
DATE: Friday, May 30, 1997                  TAG: 9705300684

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B1   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY LIZ SZABO, STAFF WRITER 

DATELINE: CHESAPEAKE                        LENGTH:   79 lines

NEW JAIL DOUBLES CHESAPEAKE CAPACITY ``IT'S A HUMAN FACILITY, BUT IT'S NOT A HILTON.''

The city's new jail has no bars, no guards patrolling cell blocks and no overcrowded cells where inmates sleep on the floor.

The $37.9 million facility, which was dedicated Thursday, will more than double the number of beds in the existing jail, where inmates sleep on the floor in sleeping bags.

Sheriff John R. Newhart said the new facility adds 320 beds to the 213 beds at the existing jail and can expand to 1,200.

The 150,000-square-foot building at Holt and Albemarle drives in the municipal complex is the first phase in a three-part renovation of the city's jail.

A separate, 72-bed addition to house work-release prisoners, a corridor linking the new and old jails, and a police evidence building will be built this year.

The jail is designed to employ an innovative management system called ``direct supervision.'' Instead of walking up and down long corridors, guards will sit at a central command post, where each will monitor a few dozen inmates living in a cluster of cells. The cells are built on two floors and contain windows that allow guards to see the inmates at all times.

Newhart expects guards and inmates to be safer under the new system. In the new jail, prisoners will be housed according to their behavior, not according to their crimes. For example, instead of confining all car thieves together - well-behaved and unruly alike - the jail will assign well-behaved prisoners with various charges to minimum security cells, Newhart said.

The new jail will continue to isolate dangerous criminals, child abusers, police informants and other high-risk prisoners, he said.

Minimum-security prisoners will not be housed in cells. They will be assigned to a bunk in an ``open bay'' with no outer wall separating them from the deputy on duty. Although the entrance to the minimum-security unit will be tightly secured with thick cinder-block walls and reinforced locks, prisoners will be able to move around relatively freely in an open social area.

John M. de Triquet, one of several City Council members who attended the ribbon-cutting ceremony Thursday, said the minimum-security wing's steel beds and lack of privacy looked familiar.

``It reminds me of the Navy,'' de Triquet joked. ``It's a human facility, but it's not a Hilton.''

Newhart expects to begin moving prisoners into the new jail within two months. Newhart will be transferring prisoners from the existing jail to the new facility over the next seven months. He plans to train the staff slowly, gradually introducing prisoners in small groups for the safety of the prisoners and Only the best-behaved and the most-dangerous prisoners will be assigned to the new prison, Newhart said. The maximum-security wing is the more secure of the two jails. Most prisoners will have to earn the right to be moved from the old jail - with its bars and cell blocks - to the freshly painted, relatively brighter new jail.

The white cinder-block walls and tile floors are bare, but the corridors are relatively colorful. Doors are alternately painted bright orange, deep blue, teal or red. All housing units have a small recreation area with a single basketball hoop.

Housing units also have a handful of tables with chessboards stenciled on their tops, as well as a single television. Tables and televisions are paid for from the money prisoners pay to buy small toiletries, candy and soft drinks in the jail canteen.

The kitchen in the new jail can serve as many as 5,000 meals a day and could be pressed into service to feed emergency personnel in the event of a hurricane or other disasters. ILLUSTRATION: Color photo

STEVE EARLEY/The Virginian-Pilot

Chesapeake's new jail, a $37.9 million facility at Holt and

Albemarle drives in the municipal complex in Great Bridge, was

dedicated Thursday.

Photo

STEVE EARLEY/The Virginian-Pilot

The city's new jail is the first phase in a three-part renovation. A

72-bed addition to house work-release prisoners, a corridor linking

the new and old jails, and a police evidence building will be built

this year.