My time at Orient Road Jail

Viewing the virtual class trip to the Orient Road Jail gave me more insight of what a jail really looks like on the inside. Our tour-guide and jail shift commander, Lt. Scott Smith, was able to explain the operation of their jail facility and possibly cleared up my image of what a jail looks like in real-life verses television.

The jail didn’t have the standard bars and stone walls like I had seen in the classic prison movie, “Shawshank Redemption”. There wasn’t much obscenity or overly aggressive inmates harassing others through their cell doors; not even a poster of the famous Rita Hayworth to disguise their plot of escape.

Orient Road Jail is a 6,036sqft facility, with three main units- North, South, and Central. The first two units are where the inmates [all 999 of them] are housed. The Central Unit is the main unit that suspects see when entering into the jailhouse. There, suspects go through the “booking process”, which roughly takes four to six hours. Lt. Smith stated that there is a trick to this; if the person is booked before midnight, he/she may make the docket and can go to appearance court the next morning. However, if they are not booked or bond out before the given time, they must wait 24 hours before they can see a judge.

When looking at the booking process and the pods, especially the psych unit, I was remorseful towards those who may have gone there for little misdemeanors. This place was real. I was not physically there, but I could tell that this was not a place that I would want to be in for 364 days or more. Not even if the jail did offer cooked meals, free PBS specials on TV, or a chance to sleep my life away 22 hours a day.

Everything is so modernized too. The cell’s bar-doors were replaced with wooden doors. They have the appearance court done by video and soon, Lt. Smith stated, the visitations will be conducted by video as well. Inmates would be allowed to see their visitors through video from Faulkenburg Road Jail to their jailhouse. Lt. Smith said that this would lower the traffic of people and it just may help monitor the meetings better by keeping a close eye through the technology of video.

The jail seemed like it is ran smoothly. If I could choose what jail I wanted to be sent to, I may want to choose Orient Road Jail because it’s clean, it’s quiet, and their motto is geared towards the feelings of the inmates where they treat them as humane as possible

Face sheets, affidavits, DUI’s - OH MY!

When thinking of journalism, I thought that a reporter would only have to worry about interviews, sources, and the use of good grammar. However, my assumption of this form of journalism was shattered after spending a session observing all the materials that is needed when trying to create a well-structured and informative story.

Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office’s director of the communications, J.D Callaway, showed that it could be overwhelming to sort through massive amounts of report documents and other records in order to obtain factual and reliable sources of information. Journalists may have to sort through affidavit reports, DUI reports, individual crime reports and traffic crash reports before thinking of getting a good lead on a story; with the additional interviews and research that is required.

One good thing about having to use so many documents is that you are bound to walk away with a story. With a simple glance at the “probable cause statement” of a criminal report affidavit, a mediocre journalist would stop there and use the description as their story in total. Callaway said that usually good stories are developed through probable cause statements. However, Callaway suggested that a “diligent” journalist should verify, check and recheck the information after getting those records. He said that it is inadequate just to rely on the officer who wrote up the reports.

When wanting to find more information about a suspect, Callaway stated that the “Face sheet” is probably the best source of getting it instead of only using the criminal charge report. This document goes into more depth about a suspect’s offense. I was intrigued to know that a journalist could get a lot out of who the suspect is personally by seeing their place of employment. At first, I thought it was senseless to even have that information disclosed because it may give the employer/company a bad reputation. But now, it is actual vital information that can help the investigation of a story.

Although the workload is tedious and time consuming, the Hillsborough Records Center seems to try to cut down that load of copying with their “new” policy of only 3 copies per day. The argument that was freshly discovered during the class virtual trip was that the Record Center has no right to withhold copies and that it violates their rights. According to the Sunshine laws, custodians of public records cannot under any means deny a person copies of records. They must produce the desired amount of copies regardless if it is an excessive amount or if it is an inconvenience. However, the law states that a custodian can charge an additional service charge fee for the extensive use of information technology or personnel. The argument is still pending if the records center should allow only "3 copies daily".

Going Beyond Basic Reporting

Sarasota Herald-Tribune editor, Chris Davis, has a great deal of investigative knowledge when it comes to in-depth investigating reporting. I have never seen such great works of journalism, even in the most prominent Floridian publications.

I learned a lot on how crucial it is to go further than just interviews when looking up facts for a story. Davis said that reporting is more than just asking questions. Real journalism should always consider using public records for gaining more factual information. He mentions that journalists look for public records to find information that people wouldn’t normally tell anyone about because they may willingly try to hide the “truth” from the reporter. Even the simplest stories should be public record “friendly”. For example, cop beats. The reporter could use public records to look up arrest reports, incident reports, and court dockets.

The story “Flipping Fraud” was very impressive when looking at the amount of time and effort that was put into this piece. The story was about how some people were buying properties under false appraiser names, and then selling them “double” the amount the very next day. Davis said that it took several months of investigating, contacting appraiser agencies in over 60 different counties, traveling to those counties, and scanning appraiser databases to see what properties were being flipped and going unnoticed. This piece took up a great amount of time, and believe it or not...MONEY!

It was incredible on how Davis and his staff of investigative public record reporters were able to contact a great percentage of appraisers and gather other information to form their own concise database. This technique of “crunching the numbers” by taking broad information and condensing it to form a database with smaller numbers is known as database reporting.

Davis also gives advice to those wanting to pursue a career in enterprise investigative reporting that it may be a little time-consuming. Many reporters/writers may juggle up to 3 stories a day and still try to spend as much time on an enterprise piece, which can take up to 3 months of conjuring up information. In doing this, Davis reveals that a journalist must know how to juggle a heavy load or find a publication that will allow you to concentrate fully on just the enterprise stories.

“I don’t have the silver-bullet to tell you how to do it. But organization is important and keeping your priorities straight, not forgetting that you have to put time over here [smaller stories]. You got to feed the beast. You got to keep your boss happy.”

Obtaining records without identification

While listening to editorial page editor of the St. Petersburg Times, Tim Nickens, I had a couple of concerns. First, in regards to Nickens stating that any random person could obtain public records without identification. Second, that it is not mandatory to give their reasons for using those important documents. All a person needs is a body, an idea of what they want to view, and then a card to charge for the cost of copies. However, I believe that they should make it mandatory to check-out people wanting to view records in order to better monitor who is using them appropriately.

My concern didn't spring up until the end of Nickens' speech when the class had to answer a question to a scenario of a woman who calls an office to request public documents. Upon arrival, she is then told that she must fill out a form [probably for identification purposes] in order to obtain the records; which left the question of could the woman be denied if she refuses? Nickens’s answer was that she had every right to refuse because it is not mandatory to fill out a form to identify who wants the records and their reason for using them.

However, my question is why isn’t it mandatory when you have no idea who wants to use the information for good use instead of evil? Nickens said that when someone physically goes into the office/courthouse to request a document, that more than likely the person has good intentions of using the record. But who’s to say that just because someone went and made an effort to view the record or request copies of that record personally that they have good intentions? What about those who have good intentions but are physically disabled and can’t make it to the courthouse to retrieve those copies? What about those people who may want to use public documents to scandalize a person’s reputation, and was given consent to use the documents because they "physically" went to request to view them?

I do understand that not everything [juvenile records, victim of sexual offenses, etc] can be openly viewed by the public. However, in my opinion, governmental records and etc that are made open to the public shouldn't be viewed by any regular "Joe" but for the eyes of governmental and business oriented purposes only. I feel that there should be more limitations and that agencies should make it mandatory to submit a form of identification in exchange of public records. I don't believe that the agency should keep track of people in order to ridicule those who use the public records, but should do it to just keep records safe from those who seek to do harm instead of good.