Article: New Lake County jail mingles guards, cons

Iron bars do not a prison make, to paraphrase poet Richard Lovelace.

Lake County corrections officials agree. The new county jail, under construction in Waukegan, will have unbarred doors and windows.

It also will do without keys or armed guards.

The six-story facility, to open this fall, will be the first county jail in Illinois to use "direct supervision" of inmates.

Guards, called corrections officers, will mingle with prisoners during the approximately 12 hours a day they're out of their one-man cells.

Inmates, grouped into 48-man "pods," will be supervised by a lone officer, armed only with a radio.

From a work station, he can open and close cell doors but not the main ...

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