Rewriting a Disciplinary Report Before End of Shift
You are writing a disciplinary report for an incident on March 14, 2024, during your 1500–2300 shift on C-Pod. At approximately 2010 hours you and Officer T. Grant searched cell 7, occupied by Inmate Davis (219876). Davis was seated on the floor and did not respond when directed to stand. Inside a sock in Davis's footlocker, Officer Grant found one USB charging cable and two tattoo needles wrapped in tissue; a second inmate's name was written on the tissue. Davis said, 'Those aren't mine.' You applied restraints at 2022, escorted Davis to segregation at 2028, and nursing cleared him at 2035. Property bag 4471 was sealed at 2045 with Officer Grant as witness. Your supervisor returned the draft with a note: 'Facts only. Correct the spelling, fix the run-on, keep the tense consistent, and use the 24-hour clock. Resubmit before end of shift.'
1. Your returned draft reads: 'On 3-14 at approx 8:10pm me and Ofc. Grant searched cell 7. Davis was acting suspicous and uncooperative. We found a phone charger and 2 tattoo needles in his property which is contreband. Davis said there not his. He was placed in restraints and escorted to seg. I beleive he was going to tattoo other inmates.' Rewrite it as a factual report and list at least six specific corrections with the reason for each.
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Rewrite. 'On March 14, 2024, at approximately 2010 hours, Officer T. Grant and I searched cell 7, occupied by Inmate Davis (219876). Davis was seated on the floor and did not respond when directed to stand. Inside a sock in Davis's footlocker, Officer Grant located one USB charging cable and two tattoo needles wrapped in tissue. Davis stated, "Those aren't mine." At 2022 hours I applied restraints and at 2028 hours escorted Davis to segregation. Nursing staff cleared Davis at 2035 hours. Property bag 4471 was sealed at 2045 hours with Officer Grant as witness.'
Corrections and reasons.
- 'me and Ofc. Grant' → 'Officer Grant and I.' Compound subject requires the nominative case, and the officer is named before yourself in formal writing.
- '3-14' → 'March 14, 2024.' Numeric dates are ambiguous and invite challenge at a hearing.
- 'approx 8:10pm' → 'approximately 2010 hours.' Post orders specify the 24-hour clock.
- 'suspicous' → 'suspicious'; 'contreband' → 'contraband'; 'beleive' → 'believe.' Spelling errors undermine the credibility of the whole document.
- The draft is a run-on string of clauses; each event gets its own sentence.
- 'acting uncooperative' is a conclusion; 'did not respond when directed to stand' is observable behavior.
- '2' → 'two'; 'seg' → 'segregation.' Spell out small numbers and never abbreviate a housing assignment.
- 'there not his' → 'Those aren't mine' as a direct quotation; reporting his exact words avoids a hearsay dispute.
- The final sentence is speculation about intent and is removed.
2. Explain the difference between an observation and an inference in this report, and why a supervisor would care.
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An observation is something a camera would also record: 'Davis was seated on the floor and did not respond when directed to stand,' 'Officer Grant located two tattoo needles inside a sock.' An inference is a conclusion drawn from those observations: 'Davis was being uncooperative,' 'Davis was planning to tattoo other inmates.'
A supervisor cares for three reasons. First, the report may be the sole evidence at a disciplinary hearing, and an inmate's representative will attack any statement that reads as an opinion held by the charging officer. Second, an inference can be wrong in a way that discredits the true parts of the report - Davis may have been slow to stand because he was injured, and the observation lets a reviewer raise that possibility while the conclusion forecloses it. Third, mixing the two conceals gaps: 'I believe he intended to tattoo' hides the fact that no one actually saw a tattoo being done.
Practice rule. Write what was seen, heard, said, and done, with times. If an opinion is genuinely needed, label it: 'Based on the presence of needles and the name on the tissue, I suspected...' - and put it in a clearly separate sentence, not woven into the account of events.
3. Name the grammatical error type in each of these draft fragments and give the correction: (a) 'me and Ofc. Grant searched cell 7'; (b) 'Davis said there not his'; (c) 'We found a charger and 2 needles in his property which is contreband.'
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(a) Pronoun case in a compound subject. 'Me' is objective case and cannot serve as a subject. Test by removing the other person: 'me searched cell 7' is obviously wrong, so it must be 'Officer Grant and I searched cell 7.' Also expand the abbreviation in formal writing.
(b) Two errors at once. 'There' is a homophone for 'their' and the contraction 'they're.' Here the needed form is 'they are not' → 'They're not his' or, in reported speech, 'Davis said they were not his.' Do not confuse reported speech (backshift the tense, no quotation marks) with a direct quotation (exact words, quotation marks, no tense change). Pick one and stay consistent.
(c) Number style and a dangling relative clause. Spell out numbers under ten in running prose: 'two needles.' More seriously, 'which is contraband' attaches to 'property,' implying the property itself is illegal. Rewrite so the modifier touches the items: 'Inside a sock in his footlocker, Officer Grant found one charging cable and two tattoo needles, items classified as contraband under facility rules.' Precise attachment prevents a reader from arguing the report accuses the inmate of possessing illegal property generally.