Finger Food for Prisoners at Courthouses

Meals served at Bronx and Brooklyn courthouses will be utensil-less. How come? Well, Newsday reports that a shiv made out of two plastic spoons was found in a holding cell! Now court officers are worried about the exact thing we thought: What about all the other jails in the city? The Court Officers Association says court officers should just keep track of them ("If ten prisoners get a fork, then you have to get ten forks back."), but that's not much reassurance. From Newsday:

The shiv found in a holding cell where prisoners cool their heels before or after their appearance in criminal court sparked an Police Department memo in July warning officers to be on the watch for an "improvised knife."

The weapon was made by tying two plastic spoons together with a cellophane wrapper that appears to have come from inside a cereal box. "The instrument was then sharpened by scraping it against an abrasive material such as a concrete floor," according to the memo...

...The shiv is the weapon most commonly found inside cells and the prison system because it can be made from any variety of items, including pork chop bones, authorities said.

Court officers are reminded to use "extreme caution" when searching prisoners. Still, there have been incidents where prisoners have smuggled objects in other areas to use them during courtroom attacks.