Responding to Incidents and Emergencies

Course Description

CJK0335 – Responding to Incidents and Emergencies is a 16-hour course within the Florida Correctional Basic Recruit Training Program (CBRTP), the 420-hour academy required for correctional officer certification under Chapter 943, Florida Statutes. Like every academy component it is a clock-hour course carrying zero credit hours.

The curriculum is authored and maintained by the Criminal Justice Standards and Training Commission (CJSTC) through the Florida Department of Law Enforcement. Training centers deliver the state lesson plan and prepare recruits for the State Officer Certification Examination (SOCE), so content is consistent across the roughly 23 Florida institutions offering it — state colleges and technical colleges alike, from Florida State College at Jacksonville and Indian River State to Lively Technical College and Withlacoochee Technical Institute.

The course covers what an officer does when normal operations break down. That spans the routine-but-urgent (a medical emergency in a housing unit, a fight between two inmates) through facility-wide events (a fire, a hurricane evacuation, a major disturbance, an escape, a hostage situation). Recruits learn the immediate-action steps that belong to the first responding officer, how those actions fit into the facility's emergency plans, and where the officer's role ends and a specialized team's begins.

Two ideas organize the material. The first is the first responder's priorities: recognize the emergency, sound the alarm and communicate accurately, secure the area and account for inmates, render aid within training, and preserve the scene. The second is the Incident Command System (ICS) — the standardized command structure under the National Incident Management System that Florida agencies use for any significant incident. Recruits are not trained as incident commanders, but they must understand where they sit in a command structure and follow it.

Florida's hazard profile gives the course a distinctly local emphasis. Hurricanes force real decisions about sheltering in place versus evacuating a secure facility, and Florida correctional agencies plan for them annually.

Learning Outcomes

Required Outcomes

• Recognize the types of incidents and emergencies that occur in correctional facilities and classify them by severity and required response.
• Perform the immediate actions required of the first responding officer, in correct priority order.
• Communicate an emergency accurately by radio and through the chain of command, using clear and complete information.
• Describe the purpose and structure of the Incident Command System and the officer's position within it.
• Apply facility procedures for inmate accountability, emergency counts, and lockdown.
• Describe response procedures for medical emergencies, including summoning medical staff and rendering aid within the scope of training.
• Describe response procedures for fires, including alarm, evacuation considerations, and the constraints a secure facility imposes.
• Describe response procedures for inmate disturbances, fights, and riots, including containment and the role of specialized response teams.
• Describe response procedures for escapes and attempted escapes, including perimeter actions and notification requirements.
• Describe the officer's role in a hostage situation, including the standing rule against negotiating and the no-hostage policy.
• Describe natural disaster and severe weather procedures, including hurricane preparation, shelter-in-place, and evacuation.
• Preserve an incident scene and evidence, and complete accurate, objective incident documentation.

Optional Outcomes

• Participate in scenario-based drills or tabletop exercises simulating facility emergencies.
• Describe the composition and activation of the local agency's Correctional Emergency Response Team (CERT).
• Describe mutual aid arrangements with local law enforcement, fire, and EMS agencies.
• Complete FEMA independent-study courses in ICS (IS-100 and IS-700) where the training center incorporates them.
• Describe post-incident procedures including critical incident stress debriefing and after-action review.

Major Topics

Required Topics

• Types of correctional incidents — medical, fire, disturbance, escape, hostage, natural disaster, and the criteria distinguishing routine incidents from emergencies.
• First responder actions — recognize, alarm, communicate, secure, assist, preserve.
• Emergency communication — radio discipline, clear text, required content of an emergency transmission, and chain of command.
• Incident Command System and NIMS — structure, unified command, span of control, and the line officer's place in it.
• Inmate accountability — emergency counts, lockdown procedures, and movement control during an incident.
• Medical emergencies — recognition, summoning medical staff, aid within training, and universal precautions.
• Fire response — alarm, containment, the tension between life safety and perimeter security, and evacuation planning.
• Disturbances and riots — early indicators, containment, isolation, and CERT activation.
• Escapes — immediate notification, perimeter response, search procedures, and outside agency coordination.
• Hostage situations — the no-hostage policy, officer conduct if taken hostage, containment, and negotiator response.
• Natural disasters and severe weather — hurricane preparedness, shelter-in-place, evacuation of a secure population, and continuity of operations.
• Scene preservation and documentation — evidence, use-of-force reporting, incident reports, and after-action review.

Optional Topics

• Chemical, biological, and hazardous material incidents.
• Active assailant response in a correctional setting.
• Contraband-driven incidents, including overdose clusters and synthetic drug exposure.
• Critical incident stress management and post-incident officer wellness.
• Facility-specific emergency operations plans and drill schedules.

Resources & Tools

• CJSTC Correctional Basic Recruit Training Program curriculum — the state lesson plan and student materials; authoritative for content and testing.
• FDLE Criminal Justice Standards and Training Commission — curriculum revisions and the State Officer Certification Examination.
• Florida Department of Corrections emergency operations procedures and facility-specific emergency plans.
• FEMA / NIMS Incident Command System materials — IS-100 and IS-700 independent-study courses are freely available and used by many Florida agencies.
• Florida Division of Emergency Management guidance on hurricane preparedness and continuity of operations.
• Facility incident report forms, emergency count sheets, and radio protocol guides.
• Practical exercises: drills, tabletop scenarios, and walkthroughs of the training center's or host facility's emergency plan.

Career Pathways

The academy qualifies candidates for certification and employment rather than for a degree.

• Correctional Officer (SOC 33-3012) — Florida Department of Corrections, county detention facilities, and private operators.
• County Detention Deputy — sheriff's offices statewide.
• Correctional Emergency Response Team (CERT) member — a common specialization for officers who perform well in this domain; selection follows experience and additional training.
• Correctional Officer Sergeant, Lieutenant, and above — supervisory ranks with direct incident command responsibility.
• Emergency management roles within a correctional agency, for officers who continue into ICS and emergency management coursework.

Special Information

Position in the academy

CJK0335 sits near the end of the CBRTP sequence, drawing on earlier coursework in officer safety, supervision, and communications. It is normally delivered as part of the full academy rather than standalone.

Certification

Course completion does not confer certification. Recruits must complete the full academy, pass the State Officer Certification Examination, and satisfy the requirements of Chapter 943, F.S. CJSTC grants certification; the college does not.

Course-code variation across Florida

CJSTC revises the correctional curriculum periodically and renumbers courses when it does. Some institutions list CJK0335 within a 420-hour program; others publish a revised sequence in which the corresponding course is CJK0336, Incidents and Emergencies in Correctional Facilities, at 20 hours, within a 445-hour program. Content overlaps but hour counts and course boundaries differ. Verify which version a given training center delivers before treating the two as equivalent — this matters particularly for transcript evaluation and crossover programs.

Articulation and transfer

This is PSAV clock-hour training, not general-education credit, and it does not transfer as such. Some Florida colleges award block credit toward an A.S. in Criminal Justice Technology for full academy completion plus certification, under local articulation agreements rather than statewide SCNS equivalency. Confirm terms with the receiving institution.

Crossover programs

Officers already certified in another discipline — law enforcement to corrections, or correctional probation to corrections — complete abbreviated crossover programs rather than the full academy. Those programs draw on a subset of the CBRTP courses, and the specific courses required differ from the full recruit sequence. Candidates should work from the crossover curriculum published by their training center.

Hurricane planning is not hypothetical here

Florida correctional facilities revisit evacuation and shelter-in-place decisions every hurricane season, and several have executed real evacuations of secure populations. Instructors commonly ground this portion of the course in the host agency's actual plan and recent storm experience, which makes it one of the more concrete segments of the academy.