By C1 Staff
SIOUX CITY — Since 1998, the Resistive Inmate Security and Classification unit has been sorting inmates who enter the Woodbury County Jail.
“The inmates have changed over the past few years where mental needs need to be addressed,” RISC team leader Randy Uhl told KTIV. “There’s medical needs that need to be addressed.
“Just the different type of inmates that are coming in, we need to have different people trained and trained differently on how to handle them to make sure that their needs are met.”
KTIV News 4 Sioux City IA: News, Weather and Sports
Within the Woodbury County Jail, there are four inmate classifications: minimum, medium, maximum and segregation.
Inmates say that the classification system has helped to keep them safer.
“We don’t have issues,” Michael Bardwell, serving time for child endangerment, said. “We don’t have problems. We don’t have the guards coming in and shaking us down. We don’t have fights on a daily basis.”
Uhl agrees that the changes have been for the positive, noting that the number of violent incidents has decreased since the introduction of RISC.