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Jailer Determines McCracken
Tuesday, April 12, 2005
Jailer determines McCracken jail will go smoke-free
Inmates will learn the date on Sunday, when they place their last orders for cigarettes. Visitors and staff may still smoke outside.
By Anne Thrower athrower@paducahsun.com--270.575.8653
Thursday, April 21, 2005
While the debate continues over whether to ban smoking in Paducah restaurants, there will be no debate over whether the McCracken County Regional Jail should go smoke-free.
Jailer Cliff Gill has decided the jail will become smoke free next month. Inmates will learn the exact date Sunday when they place their last orders for cigarettes.
Gill started the process Wednesday by banning smoking in the visitors' lobby. But unlike visitors and staff members, who can step outside for their nicotine fix, inmates will have to go cold turkey. No nicotine gum, patch or chewing tobacco will be allowed.
Going smoke-free is Gill's idea and had nothing to do with the ongoing debate over a possible smoking ban in Paducah restaurants. Gill, who has never smoked, said he's tired of the constant jail fires started with matches that are given to smokers.
"We have too many fires in the jail," he said. "That's my main reason for doing it." Inmates sometimes set fires just for the excitement, he said.
Gill also thinks his luck is running out when it comes to lawsuits. He won a federal lawsuit filed several years ago by an inmate who said the secondhand smoke was not good for his heart condition. The jail had to show that the air circulated three times an hour.
But recent federal court rulings elsewhere have come down in favor of inmates. With the county jail's overcrowding, there is no room for separate nonsmoking cells, he said.
Gill has notified the fiscal court of the change as part of its annual approval of the jail policy manual. The fiscal court has no choice but to add it to the court record. That will be done as a formality at Monday's meeting. County Administrator Steve Doolittle said he supports Gill's decision.
Inmates had some inkling that their smoking days are numbered. They just haven't been formally given their to-quit date yet.
Currently, they are allowed to smoke in their cells but not in the halls or gym. They have to buy the cigarettes from the commissary at $3.95 a pack for name brands or $3.28 for generic.
Jail products compose about $1,900 of the roughly $5,000 of weekly commissary sales among the 400-plus inmates. From the sales, the jail nets about $1,100 a week, and Gill has used that money to buy cars, televisions and other items for the jail.
Gill has been told the commissary sales don't go down when the cigarettes go away. The smokers simply start buying a lot more candy bars and other items, he said.
One statistic Gill intends to watch closely is whether assaults on other inmates and staff increase in a smoke-free environment.
Inmates caught with cigarettes or deputy jailers who sell tobacco products to inmates face possible misdemeanor charges of promoting contraband.
The cost of contraband cigarettes at jails generally rises dramatically once a jail goes smoke-free, Gill said. One pack brings anywhere from $20 to $40, he said, and even one cigarette can go for as high as $40.