Three days after Sheriff Louis Ackal took office, a concerned New Iberia resident telephoned the Iberia Parish Correctional Center with an alarming message for newly-appointed warden Frank Ellis.

An IPCC trusty had strayed from the pack of other inmate workers and was meandering along the railroad tracks near Louisiana 182 in an orange jumpsuit. Ellis, still new to the job, responded promptly to the tip only to learn the “runaway” inmate was actually a Burlington Northern Railroad mechanic going about his daily business.

Since then, off-premises trusties don black-and-white striped jumpsuits when performing their duties.  

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The change represents one of many Ackal has implemented in the jail over the last five months. The facility itself is starting to see some improvements and a jail Ackal initially called “disgusting” is undergoing an extensive makeover that includes a major cleanup effort and a bevy of new rules and regulations to keep inmates in check.

From a ban on smoking to mandatory daily showers and haircut requirements, life in the parish jail is changing. Overcrowding was often a problem during the previous administration, Ellis said, but the jail has reduced its numbers by about 40 inmates. Ellis described the some 450 inmates the jail currently houses as “a comfortable number,” adding the capacity is around 512.

“The whole atmosphere has changed,” Ellis said. “I feel it’s improved the living environment, and I think the inmates think so, too.”

Ackal also speaks enthusiastically of the jail’s new direction, a departure from his initial reaction to the state of the jail over the summer. In July, an infuriated Ackal invited the news media to tour a facility he described as “disgusting” and in “disrepair.”

During the tour, Ackal showed reporters rusty doors and damaged windows among other deficiencies in the jail.

“This place has not been maintained, and I’m damned aggravated about it,” he said in July. “These conditions represent a security risk.”

A lockdown inspection performed a week later in conjunction with the Department of Corrections offered a glimpse of the jail’s recurring problems with contraband and compliance. Using detection dogs, officials discovered makeshift crack pipes and unapproved magazines, among other things.

Since then, daily inspections are conducted to ensure compliance and the prisoners are no longer allowed to have certain items. There are no more razors, for example, as inmates melted them into combs to form shivs. There is no more fruit as inmates fermented it into alcohol in milk cartons.

Prisoners are no longer allowed to stay up all night, and the lights are turned out at 10 p.m. sharp. Personal tennis shoes, once viewed as a status symbol among the prison population, are no longer permitted, and inmates can only purchase the ones made available in the jail’s commissary.

Despite the progress Ackal boasts of, a complete metamorphosis is far from achieved. Electrical problems with the switchboards and surveillance camera deficiencies still abound, and it could take a while for the administration to have the money to do something about it. An exterior fence encompassing the facility would improve security as well, Ackal said.

The Iberia Parish Council in August appointed a special committee to review the conditions at the jail and appropriate additional funding if needed. But Councilwoman Maggie Daniels said the council has not yet visited the jail to determine the extent to which it can be of additional assistance. The Sheriff’s Office has a contract with the parish and receives about $860,000 for the jail. Ackal said the jail cost about $1.6 million to operate last year.

Until a clearer picture of the financial landscape emerges, Ackal’s options are limited. But the administration is making efforts to save where it can.

Ackal eliminated contracted janitorial and maintenance services by greatly expanding the prisoner trusty work program, both its amount of participants — about 35 percent of the prison population comprise the program — and the scope of its operations. 

Several administrative offices as well as various parish and city buildings receive the janitorial services now free of charge. And if fixing vehicles at the jail or sweeping the floors of Ackal’s office isn’t a trusty’s cup of tea, the jail’s newly-revived garden serves as an additional opportunity for inmates to get some sun and stretch their legs.

While the trusties are not compensated for their services, the labor offers them a chance to work “in the real world,” as they call it. But they also have become partly self-sufficient through the labor -- much of the produce grown by inmates ends up in the jail’s kitchen and on the meal trays.

As for the previous administration, former sheriff Sid Hebert said he rejects as “glaringly wrong” the notion the jail was in an exceptionally poor condition.

“None of them are pretty or smell good,” he said. Hebert said he considered the jail a cost to taxpayers, a cost he tried to limit by committing for 10 years to a set yearly cost -- $860,000 — at a time when “the parish found itself in a predicament.”

“Expenses were getting out of hand,” Hebert said.  

“I found it interesting when [Ackal] went into the jail,” Hebert said, referring to the current sheriff’s summer media tour. “The best run jail is never on the front page unless you want it there. But I was proud of it.”