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To justify the building of a big, new jail, Hamilton County commissioners Todd Portune and David Pepper often mention the age of the Queensgate, Reading Road, and Turning Point facilities and how they are inadequate or even “falling down.” A reading of the county’s own Voorhis Report shows that they are not relating the situation accurately.  The Cincinnati Beacon would like to thank Nate Livingston for pointing out that their own report relates how the Ohio Bureau of Adult Detentions (BAD) inspected and passed all three of these facilities in all 63 categories.  Only the relatively new Justice Center failed to pass in all categories.

And the reason why the Justice Center did not pass is very relevant to the debate surrounding the new jail.  BAD warned Hamilton County that the Justice Center is operating over capacity and that it must reduce the number of prisoners housed there.  The Justice Center was designed for 848 prisoners and through double-bunking now can house 1,240.  Queensgate has a capacity of 822, Reading Road a capacity of 150, Turning Point a capacity of 52, and Butler County can house 400 under contract with Hamilton County.  These four would be eliminated if the new jail is built.  The new jail would have a capacity of 1,800.

Right now Hamilton County has a capacity of 2,664 jail beds.  If the new jail is built and the four facilities named above are eliminated, the capacity would be 3,040 beds.  But if the Justice Center is reduced to 848 beds as Ohio insists, then the capacity is only 2,648 beds, or 16 beds fewer than we currently operate.

What can we infer from this?  One possibility is that Portune and Pepper are exaggerating the over-crowding problem and that they expect the jail population to be going down soon.  Although many who have investigated the jail situation believe that the jail “over-crowding” problem is largely self-inflicted, this does not appear to be Portune’s and Pepper’s opinion.

Another possibility is that they are exaggerating the condition of the older facilities and intend to use one or more of them to house the additional prisoners.  Or Hamilton County could continue sending prisoners to Butler.  This possibility is supported by BAD’s findings that the older facilities are adequate.  But this possibility is not supported by the statements of Mssrs. Portune and Pepper.

A third possibility is that they intend to build a bigger jail than 1,800 beds, or to construct an addition.  This possibility is indeed supported by Mr. Portune’s repeated statements that he has been told that the new jail is too small.

The only firm conclusion is that the county voters, after almost a year of the debate over a new jail, still have to dig deeply to find the relevant information over the jail situation.

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