Cypress

LOS ANGELES - The grim jail cell awaiting Paris Hilton is just 25 kilometres from Hollywood as the bird flies, but her new digs and prison jumpsuit are a world away for the pampered hotel heiress.
When Hilton, 26, checks into the Century Regional Detention Facility on June 5, she leaves behind jet-set friends and will surrender her designer clothing and big sunglasses for an orange prison jumpsuit.

In short, said Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department spokesman Steve Whitmore said, she will be forced to endure the same austerity as the other 2,200 women prisoners.

'She will be wearing an orange jumpsuit just like every other inmate,' he said.

Instead of dining in chic cafes she will take her meals in the prison mess hall. Long, intimate cell-phone chats will be but a distant memory. She will have to talk to her glitzy pals over a public telephone in a common room.

'She won't receive any special treatment because she is a famous person,' he said.

Hilton can also spend the mandated 45 days - as few as 23 with good behavior - reading those magazines which are approved by the jail, or watching the approved television channels.

She was ordered to serve time after being pulled over for reckless driving in February while on probation for a previous driving violation.

A month earlier, she had been convicted of alcohol-related reckless driving and given 36 months probation.

The blonde socialite will take her place in a 4 metre by 2.5 metre cell, although Whitmore denied press reports that she had been assigned a roomie.

'We have not picked the cellmate,' he said.

While far from Melrose Avenue or Sunset Boulevard, prison life won't be all dreary, Whitmore said.

'She will able to get out of her cell about an hour each day,' he said.

'Then she will have about three or four hours a week to go to a recreation area, which is indoors, where she can play volleyball and basketball and things like that,' he added.

That's not all: 'She'll have three meals a day, she will able to do phone calls on a pay phone, she will able to watch television with other inmates,' he said.

She will be issued a toothbrush, toothpaste, soap, a comb, deodorant and shampoo.

One perk she will enjoy is government-provided protection from paparazzi, Whitmore said.

'We will do whatever is necessary for the safety and security of the jail system, that includes the inmates, the professional staff and sheriff's deputies,' he said.

Hilton won't be mobbed by fans, either.

'She can receive visits once on Saturday and once on Sunday,' Whitmore said. -- AFP