"If you build it, they will come," said Clermont County Sheriff Tim Rodenberg, who takes reservations. "There's never going to be enough jail space.''

That could be a greeting on tape at any county jail in Southwest Ohio.

"It's awful - exploding at the seams," Hamilton County Sheriff Si Leis said.

"It's pretty bad," Warren County Prosecutor Rachel Hutzel said. She recently canceled a roundup of deadbeat parents because, "We don't have the space."

Butler County has a new, $37.8 million jail with room for 1,000, but Jail Warden Norm Lewis has a 10-bed cap on parole violators and has to ask judges to release the least dangerous prisoners when his staff gets too outnumbered.

(In Northern Kentucky, Boone and Campbell counties are building new jail space; Kenton County is working on it.)

The "No Vacancy" sign is lit at county jails all over Ohio, the sheriffs say, and the bad guys on the street know it's easier than ever to draw a "Get Out of Jail Free" card in court.

Leis said 1,000 women since April, and 2,000 men since August, were booked and released because the jail was full. "We don't release violent offenders,'' he said. But: "They know what's going on."

Clermont County is spending $10 million to add 200 beds to its 340-bed jail. However, operating costs of $1 million a year might force it to open in phases in 2006, Rodenberg said.

He has 500 names on a waiting list, "sent to jail only to be told, come back later, we don't have room," he said. "Later" can be two years.

"Maybe you have someone who learned a lesson and got a job, then he gets a call two years later saying now it's time to serve your 10-day sentence."

Rodenberg thinks treatment could reduce jail time for DUIs, drugs and minor crimes.

Hamilton County already has a drug court for that. It needs a new jail, Leis said. "It's got to be done."

Warren County's jail holds 200, but prisoners have to be released to fit new ones in. Commissioners want to double-bunk, but Sheriff Tom Ariss says that would violate a $5 million state grant for a single-occupancy jail built in 1996. "We definitely do" need a new jail, he said.

Butler County's population boom is straining its new jail.

The sheriffs say judges have to consider jail crowding when they sentence prisoners. And that's risky.

Parole officers know county jails don't have much room for violators, a spokesman for the Ohio Department of Corrections said. If jails are full, some violators might get a pass - such as Bernard Reid, accused of killing Elder senior Maurice Kennedy.

Southwest Ohio has a proud reputation for being tough on crime. But taxpayers might be surprised to find out it's often more like locking up Otis in Mayberry: Prisoners go directly to jail - then directly out the back door or onto a waiting list.

In 1998, Hocking, Athens, Morgan and Perry counties pooled $9 million to build Southeast Ohio Regional Jail, with 213 beds. They have no crowding problems, a deputy warden said.

Something like that might help in our corner of Ohio. But any solution will require leadership and cooperation - which can be harder to find than empty bunks at the county jail.

E-mail pbronson@enquirer.com or call 768-8301.