the doorway when they knocked on the door and other such useful tactical tips. Keep in mind that this senior officer had been a general duties copper and not in TRG.

The suspect answers the knock with a blast of buckshot so my mate and the senior officer beat a retreat and call for backup.
Terribly Rough Guys show up and as my mate is giving cover to the senior officer so the senior can get to safety, one of the Terribly Rough Guys starts yelling at my mate that the TRG are here and taking control and then orders my mate to run towards him and away from the building... you know, over open ground... in line of sight of the bloke with a shotgun and an attitude who at any time, can look over his balcony several floors up and see anyone trying to cross that wide open patch of grass.

My mate says basically, "No way in hell" to which the TRG prat tells my mate to leave the area on authority of the police, i.e. I'm police and I'm telling you to leave.

My mate, who is, you know, a uniformed copper in uniform at the time, tells the TRG prat to fully fuck off and stays put where he has a good couple of floors of multi-storey building giving him concealment and
a tad more importantly, cover (and where he can also control one of the entry points to the block of flats).
Seems that in his excitement, the Tactical Response Group prat didn't fully appreciate the "tactical" part of his unit name.

[Olefin]

I hope those folks picking over police armories stopped by the evidence lockers to check out what was being held for trials that will probably never be heard.

FYI its almost impossible to fully find everything - there is always stuff that can be found - and I bet the evidence lockers would get overlooked by most people

and not just guns - definitely illegal drugs that could be used for possible medical uses and even tools taken off burglars that would be of use for sure

[.45cultist]

As I have said I can not speak for all prisons, jails, federal detention areas just the ones that I have been to. In my area none of them have bars inside they have reinforced steel doors with concrete walls. Only one of them has a chain link fence around it, and that is after you get out of the concrete and steel building. So yes if you can get out of the building it would not be difficult to get out the rest of the way, but getting out of the building with out either some tools and/or outside help would be almost impossible in my opinion.

Now having said that prisoner ingenuity is sometimes nothing short of mind blowing, so what they could come up with I can not say for sure. However the likely hood of having "a couple of hundred men" able to work on any part of it is not going to happen, at most you are going to have maybe twenty. As for the battering ram where are they going to get the ram The most I have seen in a cell is a sink (light gauge steel), a toilet (also light gauge steel), a bunk(s) (thicker steel but still softer tempered), and maybe a shelf(s) (once more soft metal). So none of these will work as a battering ram, so unless they can come up with some idea that I can not (and as I said their ingenuity can sometimes be mind blowing so possible) so far they have no way out.

Now if we expand this out to the work areas for the most part the basic setups do not change none of the tables and such are really study enough to make a good ram, and most of the areas are designed to not have tools that would be very usable to escape with. However the workshops do have tools that could be useful (more likely more useful tools in the maintenance area then the prisoner workshop) but if you are planing on leaving them would you let them have access to this area If you are planing on leaving and not coming back would you not want to take at least most of the easy to move tools

I am not one who thinks that they would not be able to work together, but before we got to the point that they would be left in there cells to die, I do think you would only have the worst of the worst left, all the rest either having been drafted, or released to reduce the number of guards needed. Now yes it is possible that some of these remaining inmates have advanced knowledge that would help they to escape. I am not sure how many of the guards that would be left at this point would really have issues with just locking them up and walking away, as I said I am basing this on there only being the worst of the worst left. So if you only have the murderers, rapists, child molesters and the likes left and likely the ones who are anti-social, I think it is much less likely that the guards will have any attachment to them. It would be entirely possible to have revulsion and/or dislike for them depending on how they have acted during the time that they have been there.

Now lets go on the assumption that they somehow did get a tool that would let them defeat the door (or the wall around the door enough to get the door open) I am guessing that with any hand tool it would take several days at the very lest per door (lets say between two and four day per) the shortest route out of the one that I went to most often was four doors and that was from the holding cells where they placed the inmates that we notified them before hand we would be picking up, from other locations it would double or more the number of doors to get through. So we are looking at between eight and sixteen day for the easy way, now even if it takes half that time (four to eight days) this is assuming that the inmates started right after the guards left, that they did not wait any time. The more time that they waited before they started working (thinking that the guards would be back or whatever) the weaker they would become from lack of food (depending on if/what they had in there cell with them), now they will be able to last for a month or so. But the more hard labor they are doing without food the weaker they will become so tasks will take more time and so on.

Atlanta Federal Correctional is a hard sight with the worst folks.

[ChalkLine]

Looking at Twilight Polska Rzeczpospolita Ludowa (PRL), the Polish People's Republic, the police force is known as the MO, Milicja Obywatelska, Citizens' Militia,

These guys aren't called up because they are a gendarmerie, or paramilitary police force of the style that is common in Europe (and arguably many US police forces are becoming).

They wear light grey uniforms and in wartime would be outfitted with equipment similar to the army (Polish People's Army Ludowe Wojsko Polskie LWP) although very lightly armed. They wore the Wz. 67 helmet in light grey in combat situations, a grey peaked hat, a grey ushanka fur hat or a blue beret (for some units). Normally they would be only armed, if at all, with the FB P-83 Wanad pistol (in 9x18mmM). I think you'd probably see them with AKMs rather than the Kbk wz. 88 Tantal if in action though.

The elite of the MO was the ZOMO, Zmotoryzowane Odwody Milicji Obywatelskiej, Motorized Reserves of the Citizens' Militia. These guys were a sort of vast SWAT/Riot Troops/Disaster Reaction who had stringent enlistment requirements (180 cm/90 kg) and even more political reliability. It was these characters that did much of the mass repression. They were armed as light infantry (including the BTR-60 in the special platoons). These guys make really nifty "bad guys".

For role playing I generally have the MO depicted as good communists, prone to corruption (like all soviet government) but otherwise fairly normal. I let them have a wide ranging personalities and in fact in my canon the Warsaw Milicja make a famous last stand against NATO forces at the Warszawa Gł3wna railway station during The Siege of Warsaw, the pivotal battle in my campaign's history. They make both good helpers and adversaries.

The ZOMO however were used to keep the population in line and their brutality suppressing protests is legendary. They will be active in rear areas hunting down stragglers - ie: player characters. Worse, they will probably hand prisoners over to their bosses - the feared Ministry of Public Security, Ministerstwo Bezpieczeństwa Publicznego, the SB. The SB are not noted for their humanity.