Hot Bunks for Prisons
Senator Robert L. Geddes, Jr.
State Capitol Building
P.O. Box 83720,Dist 31
Boise, ID 83720-0054
Dear Mr. Geddes,
I’m writing you today to express support of your idea to have inmates work in shifts and share their bunks with other inmates. I think it’s an excellent idea!
As you may already be aware, everyday, all over the world, volunteers serving in the U.S. Navy are “Hot Bunking”. Hot Bunking is when there are more sailors on a ship than there are beds. In this case, sailors have an assigned period of time for when they are allowed in the bed, and under worse case conditions, three sailors are sharing the same rack each day for 8 hours each. This practice is called Hot Bunking because the bed is still warm from the previous guy when you go to lay down in it. This arrangement is far more common on submarines, where space is at a premium and often reserved for weapons, or engineering.
Hot Bunking aboard a submarine is even less desirable because sheets and laundry are only washed once a week. So all three guys are sharing the same sheets for an entire week! Worse yet, showers are limited, so the sheets can get very, shall we say, undesirable by weeks end. Again, prisoners would have it easy compared to our volunteer submariners.
If Hot Bunking is good enough for volunteers serving our country in the U.S. Navy, under conditions far worse than those experienced in our local prisons; than Hot Bunking is good enough for those that have chosen to commit crimes against our community.
Hot Bunking is an excellent way to cut down on the comforts of prison life; make more room in prisons; all without raising taxes, or building more prisons. It’s a shame the media hasn’t taken more time and effort to explore and report on this facet of military service.
As a former firefighter, we used to work 24 hour shifts, 4 shifts, and the station only had 5 beds... no problem. We had bedrolls, and for the time we were on duty, the bed was ours. Roll up bedroll and shelve it at the end of shift.
Prisons always talk about "Bed Space" and I suggested the hot bunk concept to Gov's Swartzenegger, of CA, and King of Maine. Nothing ever came of it.
3 shifts of 8 hours per day would triple the bed space of a prison with very little added cost.
At a time when it costs as much to 'house' a prisoner as to send a student to Harvard, we must make prison more cost effective... otherwise, just send them to Harvard!
Bob
I work in a Jail and we hot bunk. It's a great Idea except inmate numbers go up and staff does'nt. So instead of being out numbered 48 to 1 it goes to 72 to 1.
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