Saturday, March 11, 2000
5th floor turns into jail
Kenton Co. Building converted
BY CINDY SCHROEDER
The Cincinnati Enquirer
COVINGTON — Kenton County's crowded jail will get some temporary relief in May, when the Kenton County Building's fifth floor is converted into a minimum security area.
Crews from Allied Contractors Inc. of Independence began work on the project this week, after some of the jail's non-violent felons helped tear down walls earlier.
Courtrooms vacated with the court system's move to a new building last year will be converted into dormitories, as well as a multipurpose room for visitation, watching television, or activities such as Alcoholics Anonymous meetings.
“The fifth floor (renovation) will not solve our problems,” said Rodney Ballard, chief deputy of the Kenton County Jail. “It's a Band-Aid approach that's going to help us until the jail is built.”
The metal bunks and cell wardrobes in the minimum security floor will be transferable to the new jail.
Elsewhere in the jail, crews are replacing 13-year-old drop ceilings with metal ceilings, to comply with current jail standards.
Kenton County officials have narrowed their search for a jail site to about six locations north of 20th Street in downtown Covington. Once they pick a site, however, the opening of a new jail will be several years away.
The Kenton County Jail's official capacity is 262, but the inmate population has averaged about 350 recently. The jail population traditionally rises with warmer weather, and Mr. Ballard has said he would not be surprised to see more than 500 inmates this summer.
The fifth-floor minimum security facility will house up to 90 inmates, Mr. Ballard said. They will include work release prisoners who leave the jail each day to work at their jobs, and nonviolent felons who the state has decided are eligible for jobs outside their cells.
The new floor also will have its own laundry facilities, so that inmates can do laundry whenever they want, instead of at prescribed times.
Except for prisoners who are serving their sentences on weekends, all inmates on the new minimum security floor must serve at least 30 days behind bars on the jail's upper floors before they can move down to the minimum security floor, Mr. Ballard said.
“That will be one of the motivating factors for positive behavior,” he said.
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