The fingerprints and pictures are over. Now it is time for questions - lots of questions. An officer approaches you and says, "How's your health? Do you have any kind of disease? Do you need any pills?" And when he reaches the end, he wants you to sign.
He is filling out a medical questionnaire on you. If you ask him, he will tell you the reason for the questionnaire, "Since you're going to be staying here for awhile, we need to have your personal health attributes to take proper care of you."
I did not give them my consent to take care of me. I can take care of myself quite well. I assume you can, too.
There are many ways to handle this medical questionnaire. The first time I was hit with it, I was caught unaware. They started out asking a few simple questions and I thought, "These questions seem harmless," so I gave them the answers. Before I knew what was happening, we had spent 10 minutes on this gigantic form with hundreds of questions. I tried to stop answering:
"That is none of your business," I said.
"What do you mean, none of my business, you've already answered five questions. What's wrong with answering a sixth question? You've already demonstrated your ability to answer questions."
I had no greater words to answer back. Finally, after about my fourth time in jail, I figured out the game. When the officer approached me with the first health question I said, "Why don't we save ourselves some time. Why don't you go to the bottom of the form and write 'refused.'"
He quickly went to the bottom of the form and wrote "refused." Then he lectured, "If you would be more cooperative, we could take care of these forms a lot easier," and that was the end. That was the fastest form I'd ever taken care of, but he still had to put in his dig.
