CINCINNATI — Plagued by structural issues for years, the 50-year-old Hamilton County Justice Center is in the process of receiving a $6 million facelift.
Sheriff Charmaine McGuffey and Hamilton County Sheriff's Office Jail Division staff announced Tuesday the numerous improvements, giving us a tour of one of the 16 jail pods set to be refinished by Oct. 31.
McGuffey said the improvements aren't just nice to look at — they're a matter of public safety.
"Priority one [is] the safety of the jail officers who work in this jail," she said. "And priority one: the safety and care and custody of the people who are incarcerated in this jail."
FIRST LOOK: the @hcso_org is highlighting new improvements inside the Hamilton County Justice Center @WCPO pic.twitter.com/7G9n5pMk8E
— Connor Steffen | WCPO 9 News (@ConnorSteffenTV) July 30, 2024
Among the key changes are new "state of the art" locks staff are installing on all 840 jail cells.
For years, McGuffey said staff have dealt with faulty locks on cell doors since the building has largely gone unaltered since it opened — and began running 24/7 — in 1985.
"We researched it. We got the best locks in the industry," she said. "We, in the past, have had jail lock issues. The prior administration did not fix those issues."
Those incarcerated have been able to manipulate locks by shoving items like playing cards and pieces of paper in them to break out in the past, the sheriff said.
"What it meant is assaults on our officers. It meant assaults on prisoner to prisoner. It meant an unruly environment," McGuffey said.
We got a firsthand look at the issue as jail staff showed us one of their decommissioned jail pods:
"There's a little piece of it. There's more, there's more in here," the sheriff said. "They go far down. Look! A piece of plastic, a little piece of paper there."
The lock improvements cost $4.5 million, McGuffey said.
"If there's any tampering that goes on from the inside, then this [button] will start to flash," she said, demonstrating how the new locks work for media. "You can see from inside the cell, there's no openings or things like that, that the prisoners can stuff cardboard or anything like that [in]."
The fix comes after a trail of issues plaguing the jail since McGuffey took office in 2021.
"What this renovation does is it allows us to use each and every cell," Sheriff McGuffey said. "Because when cells break, when you compromise the window, when the door doesn't lock, we can't use that cell."
About 60 jail cells are out of commission right now because of those issues, according to jail staff.
In 2022, the WCPO 9 I-Team first reported on male inmates who began disassembling jail-provided smart tablets, using the device's battery to burn holes in windows in the jail.
In all, 137 damaged windows were replaced, McGuffey reported last year.
Damaging windows soon won't be possible following the completion of a $2 million window project.
"We have screens on the windows ... now we can redistribute board games and playing cards and things like that to the prisoners," McGuffey said. "I do want to note to you, you still get natural light and you can still see outside because I do think that's very important for an incarcerated person."
The sheriff said the metal mesh plates will be installed on all 840 jail cells.
"In the last couple of years, the county spent a little over $20 million on this facility," Capt. Dan Wilson, who's leading the current infrastructure revamp effort, said. "It's a mesh screen. It's bolted to the wall. So it's secure."
The revamp also includes a fresh coat of paint and new recreation tables in the jail pods.
One key change, leading to a boost in officer morale, is the renovation of officer control rooms.
"We have empowered our officers, our jail service deputies to also work in a clean, safe environment," McGuffey said. "We cleaned them up, we put new carpeting in, we gave them new chairs, we fixed the things that were broken and sagging, we put our monitors in correct places where those officers asked them to be."
In total, 16 officer control rooms will be revamped by the end of the project.
McGuffey also announced Tuesday her force will be fully staffed with 320 officers for the first time in years, soon.
"I am very proud to announce that within the next three months, we will be fully staffed with jail service officers," she said. "I want to repeat that, because we have bucked the national trend. Our training staff and our human resource staff have done an incredibly heavy lift."
As of Tuesday, McGuffey said the jail housed around 840 cells and 1,186 inmates.
Watch Live:
