. Of course this was at a county jail (as you stated, since you specified jail), on a related note I wonder if a prison would handle it differently?
I don't think it would matter, because by the time a person was sentenced and than transferred to prison, they'd have already been jailed for enough time while waiting for the trial (if they have one) and the sentencing.
By that time, the individual will be fully detoxed from whatever substances they were abusing and feeling physically well again.
My understanding is that jails forcing inmates to be freshly shaven and constantly clean via showering is a bit of an overused meme, maybe it might be a little different in some medical facilities for health and safety reasons
It's not really the jails doing this (the guards/administration), it's the fellow inmates.
Nobody cares whether or not you shave in there. In fact, people sometimes grow a beard or a mustache during longer jail stays and in prison because occasionally, in some places, other inmates will accuse you of being a homosexual if you're constantly clean shaven, especially if you're especially fastidious about it.
The other inmates will, however, get on people's cases for not showering. It's tight quarters in jail so you don't want to be sharing that limited space with nasty, smelly people.
Fights will happen over an inmate refusing to shower for too long.
If Chris is segregated from the rest of the inmates and wouldn't have to worry about what anybody thinks of his hygiene habits, if you're wondering why normally lazy, dirty Chris is taking the time to shave and shower regularly, I have the most likely answer.
What else is he gonna do in there? The worse part of jail is the boredom. Days crawl by slowly and seem to go on forever, weeks feel like several months etc. etc.
You'll do anything to pass the time, even if it's just a few minutes.
The food could be bad and you may not even be particularly hungry each and every single time chow rolls around, but you sure as heck aren't gonna skip a meal because it's something to do.
You'll get borderline obsessed with terrible daytime television because that's a whole lot more entertaining than staring at concrete walls all day.
Same goes with showering and shaving. You'll get in the habit of doing things even more consistently than you did when you were free, just to pass the time.