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An infamous honor: Female inmate becomes first occupant in new $29M Scott County Jail

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By Bill Wundram | Tuesday, December 11, 2007 2:05 AM CST | () comments

Carrie Wiersema, a mother of two serving time for fourth-degree theft, looks over one of the women’s cells at the new $29 million Scott County Jail. She is the first person to be transferred into the new jail. (Larry Fisher/QUAD-CITY TIMES) Buy this Photo

There must always be a No. 1 for everything.

At 11:14 a.m. Monday, Carrie Wiersema, 28, Davenport, had the infamous honor of being the first inmate to be locked up in the new $29 million Scott County Jail.

Wiersema was the inaugural inmate in a jail that is certain to hold killers, petty thieves and other miscreants for at least 100 years. The old steel-barred lockup made it through more than a century.

The mother of two is serving time for fourth-degree theft. She allegedly swiped eight DVDs from a Wal-Mart and hid them in her purse. She was caught outside the store.

“I didn’t even know what movies I was stealing. I just grabbed them,” she said.

She shrugged at the distinction of being the first inmate in a new jail whose construction has dragged on through decades of debate and controversy.

“It’s not much of an honor,” she remarked to Scott County Sheriff Dennis Conard, who said, “She’s the first to be assigned in here.”

Wiersema was first to get a cell among 16 women transferred Monday from the old jail into the new wing for women prisoners. Today, 16 more women from the current jail female population of 32 will be moved to the new building. After that, 250 men will be transferred gradually.

So far, Wiersema has served 75 days in the old jail, housed with two other inmates in a grungy red-painted barred-cell with bunk beds. She took her first look at her bright new cell — No. 111 atop a flight of stairs — and said, simply, “It’s better.”

It’s bright and shiny like the jail, touted as being a part of one of America’s most modern lockups. In Wiersema’s mind, “It doesn’t have bars, but it’s still a jail.”

She stepped into the cell and said, “I like the toilet.” She repeated several times how much she admired the toilet, which is porcelain compared to the stainless steel toilet in her old cell. “Porcelain will be a lot warmer.”

She held a thumb on one of the chrome-style clothes hangars in her new cell. They were upside down but will hold garments.

“They are positioned that way to prevent suicides,” Conard said.

In the old jail, one of her cellmates was in for drugs and the other for a string of non-payment of fines. Before being first in the group of 16 transferees to be locked up, Wiersema agreed to sit down and talk. She wore green slacks — which identified her job in food service — and a loose, faded tan sweatshirt. She admitted to a string of violations, mostly traffic related, before the DVD theft.

“I’m married and have a son, 2½, and a daughter, 8,” she said. She wiped her eyes, “Holidays are hard. I missed Thanksgiving and seeing my daughter in the Halloween parade.”

Her original sentence on the DVD theft charge called for 240 days in jail, but the time has been reduced as payment was made on the $2,500 in fines for stealing the DVDs, court costs, restitution and other charges. She said the penalities are down to $1,605.

“Maybe I’ll be out of here by Christmas,” she said.

Bill Wundram can be contacted at (563) 383-2249 or bwundram@qctimes.com.