“I always expect the worst,” said Gordy Nash of the Kosciusko County Sheriff’s Department, “but so far I’ve been really fortunate to never have had any problems.”

Nash has been with the KCSD for nearly 27 years. Much of his time there has been served as a jailer and in court security, but recently he was assigned the task of inmate transporter. It means that he is on the road often, either transporting inmates from the local jail to other jails or to the Indiana Department of Corrections facilities, or he’s picking them up from other facilities and transporting them back to Kosciusko County.

It’s a role that Nash has done on occasion through the years, but he’s enjoying it on a whole new level since just recently assuming the position full-time. “I like to drive and it’s a nice change of pace,” he said of the transports. But he also knows that safety is key in keeping himself and the inmates safe.

While his job does involve risks, Nash assured it isn’t as dangerous or exciting as Hollywood has portrayed. “We’ve had people try to escape, but it’s usually from the cells when we first go to get them. When they’re restrained properly, they aren’t going to run.”

On Wednesday, Nash had planned to go to Huntington County Jail to pick up an inmate and bring him back to Warsaw for a court date. “But I always call ahead and it’s a good thing I did,” he explained. “Huntington County had already taken him to Plainfield to start serving his (prison) time on their charges. Sometimes miscommunications happen.”

So instead of Huntington, Nash pointed the transport van west and headed to Marshall County where another inmate needed transported back to Warsaw for a pending court date. Nash explained, “Transport orders come from the judges secretaries who notify us where someone is and when they need to be back here for hearings.”

And, like Nash said, the process of picking up and transporting inmates is usually uneventful. In Plymouth, Nash is buzzed into a secured “intake” garage area. To get to the jail where the inmates are housed, he’s again buzzed through a set of heavy steel doors to show his court ordered transport papers to the jailers.

Once the inmate is brought from his holding cell, he’s patted down and locked in handcuffs, leg irons and a leather belt that wraps around the waist and is used to restrict the inmate’s use of his hands even more. He is then led to the waiting transport van and driven back to the Kosciusko County Jail.

Nash explained that during the transports he tries not to have much conversation with the inmates. “I usually just turn the radio on,” he said, “but sometimes they have questions about the process and sometimes they try to talk. If I have a day when I have to pick up more than one, they usually talk among themselves.”

Back at the local jail, Nash again goes through process of driving into a secured intake area, entering into the holding cells area and presenting the necessary paperwork to the jail commander and staff. Once the inmate is turned over to the jail, Nash goes to check on more paperwork to see if any new transport orders have been sent down from the courts.

“I usually start pretty early in the day and never take the same route to any facility twice,” he said. “It’s a security and safety thing but again, it’s not like Hollywood.”