Inmates have access to exercise facilities including a basketball court, running track and a ping-pong table. Most inmates are required to work in prison labor jobs such as food service, plumbing and painting, where they earn 12 to 40 cents an hour. About 200 inmates work in a prison industries sewing operation where they make exercise shorts for the military.

Still, Butler said, like any prison it was a highly regimented and controlled existence.

"You had to follow the routines very carefully," Butler said. "When I was there a lot of people from my church were visiting me, and I was called in and told, 'You have too many people coming in. You can see your friends when you get out.'"

Skilling planned to undergo alcohol and mental health counseling at Waseca, successful completion of which could shave a year off his sentence. He would also be eligible to earn 54 days a year off his sentence for good behavior.

While Skilling wouldn't face the daily extremes that face convicts in supermax-style federal prisons, it won't be a comfortable life, Tippy said.

"I worked in the federal system for 31 years at all levels of security, and to me jail is jail," Tippy said. "They tell you what time you get up in the morning and they tell you what time to eat breakfast, and they tell you what job to do and they tell you what time to go to bed at night.

"I never saw anyplace so nice that I would have wanted to spend even a night there," he said.

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