BY STEVE KEMME
The Cincinnati Enquirer
HAMILTON -- Butler County is still mired in the first step of a five-step process to receive state permission to begin using jail tents this year for overflow inmates.
The Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction's request for additional information from Butler apparently has torpedoed the county's hopes of operating the jail tents during this year's warm-weather months, Chief Deputy Rick Jones said Wednesday. "Time is passing us by," he said.
After reviewing the county's application to operate the jail tents, the state earlier this month asked for more information regarding inmate recreation, prisoner privacy, staffing and the jail tents' length of operation during the year.
The state also requested written documentation that local and state fire, zoning, building code and health officials have approved the plan.
It will take as long as three weeks for the sheriff's department to prepare a new application with the additional information, Mr. Jones said.
"And that's only to get past step one," he said.
Sheriff Harold Don Gabbard had hoped to be able to set up large surplus Army tents outside the crowded Butler County Jail last month to house about 50 inmates until cold weather arrives.
The county jail, built in 1970, has 139 beds but averages 185 prisoners.
Sheriff Gabbard suggested jail tents after voters defeated a sales tax increase proposal in November to build a $34 million maximum-security jail.
The state is requiring Butler to go through the same application process for the jail tents as it does for the construction of brick-and-mortar jail buildings.
Ohio corrections officials have said the state wants to be sure the jail tents will protect the public and provide humane living conditions for prisoners.
Mr. Jones said any more delays in the application process could cause the county to drop the jail tent idea.
He said the department is exploring other options, but he declined to elaborate.
