DARKE COUNTY – The Darke County Board of Commissioners recently approved a grant application that the Darke County Sheriff’s Office submitted to the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation & Corrections (ODRC). The last General Assembly created in House Bill 2 (50 million dollars in funding) to go to local jails.
The ODRC is the state agency that manages the money distribution through a grant. The Darke County Sheriff’s Office has applied for $200,000 in grant funding to hire a consultant to conduct a jail needs assessment for Darke County. A jail needs assessment, which is the first step in determining if Darke County needs a new jail. If so, what size should it be and how should it be designed based on modern criminal justice principles and standards? The assessment is a comprehensive process that includes interviewing community leaders and elected officials associated with the criminal justice system.
The Darke County Jail opened in July of 1983, making the facility over 40 years old. It is important to keep in mind that a jail does not operate during traditional business hours. A jail is a 24-hour-a-day, 365-days-a-year operation that never closes. This means every aspect of it is in constant use, and after 40 years, the structure and its infrastructure have reached and exceeded their life span, resulting in failures on a routine basis. Some of the most significant issues are the plumbing and HVAC systems, which are antiquated. The old internal infrastructure and design do not allow for adding on to the facility.
The Darke County Jail has become too small for the community’s needs. The jail is a 36-bed maximum security facility that is one of the smallest jails in the region, if not the state.
As an example, Preble County to the south and Mercer County to the north have a population of approximately 42,000 people served by jails more than twice the size of Darke County, serving a population of 51,000 people.
Last year, the average daily jail population was more than 44 people, which means the jail housed an average of eight people at other county jails at a cost of $134,000. The Darke County Jail lacks appropriate space to house the mentally ill. As Ohio jails become de facto mental facilities due to a lack of bed space in state psychiatric hospitals, it is imperative to have more appropriate spaces to meet these needs in the jail.
“As the Sheriff of Darke County, I would like to provide more educational and rehabilitative programs to those people who are incarcerated, but I cannot due to lack of space and appropriate secured classrooms. The increase in the number of incarcerated people with significant medical issues and medication needs is a challenge,” stated Darke County Sheriff Mark Whittaker.
“The current Darke County Jail was not designed with sufficient space to accommodate the medical equipment and health needs of today’s incarcerated people. A design that is modern should allow us to incarcerate at least 80 people with nearly the same number of correctional staff,” the Sheriff added.
“Darke County is a long way from a new jail but, it is time for me and other community leaders to develop a comprehensive plan to replace the Darke County Sheriff’s Office and Jail as we look ahead to the future. It will be important for us to engage the citizens and include them in this process. The grant we applied for and the needs assessment is just the beginning of what typically takes years to accomplish,” Sheriff Whittaker concluded.
Thank you to Sheriff Whittaker for providing this information!
