If this van's rockin'.....

Every Thursday, two members of my squad are assigned to wagon duty. This involves shuttling prisoners from our precinct to the main jail downtown. This way, officers can make arrests and then return to patrol without having to drive prisoners one by one to the jail.

The 'wagon' is a van outfitted with a large rear cage for males and a smaller middle cage for females. Each prisoner is handcuffed behind the back and sits on a padded bench. The separation of genders is meant to discourage any inappropriate contact. Unfortunately, this does not eliminate all inappropriate behavior.

Last week there were several male prisoners and not enough handcuffs for each one. When this happens, we handcuff the prisoners together with one pair of cuffs (one guy's left wrist handcuffed to another guy's right wrist). This leaves one hand free but since they're in a locked cage inside a locked van, they are secure. Apparently, one of the prisoners became aroused on the way to jail in the back of a van with a bunch of other criminals and decided it would be a good time to pull down his pants and pleasure himself with his free hand. He was lucky the guy attached to his other wrist didn't get offended and knock him out.

There were five other men in the back of the van while this happened and all were willing to testify against the fornicator in court. He was charged with indecent exposure which is a minor misdemeanor but here's the real justice: It turns out this guy was a convicted sex offender and was released from prison early on probation. The indecent exposure was a violation of his probation and now his original sentence will be reinstated. He would have been out of jail later that night for the original crime he was arrested for but the probation violation meant several years to be served in state prison.