CINCINNATI — Thirty-eight cells are out of service at the Hamilton County Justice Center with damaged windows that county workers have not replaced for as long as six months.

And it will be at least a month before the Hamilton County Facilities Department can begin replacing jail windows that inmates have punched, cracked or burned holes into.

“It makes for overcrowding,” said Sheriff Charmaine McGuffey. “It just makes for less room in this institution.”

With so many cells out of service at the aging jail, it is causing morale issues for staff and worry for McGuffey about potential lawsuits over safety. The jail has 840 cells and nearly 5 percent of them are padlocked and out of service due to compromised windows, as of last week.

The county’s facilities department is responsible for the jail’s exterior windows.

Inmates occasionally break cell windows and attempt to smuggle in cigarettes, drugs and cellphones from the outside.

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“They’re going to try to get contraband in,” McGuffey said. “We have sheets in our facility. And they can tear sheets up and tie them together and fashion a little bit of a rope to get that out to the outside and pull something in.”

County facilities workers were in the process of replacing jail windows in October but stopped after the county’s risk management division demanded better safety regulations.

Now 20 unused jail windows are stored in the jail basement, McGuffey said, while the county waits to certify new safety measures.

“In November, our risk management wanted to improve the safety of how we fixed exterior windows and that process includes using tie off points on the roof. We hired a consultant to review, inspect, evaluate and give us recommendations,” Hamilton County spokesperson Bridget Doherty wrote in an emailed response to WCPO’s questions. “We are working with the consultants and scaffolding companies to see what options we have to fix the windows as soon as possible.”

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Once the county’s safety engineering firm and scaffolding company certify the roof tie-offs as safe, then work on the windows can resume, which Doherty said will likely happen in four to six weeks.

“The county has a portion of windows in stock, the rest are on order. A contractor is ready to install pending the arrival and certification of safety equipment to tie off from the roof,” Doherety wrote.

In the meantime, McGuffey said she is forced to place plexiglass over the broken windows and padlock cells as out of service.

“It’s super frustrating … talk about something that makes you lose sleep. I lose sleep, my command staff loses sleep because our priority is the safety of those officers,” McDuffy said. “We are doing everything that we can.”

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The jail has not been as crowded because judges tend not to incarcerate nonviolent offenders due to pandemic concerns. But the inmates who are housed at the jail are more high-level, she said.

“Almost every inmate in here is going to have a crime against person,” McGuffey said.

So not having extra cells to use as a disciplinary tool for isolating inmates who cause trouble has been frustrating, she said.

“It’s my belief that the jail should be prioritized. We have people living here 24/7. The jail opened in 1985 and ever since then the lights have been on. We’ve been using this facility to its maximum capability,” McGuffey said.

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As of last week, 68 open work orders related to windows were “on hold for parts,” with 55 of them related to cell windows. Not all window damage was severe enough to warrant taking a jail cell out of service.

Jail officers placed an additional four cells out of service due to lock damage. Inmates often stuff pieces of cardboard inside the locks in an attempt to open cells.

Inmates are also responsible for the window damage. Some punched the windows, and many others spread flammable hair grease, which is sold at the jail commissary, on windows to burn off the top plexiglass layer.

“They would put it on the window, and get some kind of spark, light, anything. And once they light that on fire … they would take a wooden broom handle and they would get that hot enough to smolder and burn,” McGuffey said. “We had wooden broom handles in here and we took those out because obviously that was a piece of the issue.”

McGuffey blamed part of the problem on her former boss, past Sheriff Jim Neil, who she said did not alert county officials to broken windows and cell locks, and left behind a backlog of deferred maintenance.

“It’s frustrating that the prior administration did not pay attention to that jail,” McGuffey said. “I inherited a number of problems with the windows.”

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McGuffey beat her former boss, Neil, in the 2020 Democratic primary and went on to win the general election to become Hamilton County’s first female sheriff. She took over the top job in January 2021.

But before that, she was in charge of the jail from 2013 until 2017, when Neil fired her.

Neil had this to say about McGuffey’s allegations: “I have been out for over a year. Building facilities would have repaired any damage occurring in 2020. 2020 was when street demonstrations and subsequent vandalism occurred, and many of the door windows and lower perimeter windows were broken out during this incident. This security glass has been replaced.”

The county usually replaces broken jail windows once or twice a year, Doherty wrote.

“Without a doubt, the Justice Center is a priority. Hamilton County is currently funding $14.5 million in capital improvements to ensure the safety and security of our deputies and inmates. Specifically, we are working with the Sheriff’s Department, safety engineers and scaffolding experts to get the windows fixed as soon as possible,” Dougherty wrote.

McGuffey said she has taken Hamilton County Administrator Jeff Aluotto on a recent tour of the jail and spoken to facilities department leaders numerous times about the state of he jail.

CINCINNATI — Chelse always thought she’d be dead or incarcerated by the time she was 35.

The 27-year-old has post-traumatic stress disorder, bipolar disorder and severe anxiety; she said things “spiraled” when someone close to her died by suicide in 2015.

"The guy I was with at the time put a .45 in his mouth and pulled the trigger,” Chelse said.

Methamphetamine use landed her in jail a few times, but an assessment allowed her to be a part of the Hamilton County Court of Common Pleas Mental Health Court, a program that she says saved her life.

The roughly two-year program, which the Hamilton County court system runs with counseling and addiction services from Greater Cincinnati Behavioral Health, helps people with mental illness who are currently in the system. The program offers one-on-one psychiatric counseling and medication oversight to target mental illness. It requires regular drug tests and court appearances, and participants must have a diagnosis of severe mental illness, be charged with a felony (some charges are excluded) and have no history of serious or repetitive violence.

Ohio had 19 state psychiatric hospitals in 1980, according to the Hamilton County Mental Health and Recovery Services Board. Now, the state has six, which means more people with mental disabilities end up in jails and prisons, according to members of the board.

That’s one reason Hamilton County officials started mental health court -- to intercept men and women whose non-violent felony charges might be the result of mental illness.

About 120 people have graduated from the program in 10 years. Of those people, 10 percent incurred a felony or misdemeanor. Fewer- than 5 percent returned to prison.

Fred Baxter, manager of the mental health court program, said some people use drugs to balance their mood or “make the voices go away.” For a person with mental health issues, the cycle of using, getting caught and going to jail can seem like a revolving door.

Nearly 88 percent of the people who are on the mental health court docket have a co-occuring substance use disorder.

“Many times, incarceration and prison are not the answer -- but treatment is,” Baxter said.

Maj. Chris Ketteman said the Hamilton County Justice Center typically has about 400 people a day who are in treatment.

That’s a very high number, Ketteman said, but "it reflects what's going on in the community.”

“Let's face it, our justice center has become one of the largest mental health facilities in Hamilton County,” Ketteman said.

It costs about $71 a day to keep a person in jail -- that does not include the cost of mental health treatment, which the county’s indigent care levy covers.

Brooke Lipscomb, a felony mental health court liaison, makes sure people who are enrolled in the program stay on track. She also recruits people in jail who might qualify for the program.

“I was taught by one supervisor -- very smart man -- substance abuse and mental health are cousins,” Lipscomb said. “They live on the same street. You can't fix one without fixing the other.”

Mental illness and substance use disorders can go hand-in-hand. Of the 20 million adults who had substance use disorders in 2016, 50 percent also had some form of mental illness, according to the National Alliance on Mental Illness.

But Lipscomb says mental health court helps people have someone they can trust when they’re in the dark.

“Our judges are so forgiving … they understand relapse is a part of recovery,” Lipscomb said.

Chelse was charged with aggravated trafficking while she was in mental health court, but Judge Tom Heekin and Lipscomb didn’t give up on her. That network of support helped her achieve sobriety.

“There wasn't room to wiggle on anything,” Chelse said.

Chelse said the program enabled her to form better habits, all while getting counseling and staying on medication.

“I mean it's hard, nothing about this program is easy ... you're changing everything in your life, from the people you know to the things you do,” Chelse said.

Chelse said she wouldn’t have completed the program without Lipscomb’s help.

“She's been like a mother figure in so many ways ... she stayed on me and she always told me the best advice I could give you is, ‘don't screw it up,’” Chelse said.

Chelse’s fiance recently overdosed, but she didn’t turn to drugs to cope.

“Now I'm not saying I didn't think about it because I did, everyday for a little second,” Chelse said. “But there is no way I can ever go back to doing that.”

Part of why she won’t go back to using is because she doesn’t want to let down the people who spent so much time helping her get to the start of the rest of her life.

Chelse has a job now, and she finds joy in her friends, her dog and good food.

Lipscomb agrees that seeing someone complete the program is worth the tears and hour long phone calls.

“It was just worth it,” Lipscomb said. “I would want someone to do it for one of my kids … so why wouldn't I do it for someone else's?”

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Everyone deserves help, but court isn't always the best place for them to find it. If you or someone you love is living with severe mental illness, these are some other options:

• Central Clinic's Mental Health Access Point, which can be a first point of contact for questions or appointments. Anyone can call 558-8888 at any hour of the day.
• Mobile Crisis, which can perform a welfare check on someone who may be in danger of harming themselves. Call 584-5098.
• 281-CARE is another 24-hour hotline operated by Talbert House.

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Editor’s note: WCPO does not ordinarily use anonymous sources. However, WCPO staff members use anonymous sources in rare circumstances where such sources are the only way to obtain information vital to the public good. WCPO staff members have vetted these sources and believe the information they provide to be accurate and in good faith.

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Real-Time Editor Abby Anstead contributed to this report.