News Photo by Julie Riddle Corrections Officer Anthony Gapczynski patrols the halls of the Alpena County Jail, balancing the varied responsibilities of overseeing the men and women confined within its walls.

ALPENA — At 6 a.m., Corrections Officer Anthony Gapczynski swings open the small door that covers a diamond-shaped window in a bigger door and peers inside.

“There they are,” he says. A handful of women, blankets pulled up to their ears, lie sleeping on metal bunk beds. One moves restlessly, a small socked foot poking out from under the blanket.

He swings the small door shut with a soft clang and moves on down the hallway, peering into windows at the sleeping bodies that are his charges at the Alpena County Jail.

It’s Monday of the first full week in May, a week set aside since a 1984 proclamation by President Ronald Reagan as National Correctional Officers Week.

As on every other Monday — and Tuesday, and Wednesday … — the day demands a balancing act on the part of the uniformed officers who tread jail hallways, a juggling of roles and responsibilites while bearing twin burdens of compassion and authority as they oversee the people living inside the jail walls.

The jail’s command center is a squashed office in the heart of the Alpena County sheriff’s building. Corrections officers squeeze past each other in the cramped space, filing court documents, writing reports, and answering the two constantly ringing telephones, sometimes with a phone receiver in each hand. On the wall-mounted screens displaying grids of live video feed, miniaturized men and women in orange walk in circles, huddle motionless under blankets, or sit on tables, staring out between white bars.

An inmate wags a finger in front of a camera, hoping to catch someone’s attention. In the office, they roll their eyes. Him again. The inmate has already quarreled with officers once this morning.

It’s been worse, though. On previous stays in the jail, he has smashed windows, ripped down curtains, and threatened to kill the jail nurse, who will no longer treat him.

The rectangular path through the jail’s hallways is a well-worn one. The corrections officers travel it all day, back and forth and around, through locked door after locked door, moving inmates, responding to requests, delivering food and medicine, reacting to aggressive behavior, shaking down a cell in search of contraband, checking blood pressure. It’s a long way around the building, long enough that it’s hard to get to a far cell quickly if a fight breaks out.

Gapczynski said that, in the new county jail — an $11 million-plus facility set to open in 2020 — all inmates will be no farther than a quick 20 or 30 feet away.

A small meeting room across from the office, one of the few spots in the jail with no cameras, allows inmates to meet privately with their lawyers. Those meetings don’t always go the way the inmates would like. Gapczynski has seen chairs swung at lawyers’ heads.

An inmate cajoles several officers to let him keep a head covering that’s not allowed. They manipulate, Gapczynski says. Inmates work hard to gain psychological control over their guards, asking for a little, and a little more, and a little more than that. The officers have to turn off compassion, sometimes, saying no to an extra blanket, being tough on inmates who trade a secreted cheekful of ibuprofen for a bag of coffee.

In the “drunk tank,” a gravelly voice asks when bond will be set. The whiskered inmate, who looks like someone’s dad, says he’s been waiting three days. Gapczynski gives the inmate his meds and gently asks if he needs anything else.

Most jail deaths, Gapczynski says, happen because of alcohol. It’s the one kind of withdrawal that can kill you.

Two chairs are tucked into a corner outside the drunk tank, straps at the arms, ankles, and waist ready to restrain an inmate who is out of control. The chairs haven’t been used in the last month or so, Gapczynski said, but scuffles among inmates will sometimes break out “once a day, five, six, seven times a shift … It gets old really quick.”

THE JOB ISN’T FOR EVERYONE

Most of the corrections officers work a 12-hour shift. Most weekdays, for most of the day, three officers are on duty. Evenings and weekends, when people being brought in for booking are more likely to be drunk or violent, the number of officers on duty drops to two.

There are supposed to be more of them, Gapczynski said. The current jail staff is six officers short of where it ought to be.

The short staff gets even shorter if an inmate needs to go the hospital, sometimes leaving an officer alone to handle outbursts or tend to inmate needs. The county pays overtime as corrections officers cover shifts and come in for emergencies.

The county wants to hire more, but nobody is applying. A difficult application process and four months of training deter some potential candidates. And those who come don’t always stay. One new officer worked for only two days before quitting, Gapczynski said. The job isn’t for everyone.

A corrections officer for five years himself, Gapczynski is eyeing a promotion to road patrol when a position opens up. Work in the jail makes great training for a police officer. His experience in the hallways of the jail have taught him about the court system, Gapczynski said, and about how to interact with people and how to handle difficult situations.

Gapczynski points out a cracked wall tile, broken by an inmate’s head in a suicide attempt. A floor tile that doesn’t match the rest marks where an inmate’s knee landed in a fit of rage.

The corrections officers’ physical postures are predictable around inmates, points out Gapczynski, who is the defensive tactics instructor for the county. Officers keep a strategic distance from inmates as they follow down a hallway, staggered to one side, positioned to take control of a situation. Their hands are held in front of them and facing forward, ready to react quickly.

The officers are in a state of constant vigilance, on the lookout for the smallest details, because they know from experience what happens if they don’t. A staple on court paperwork becomes a tattoo needle. An arm cast, a bra underwire, eyeglasses filed to a point, even a toothbrush can — and has — become a weapon.

Corrections officers have been punched, kicked, sent to the hospital. Death threats are an everyday event. Inmates with diseases spit in their faces. Angry inmates, or those with mental illnesses, fling feces at the officers or smear it on themselves.

“And who’s left to clean that up and take care of that? We are,” Gapczynski said. “It’s challenging, to say the least. You look at some of the people that come in here and you’re grateful for what you have,”

The inmates are not all bad, Gapczynski said. They’re not all trying to hurt people, and they’re not all guilty. Some of them just did something stupid, a one-time mistake.

There’s no room for rose-colored glasses, though.

The majority of inmates in the jail are felons. People who commit misdemeanors aren’t held — there isn’t room.

The jail is, literally, housing the most dangerous people in Alpena, Gapczynski said.

A GLIMPSE OF SKY

A sheriff’s deputy arrives to transport inmates to the courthouse for hearings.

Normally, corrections officers would do the driving, but there isn’t enough manpower to spare. The inmates, who know the routine, kneel on a wooden bench to have their ankles secured. They stand, hands against the walls, while corrections officers wrap chains around their waists and then snap their wrists into cuffs attached to the chain at their hips. One young woman with a sweet smile talks cheerfully to the officers as she is restrained, telling them about her new haircut.

The swimming-pool-green hallway tiles reflect mechanical hums and rattles from unseen machinery. From around a corner, an inmate’s sing-songy voice repeats an incongruous refrain: “Forehead kisses…”

An insistent tap on a cell door finally produces a peek into a window.

“When do I go to court?” a female voice demands.

They’ll let her know when it’s time, Gapczynski assures her.

Officers can’t tell inmates when they’ll be taken to court, he explains, because if they know when they’ll be transported, they make plans for escape.

A small courtyard in the middle of the jail’s square of hallways houses ragged grass surrounded by high walls topped by looming loops of barbed wire. Inmates used to be able to go outside sometimes, Gapczynski says, but an escape over the wire and across the roof put an end to that. Now, inmates being walked past the window slow their feet, their eyes turned for a glimpse of sky.

The new jail, Gapczynski said, will have skylights in every cell and windows in the gym. More sunlight will help everyone’s mood, he hopes. Summer months, in particular, bring out irritability, with more fights breaking out in the sticky heat of the un-air-conditioned cells. Air control will be another nice feature of the new jail, Gapczynski said, both for the inmates and for the officers who go home sneezing with watery eyes from the aging air system, peeling off sweat-drenched uniforms and body armour.

An inmate trembles and shrinks into himself as he talks to Gapczynski. It’s not going well, being in the cell with all those other people, he says. Can he stay by himself in a holding cell for a few weeks?

None are available right now, Gapczynski tells him, listening patiently while the tearful man speaks of trouble contacting his lawyer and of the family who never comes to visit, anymore. The inmate is allowed some time alone in the small, bare-walled gym that’s also used for church services and addiction recovery program meetings. The inmate huddles in a corner while Gapczynski encourages him to join him in a little handball.

A woman is brought in for booking. While she watches, corrections officers go through her belongings, looking for items not allowed at the jail, rifling through her Bible in search of hidden drugs. Any cash she had on her is banked into an account she can use to purchase items from the jail commissary — Tylenol, a notebook, peanut butter. The woman has been at the jail before and is back on a parole violation. She’ll be out in the middle of July, Gapczynski reassures her. It won’t be so bad.

Two months is a long time, she says quietly.

She’s taken to a holding cell, where a mattress is placed on a low bench half its width. Sometimes inmates roll off onto the floor while they’re sleeping, Gapczynski says. It’s not up to code, but it’s all they have.

THERE ISN’T ROOM

The jail can legally house 69 inmates. When it’s nearly full, jail administrators look at the records and time served of those housed, choosing a few to take before the circuit court judge for permission to release them early.

Gapczynski opens a filing cabinet drawer filled with envelope after envelope. He opens another drawer, five more drawers, all filled with envelopes.

Those are all warrants, he explains. Pieces of paper that say that so-and-so is wanted by the police, maybe for a probation violation, or perhaps for failure to appear in court. Sometimes, Gapczynski said, officers will pick someone up under warrant, but, if the violation is minor, have to let the offender go.

There isn’t room in the jail.

All day long, the inmate-tended laundry machines tumble loads of sheets, towels, and orange uniforms. Swapping out bedding is one of many chores as the corrections officers fill the role of maid, along with that of nurse, parent, counselor, teacher … Most cells hold six or 10 inmates on summer camp-style bunk beds. All cells include a television, although officers have to keep their eyes on the remotes. Inmates have been known to start fires using remote batteries and bit of tinfoil.

In one cell, an inmate talks into a box on the wall, engrossed in a FaceTime-like conversation with someone from the outside as Gapczynski gathers a load of laundry. A tall, muscular man politely asks for a different sized shirt. Another meekly agrees to clean up a messy bunk.

“You want your window shut or are you guys good?” Gapczynski asks.

He teases an inmate about losing weight and asks another when he’ll be getting out.

“Why are you so nice today?” an inmate asks with a grin as he brings an armful of towels.

“I’m always nice, you know that,” Gapczynski joshes him.

The heavy metal door swings shut, and a thick key turns in the lock.

The men in orange return to their pacing, their sitting, their waiting, while the officer heads down the hallway, balancing, with firm step, on the fine line that is his daily walk.

Julie Riddle can be reached at 989-358-5693 or jriddle@thealpenanews.com.