EVEN WITH `FRILLS', JAIL NO `HOME SWEET HOME'

JACKSON -- The slam of the outer steel door of the Cape Girardeau County Jail unnerves many first-time visitors - as the resounding echo bounces off pale green concrete walls.

Not until the outer door is securely closed does the inner, barred door slide open, emptying out into an average-sized activity area.

The jailer sits in a impenetrable booth, surrounded by monitors and controls, in a setting akin to George Orwell's "Big Brother" from the book, "1984." From the booth, the jailer can oversee all sections of the facility.

There are no windows, no carpeting, no pictures on the walls. The furniture consists of two picnic tables. Shelves of dilapidated books rise along one of the plain walls of the activity area.

"It's not supposed to be a real pleasant place it's a jail," said Chief Deputy Leonard Hines of the Cape County Sheriff's Department. "But I can tell you that it's a lot nicer now than it used to be."

Since the election of Norman Copeland as Cape County Sheriff, the jail has provided more services and frills for the inmates.

Copeland established an activity area in the jail, where inmates spend the bulk of their day. Picnic tables were purchased and placed in the activity room and the dormitory area where inmates sit to eat, play cards, read, talk or play board games.

"Inmates don't have to spend their days in their cells anymore," Hines said. "They have accessibility to a lot more now."

The jail itself is divided into four cell blocks: north and south blocks are lined with secured cells, a dormitory area containing 20 beds and a female block, separate from the rest of the jail.

There are small black and white television sets in the north and south cell blocks and one in the dormitory area and in the women's block.

"A lot of people think that these guys sit and watch big screen color televisions and play tennis all day," said Lt. Mike Hurst, chief administrator of the jail for the Sheriff's Department. "The truth is that they have a small black and white television without cable."

There is a special holding cell in between the North cell block and the dormitory area, for holding prisoners who are suicidal or showing signs of illness and need constant supervision.

The typical day of a male inmate starts at 5 a.m., when the lights are turned on and it is announced over the jail's public address system that it is time to get up and hit the showers.

Three inmates can shower at one time under three shower heads protruding out of the wall. The showers are open, in full view of the jailers and anyone in the activity area.

Inmates are given a clean, orange jump suit every day after their shower. There are shiny metal mirror-like reflective surfaces bolted onto a sink area where inmates can shave and comb their hair.

Breakfast is served at about 7. Each day the inmates are served a different meal, prepared by the matrons in the jail kitchen, assisted by inmates. After the breakfast trays are cleared from the activity room, inmates spend the time before lunch reading, playing games or conversing.

After lunch is served at noon, inmates are allowed to return to their cell blocks or dormitory area for a "rest time," before dinner.

Shortly before dinner, the inmates return to the activity room where they stay until full lockdown at 10:30 p.m.

"We leave the televisions on all day," Hines said. "The inmates can watch the morning, noon and evening television news.

"It's really their only link to the outside," he continued. Inmates are not allowed to have daily newspapers because of the cost and fire threat to the jail.

Every night the jail offers rehabilitative programming for the inmates to attend.

On Monday, the jail has Gideon Bible services; Tuesday, Narcotics Anonymous; Wednesday, Community Counseling; and Thursday, Alcoholics Anonymous. Also on Wednesday, clergymen are allowed to visit with the inmates privately.

Inmates are not forced to attend any of the meetings, but Hurst said many do.

"It all depends on the night," Hurst said. "Some times three-quarters of the inmates will be there, other times only eight or 10."

Hurst said that if an inmate expresses the desire to take high school equivalency test courses, the jail will do everything in its power to arrange for a teacher and/or instruction books.

All of the programs available to the inmates are provided at no cost to the jail by the sponsoring organizations.

Saturday is visitation day at the jail. A maximum of three immediate family members are allowed to visit with the inmates from 12-4 p.m. Women are allowed visitors from 9-11 a.m.

The visiting room is really two rooms connected by a plexiglas window. The inmates enter one room three at a time and are seated in booths in front of the window. Family members are admitted in the other room, to sit facing the inmate.

There is screened opening at the bottom of the dividing glass through which sound can travel.

Time is limited so that all the inmates may have an opportunity to visit with their families.

Attorneys are allowed to visit their clients seven days a week, from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. They meet with the inmates in a small room containing a full-sized desk, a student's desk and a few shelves of law books.

The inmates are allowed access to the law books at all times.

"State law says that we have to provide prisoners with the most up-to-date law books available," Hurst said. "We've found that we have to check them out to prisoners, because they were tearing pages from the books and keeping them for themselves."

Inmates are allowed to make collect phone calls from 6 a.m. to 10:30 p.m. every day. Even local calls must be dialed collect.

When they are processed in to the jail, all of the prisoners' possessions are inventoried and put in a trash bag and placed into a locked room until they are discharged.

The inmates are only allowed the possessions which they purchase themselves within the jail. Supplies, candy and greeting cards are sold twice a week at the jail commissary.

The money inmates have with them or that family members provide is exchanged for commissary cards: a piece of paper with the inmate's name atop, denoting its value ($5 or $20), with spaces for the amount to be marked out as it is used.

"Some jails allow family members to bring in food, cookies, cigarettes and other things for the prisoners," Hurst said. But not at the Cape County Jail.

Hurst said, "It's hard to monitor that kind of thing for foreign substances. Also, if you have food on the cell blocks, that leads to mice and cockroaches. We don't have that problem here."

On Tuesdays and Fridays the commissary is open during the morning hours, allowing everyone time to purchase necessities and snacks. Inmates must purchase their soap, toothbrushes, toothpaste, shampoo and other toiletries from the commissary.

"We can't provide that kind of stuff," Hurst said. "If we set out shampoo, someone would complain that it isn't the right kind or that it isn't what they need. This way, we give them a choice and save ourselves the hassle."

Inmates are allowed to have a limited number of photographs of their family by their bed, but not on the walls.

"Nearly every day we end up taking stuff down off the walls," Hurst said. Personal possessions may be kept under pillows, under beds or with the inmate.

Inmates have access to a library stocked with old novels and other donated books, which they may take back to their cells.

"There's no shortage of Bibles down there," Hines said. "A lot of our prisoners get religion while they are here."

Inmates are allowed to go outside into a walled-off courtyard rimmed with razor wire, as weather and manpower permits.

"We do as much as possible for the prisoners," Hurst said. "But this is no summer camp."