Exclusive Interview with a Corrections Officer at a Jail Similar to Where Paris Hilton will spend 45 Days

Unless you've been living under a rock - in which case ow - you are aware that next month your girlfriend Paris Hilton is scheduled to go from the penthouse to the jail house.

While on probation for a DUI, Paris failed to enroll in a mandated alcohol education program and was caught twice driving with a suspended license. The second time being on February 27th when sheriff's deputies pulled her over and charged her with violating her probation when she was stopped for speeding down Sunset Blvd. with her headlights off.

Superior court Judge Michael T. Sauer didn’t take her reckless behavior lightly and promptly sentenced her to 45 days at the Century Regional Detention Facility, a women’s jail near Lynwood, effective June 5th. Sauer is not allowing for work release or any other alternatives to jail time, including allowing the heiress to pay to be in a cushier

Although her lawyers say they will appeal, the odds look very good that there will be a new Hilton in South Central this summer.

LAist was able to conduct a long interview, which will be broken up over several days this week, with a deputy at a facility very similar to where Paris will be doing her time. We talked about what's in store for model/actress in regards to dealing with the inmates, the officers, the drugs, and her best friend the telephone. The deputy asked to remain anonymous.

LAist: Thank you so much for granting us this interview. Can you tell us a little about the prison that Paris will be in?

Deputy K: For starters it's a jail not a prison. We're talking two very different places. Prisons are where the worst offenders reside. Jails are for people serving much shorter sentences. Average time in a jail is 30-60 days. Longest...depends on how many charges you have and which judge or judges you have overseeing your case files.You can stay for years on one charge alone or years based on several charges. Even though people don't necessarily stay in prison their whole life, that's where lifers are. Paris will be in jail for about the average time that most people who are in jail stay there.

Even though she can't pay for one of those $82 jail cells, do you think that Paris will still be treated differently in this jail?

I assume she will have a pretty easy time to serve w/ the LA County Women and the facility. They will, in fact, treat her fairly well and make sure she has what she needs. She is a celebrity you know. There will be some inmates that will despise her because of her notoriety. Ok not just despise, but truly hate her for what and who they think she is.

Will they go after her? No way. They know they would be snitched out by ass kissers in a heartbeat. CI's will keep her safe. Although she will probably give them the shoulder because they are not the ones that make jail fun. SO she will seek out the inmates that are fake like her. They try to make a bond with someone like themselves. The CI's will be able to read right through her though. But they will do the right thing and tell on anyone that fucks w/her.

What's a CI?

A CI is a Confidential Informant, or as an inmate knows them, a snitch or a rat. They are used on the streets and in correctional settings. The informants are used for information that could help law enforcement better achieve protecting our communities (inside or outside a facility). Let's say we are in a jail and someone beat up another guy and no one would say who did what. This informant might be sent to see a doctor the next day, where they could be hit up for the information in private. This way the other inmates would not see this informant go out to talk to the officers.

Explain how you expect her first few hours in jail to look like and feel like.

The first few days are the hardest no matter what. It is a very emotional time for an inmate. It takes a bit getting used to the idea that you have lost your freedoms. I don't mean just being incarcerated and not being able to go where you want or leave when you want. I am speaking of when you can eat, sleep, shower, watch tv, write, read, make a phone call-- all of things that we take for granted. It is one of the toughest things to get in a person's head.

Now we're talking Paris Hilton who has even more freedoms than you or me, someone who celebrated her birthday in four different cities while flying in a private jet. Her fall from grace is going to be even more dramatic than your average inmate who don't enjoy the first day or two very much either.

This also starts the process where inmates and cops don't get along. The officer has to do their job, that means managing inmates... a lot of them at one time. Inmates want to do what they want and when they want, not when they are told to.

If Paris wants to be the perfect inmate she should just walk in with her chin in the air, a smile and say "hey I just have to make the best of this and get it over with", which is a great attitude that usually melts away the minute the officer begins patting her down or strip searching her. That can be quite invasive even if it is in private and with only one other person being there.

After you take away her clothes, make her wash off the makeup, rinse out her hair... you have essentially have stripped her of identity. Someone as materialistic and fashion-conscious as Paris, probably won't like this at all.

But what might be worse for someone like her who is hardly ever seen wearing the same outfit twice, is that she will be made to wear inmate clothes that 100's if not 1000's of women have worn before her. And then she will be told to stand in populous areas where everyone can see her and look at her in that outfit. I saw her TV show where she trimmed the outfits at the places she worked to try to make them cute. You can't make these clothes look cute.

Do you see Paris just saying , "hey ok this isn't so bad"?

Then she will have some sort of medical screening and maybe have an ID wristband thrown on her and made to wait... for a while.

A long while.

This is usually the time people start really thinking about their immediate circumstance and that's when they start getting emotional.

Then she would be escorted to a housing area. According to an article I read she will be isolated from regular population since she is a high profile inmate. So for her safety she must sit in a very small cell with a tiny window and harsh conditions, by herself, with nothing she owns on her, and most likely no one to explain anything to her unless she has a cellmate.

An officer that decides who to house with whom, will hopefully make some sound choices in regards to who she is housed with. Hopefully her cellmate will be someone that is not a management problem, hopefully not violent, and hopefully has an understanding regarding hygiene. But Paris says she loves animals, so maybe she's used to non-perfumed odors.

If you ask me, this would make anyone upset, emotional and distraught. Hard to be reaaaaly super nice at this point. But lets suppose she is still being a sweetheart.

Now she must get used to the person she is sharing a room with. It will be a small, but do-able 12x8 cell, made of cinder block, probably gray in color or painted white, that has a small metal toilet in the middle of this room where you don't have a choice but to shit in front of the other person.

She will sleep in a metal bunk bed that is strategically attached to the wall, a mattress as thick as 3-4 inches and probably a bit torn and nasty smelling, a small hole in the door where someone might pass her food through on a plastic tray and probably tastes and smells like crap, a small piece of polished metal for a mirror so you can't faintly see how shitty you look, nothing to do....except maybe try to see outside in your 6 inch wide window only so you can see more cinder block wall or a tall fence with razor sharp wire running over it with a bit of light from the sun shining.

Then she will come face-to-face with the housing officer who has to work in there everyday and get spit on, yelled at, have shit thrown at, called names, paid next to nothing, say "Good Morning, inmate Hilton, turn around and cuff up, your going down the hall to take a shower!"

At this point Paris will probably be exhausted from the booking process and just wants to curl up on her bunk and cry.... but she has to do what the housing officer says to do, and after that shower she will even begin to stop smelling like Paris Hilton.

It sucks and sounds really shitty but I have seen it a million times. She will be lucky if she doesn't end up on some kind of suicide watch due to her instability. But it would be for her own safety. This is a woman who has lived in a fantasy-like world of luxury like only royalty has become used to. Jail is the exact opposite. Poor people have a hard time making the adjustment, but someone like Paris has no idea.

Would everyone be nice to her? Maybe the officers would be compassionate, maybe the inmates would try to come to her rescue and show her how things work and make it easier for her to adjust, but she will be isolated they said. That means the only time she would have to speak with the other inmates face-to-face would be through the cell doors during her 1 hour of rec time that she gets to walk around in a slightly larger cinder block room but during that time she would be using the phones, since it would be her only chance to.

Come back for part two tomorrow when we will discuss sex, drugs, money, and food in the joint.

top photos via Guess, bottom photo via AP/KCBS-TV