EGLIN AIR FORCE BASE, Fla. -- A middle-aged man in gray jogging clothes approaches the beginning of an inviting, open field, then suddenly turns and heads back the way he came.
'He knows where the camp ends,' said the smiling superintendent of this federal prison, Mike Cooksey.
The jogging inmate has to know where the barrier is, because the Federal Prison Camp at Eglin Air Force Base in northwest Florida has no steel bars, barbed wire fences or armed guards to define where incarceration ends and freedom begins.
While it has some of the same problems as other prisons -- including overcrowding and occasional problems with escaping 'walk-aways' -- the camp, justly or not, has a reputation as something akin to a country club for white-collar criminals and corrupt politicians.
'The prisoners resent this being called a country club,' said Superintendent Cooksey, who points out that the inmates do have privations.
'How many country clubs would have four tennis courts for 760 people?' he asks.
Eglin's prison camp is one of a dozen Level 1, minimum-security facilities operated by the Federal Bureau of Prisons. It's one of only two nationwide within a military base. The other is at Maxwell Air Force Base in Montgomery, Ala., which opened in the 40s and is half the size of Eglin.
Eglin's typical criminal was convicted of fraud, drug crimes, embezzling or some other non-violent and non-espionage crime. Eglin and Maxwell have housed some nationally known figures, including Watergate conspirators.
The typical Eglin prisoner is also white.
'I know that the proportion of black inmates is relatively low and we don't know what to attribute that to,' said Cooksey, who said most prisons are 40 percent black. At Eglin, it's just over 9 percent.
The most recent well-known figure to enter Eglin was former Rep. Richard Kelly, R-Fla., who turned himself in Nov. 1 -- three days early - to serve a six to 18-month sentence for bribery in the Abscam case. Like the others sentenced to Eglin, he walked in on his own and signed in.
'We have very few complaints from the inmates,' said Cooksey, who's been the superintendent for the past three months.
'Most of our people here are first-timers, here because of greed,' he added, and the crimes usually are 'a one-shot deal' and unlikely to occur again.
Cooksey said it makes sense to have camps on bases because of the military security measures already in place. He said the cost for operating the 82-staff Eglin work camp is 'miniscule' compared to other prisons.
The camp -- whose oldest inmate is a 72-year-old man convicted in a drug case -- is dominated by tranquility and the shade of huge moss-draped Live Oaks.
The five dormitories, a medical facility, commissary, dining hall and visitors room ring a tree-lined, grassy central courtyard with neatly manicured hedges. On one corner is a 'control' building, the closest thing to a tower. Nearby is a bank of 16 telephones that can be used for collect calls most of the day.
The camp encourages inmates to maintain community and family ties.
All the recreation equipment and facilities are outside, including two weight 'rooms,' tennis, basketball and handball courts, a football and baseball field. It also has place to play horseshoes and the Italian sport, Bocci ball, but Cooksey said he's never seen anyone play the game.
Most imates sleep in four modern, cream-colored cinder block dorms in open areas partitioned by block walls. Newcomers are placed in the one older barracks-type wooden dorm until they can be processed and given a permanent job.
About 200 inmates work within the compound, while others work on the base in a variety of jobs. Those with medical problems are given light duty, but all are paid from 11 cents to 38 cents an hour.
A typical inmates wakes at 5:15 a.m., cleans, eats and then goes for 'work call' at 6:45 a.m. The workday ends at 3:30 p.m., with dinner at 4:30 p.m.
Dinner one Tuesday consisted of spaghetti and sauce, soup, garden greens, garlic toast, pears, salad bar and assorted beverages. The evening is free time.
Inmates can read in the library, watch television, go to vocational school, participate in intramural sports or even join the 'semi-active' Jaycees branch. ---
Head counts are made at regular intervals six times a day and seven times on weekends, and there are also 'random' checks to make certain that inmates are where they are supposed to be.
Inmates, under certain conditions, may leave the prison on special passes. Extended furloughs of up to a week are possible for short-timers, and up to a dozen inmates are on furlough at any given time.
Despite the comparative ease of a stay at Eglin, there are problems with overcrowding. Cooksey said the camp has an official capacity of 675, but is nearly 100 inmates over that limit.
'We have a lot of space here and we can sleep more, but we have no support facilities,' Cooksey said, noting that overcrowding at Eglin means 'they (inmates) may have to stand a little longer in the chow line.'
