CROWN POINT | The mother of a Lake County Jail inmate said her son entered the jail with a cut on his finger and within days contracted the infection that last year put the jail under a 48-hour quarantine.

Lynne Geise, of St. John Township, said jail officials told her son, James Geise, that he had Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, or MRSA. a once-rare, drug-resistant bacteria that researchers say causes more than half of all skin infections treated in U.S. emergency rooms.

Deputy Warden Benny Freeman said those with the infection are not being kept in the general jail population.

"If we find someone with it we isolate them," Freeman said. "It (MRSA) isn't breaking out all over the place."

Geise said she spoke to her son Tuesday and he had not received antibiotics.

"I don't think the guards there are trained to handle contagious diseases," Lynne Geise said. "I'm a microbiologist and I know how infections spread."

She said her son went to jail a week ago on a warrant to revoke his home detention. By Monday, the cut on his finger showed signs of infection, she said.

Geise said her son was released from jail last summer one day before the facility went on lockdown status after an outbreak of MRSA.

"It sounds like they're still dealing with it," she said.