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HAMILTON — A stay in jail or a trip to court in Butler County is getting to be a more colorful experience.

There are certainly some colorful characters on both sides of the law and some colorful life stories to be heard, but offenders are now dressed and restrained in range of colors that rivals Crayola.

Inmates, depending on their alleged crimes and their behavior once behind bars, don uniforms with specific colors to designate a certain security level. Stripes or solids, all have a meaning — at a glance — to corrections officers.

And the color schemes don't end with the clothing. To keep better track of handcuffs, some jurisdictions have designated certain colors for prisoners to be cuffed in.

Inmates now wear color "bracelets" in the form of yellow handcuffs if they are a sheriff's office detainee or orange if they are arrested by Hamilton police officers.

What started as a trendy accessory by gun manufactures producing firearms in designer colors has turned into a useful tool to make sure the right handcuffs are returned to the correct law enforcement agency, said Sgt. Ed Buns of the Hamilton Police Department.

"I don't think they are still making the guns, but you can get the cuffs in all sorts of colors," Buns said.

Butler County Chief Deputy Anthony Dwyer said nobody believes officers were intentionally taking handcuffs that didn't belong to them, but with the thousands of prisoners and hundreds of officers shuttling people back and forth, a portion of standard steel cuffs with small initial engravings became difficult to identify.

"And sometimes there's nobody to stand around looking for the right cuffs," Dwyer said. "Yellow says right way they're ours."

Officials use colors to keep track of inmates' cuffs

Butler County inmates are seeing yellow these days. Hamilton prisoners have been seeing orange for several years.

Handcuffs that is.

In an attempt to hold onto cuffs belonging to the agency, the departments have purchased colored "bracelets" for transporting prisoners to court and jail.

Hundreds of prisoners are shuttled back and forth to various courts on an daily basis, which means multiple cuffing, uncuffing and recuffing, said Butler County Chief Deputy Anthony Dwyer. That doesn't count officers from several agencies bringing in newly arrested suspects.

Again more cuffing and uncuffing'

"I call it the handcuffs shell game," said Dwyer. "It?s not that people were intentionally taking cuffs, it's just that when they all look alike, standard issue, they are hard to keep track of."

At the cost of $25 to $30 each, the cost of cuffs that "walk away" in the belt of the wrong officer can add up.

Lt. Mike Craft, Butler County Jail deputy warden, said he recently ordered about 40 bright yellow handcuffs for corrections transport officers.

"They come in almost every color," Craft said. "We decided on yellow because they match our uniforms."

The strategy is working.

"They are easy to identify as ours," Craft said. "And no patrol officer wants yellow cuffs hanging off his belt."

Middletown jail inmates also are transported with colorful restraints. According to Interim Chief Mark Hoffman, Middletown officials have purchased yellow leg irons and some yellow handcuffs.

Hamilton transport officers have been carrying orange cuffs for about three years, said Hamilton police Sgt. Ed Buns.

"Gun manufactures started making guns in designer colors. I think the handcuff makers wanted to get in on it," Buns said. "I thought about ordering bright pink the last time, but I thought (the officers) would kill me."

He said Hamilton transport officers were losing about 10 to 15 pairs a year when they were standard-issue silver.

Restraints are not the only colorful part of an inmate?s stay in the Butler County Jail. Inmates wear jail-issue duds in a sea of colors designating both the level of the crimes they are accused of committing and their status in the jail.

Specifically, blue is for minimum or low crimes and most females; gold is for medium security or serious nonviolent crimes; orange for maximum security or serious felony crimes; black and white stripe for inmates who have violated jail rules; red and white stripe is a Hamilton County prisoner; and green and white stripe is for a trusty, or an inmate granted special privileges.

"It's really for security more than anything else," Craft said.

With prisoners housed in large pods together, corrections officers and other workers who visit the jail can take one look at the jumpsuit color and know, in theory, what type of offender they are dealing with, he said.