Smollett will serve jail time in protective custody
Actor Jussie Smollett will be held in protective custody at Cook County jail - alone in a cell monitored continuously by cameras and guards - while serving his sentence for staging a hate crime against himself.
The action is neither unexpected nor unusual: High-profile and other at-risk detainees are usually kept segregated from the jail's general population, which numbers just over 6,000.
That means Smollett will be housed in his own cell "monitored by security cameras in the cell and by an officer wearing a body-worn camera who is stationed at the entrance of the cell to ensure that Mr. Smollett is under direct observation at all times," the sheriff's office said in a statement Friday.
He will be allowed "substantial time" outside his cell in the common areas on his tier and will be "able to use the telephone, watch television and interact with staff," the office said. However, "during such times out of the cell, other detainees will not be present in the common areas," the office added.
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