JEFFERSON — At a meeting of the Community Corrections Planning Board, Lieutenant Jim Kemmerle went through a presentation for board members on the need for a new jail.

Kemmerle, who is currently in charge of the Detective Bureau at the Ashtabula County Sheriff’s Office, formerly served as the Ashtabula County Jail administrator. At Monday’s meeting, he went through a presentation that may be given to the public once the county starts speaking to the public about the jail project. 

“I think one of the biggest challenges we have is the difference between corrections in 1978 and corrections in 2021,” Kemmerle said.

“Back in 1978, I think society had a ‘Lock them up and throw away the key’ type of mentality, where inmates were given a sentence, they served that sentence in a correctional facility like the Ashtabula County jail, and when they were released, they were just turned back to society, having done their time.”

Now, the criminal justice system also focuses on mental health and addiction issues, medical problems, and issues integrating with society, Kemmerle said.

“So they enter into the criminal justice system ... and parents, families, loved ones, expect us to fix them before we turn them back out into society,” he said. “And one of the challenges we have is that we don’t really have the space to be able to do that.”

The current county jail was built in 1978, and had an approved occupancy of 116, Kemmerle said. The current average occupancy of the jail is 151, and has reached as high as 166 in 2019, Kemmerle said.

The overcrowding in the jail causes increased wear and tear on equipment and the facility, Kemmerle said.

A second washer and dryer was installed in the jail to accommodate the increased jail population, but the vents are designed for one dryer, causing frequent maintenance issues. The five-floor jail’s elevator has also been an issue, requiring $60,000 of maintenance in 2019 and $80,000 of work this year, he said. 

The current jail’s indoor recreation area was built over a courtroom, making it unusable when court is in session, before it was converted to a housing unit, Kemmerle said. The jail’s outdoor recreational space is in poor shape, he said.

The jail also needs more spaces for medical or mental health issues, Kemmerle said. The current jail only has one medical or mental health cell, he said.

A 2015 estimate put the cost of fixing the issues with the jail at $9.3 million over a spam pf 18 to 24 months. That work would result in even fewer beds for inmates, Kemmerle said.

Instead, the county is seeking to build a new jail. An initial estimate put the price of the jail at $51.3 million, and after working with the architects, the current cost estimate is $43.7 million, Kemmerle said. That would raise the county’s sales tax to 7.25 percent, which would put the county in line with 59 of Ohio’s 88 counties, he said.

To pay for the facility, the county plans to propose a .5-percent criminal justice sales tax. A sales tax would not put the burden solely on property owners like a levy, and tourists would also contribute to the tax, Commissioner J.P. Ducro said.

Commissioner Casey Kozlowski said the county is close to selecting a site.

The new jail would have the potential to expand if the population increases, Kemmerle said. The jail is designed to fit the county’s needs in 2047, he said.

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