LOCAL INMATES COME HOME: THREE-WEEK-OLD CAPE GIRARDEAU COUNTY JAIL HAS ROOM FOR ALL

JACKSON, Mo. -- The cell doors at Cape Girardeau County's 21-day-old jail close with the touch of a finger on a computer screen. But getting the doors open can be harder.

A jailer pushed a door symbol on his screen Monday after a female inmate asked by intercom to leave the women's holding area to see a nurse. It didn't open, so he pushed the button again. The door was still closed.

"Ma'am, go ahead and give it a shove," he said.

Glitches with doors are being worked out along with other details as contractors returned for small repair jobs, Sheriff John Jordan said. A record number of inmates coupled with real- life tests of the $8 million jail's technology has strained the jail and its staff this month.

"My people have never been quite as inundated," Jordan said. "It's unusual to take a new building like this and immediately take it to its limits."

Although eight jailers and a nurse were added to the staff, the number of inmates doubled when Cape Girardeau County prisoners were either moved from the old 64-bed jail or returned from other counties' jails.

On Monday, 136 inmates were staying at the jail. Of those, 35 were federal prisoners and six were transferred from overcrowded Scott County's jail.

The new jail's capacity is 152.

The real test

The greatest test of the system has come from moving prisoners from place to place inside the jail, Jordan said. When one door fails to open, all the doors are automatically locked by a computer as a precaution. That means business comes to a standstill for at least 15 seconds until a jailer in the main observation center can complete an override command.

Doors were also accidentally closed after a nut came unscrewed, allowing a bolt to bend and break a switch.

"That nut probably didn't cost more than five cents, but it slowed us down," the sheriff said.

Overall, Jordan is pleased with the jail, especially after paying a record $46,000 in February to other counties to house Cape Girardeau County prisoners.

With space to handle its own 95 inmates on Monday, the jail now brings in others for a fee. Each prisoner held for the federal government gives the county an extra $52 daily, while Scott County is paying $30 a day for each of its prisoners to stay there.

County will save

The county had paid over $250,000 a year to other jails to hold prisoners, Jordan said.

"Now that money is not going out," he said.

County officials estimate a new annual income of more than $665,000 from keeping federal and other prisoners. This will be balanced against jail bond payments of $450,000 and increased salary and utility costs of $200,000.

Jail capacity will increase again by week's end, Jordan said. Twenty-six cells in the old jail will be available once video surveillance cameras and audio devices are fully wired.

A dormitory-style room that housed 32 prisoners in the old jail will also be finished this week, but it won't be used for a few years. Additional jailers would have to be hired to monitor the area, Jordan said.

It's possible that prisoners from the Immigration and Naturalization Service could be held in the extra space on a contract basis, the sheriff said. The only federal prisoners presently held in the jail are from the U.S marshal.

With proper staffing, the old jail would eventually offer a capacity of approximately 215, Jordan said.

For now, it remains on reserve until the new facility overflows with inmates.

"That's when the old jail becomes important again," Jordan said.