A cracked exterior support column at the Clark County Jail has forced officials to move 45 inmates to a neighboring county's lockup while crews scramble to shore up the aging structure. Clark County commissioners approved an emergency contract with Bruns Construction on Wednesday to temporarily brace the damaged column, a stopgap measure expected to cost taxpayers while the jail sorts out a permanent fix.
The cracking was discovered during a structural inspection of the jail at 120 North Fountain Avenue, according to peakofohio.com. A structural engineer determined the column needed to be braced and supported until permanent repairs could be completed, the outlet reported. Clark County Sheriff Chris Clark said 45 inmates from housing areas affected by the column were taken to the Logan County Jail, and he told the Springfield News-Sun that the number of transferred inmates could fluctuate with releases and new intakes.
The commissioners' emergency contract covers $14,535 from the county's permanent improvement fund for temporary shoring. Sheriff Clark said the rest of the jail remained operational and unaffected by the damage, and that the facility's other support columns were inspected and deemed structurally sound aside from some superficial repairs.
A Week of Shoring, Then What?
Clark said the temporary shoring work should take about a week, after which inmates would return to the affected area — but only once engineers and the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Corrections confirm it's safe to do so. Beyond that, he said he had no update on what the long-term fix would look like or how long it would take, though engineers are already working on a permanent solution for the column.
Housing the displaced inmates isn't free. Logan County Jail is charging $65 per inmate per day, excluding medical expenses, which works out to $2,925 daily for the 45 transferred inmates. The arrangement is meant to be short-lived: as peakofohio.com reported, the transfer is expected to be temporary and relatively short-term, with displaced inmates returning to the Clark County facility once the support column has been properly reinforced. Logan County currently holds 108 inmates on its roster and can accommodate approximately 135, per the same report.
A Jail Already Stretched Thin
The cracked column is landing on a facility that was already showing its age. Clark County Jail was built in 1977 following a federal mandate and opened in 1980 at a cost of $8.2 million, measuring 9,200 square feet and originally designed for 168 beds, three holding cells and 11 isolation cells. Modifications in the early 2000s added 24 beds to the jail's day rooms, but those beds fall outside state jail specifications.
The jail is severely overcrowded and fails to meet state standards, according to the Springfield News-Sun's reporting on county jail conditions. The Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction recommends a capacity of 167 inmates, but the jail held 208 as of the week before a recent hearing, and its average daily population in 2024 was 190. A state report found 16 violations during a recent annual inspection, and in 2024 the jail was noncompliant with 14 standards, 10 of which involved infrastructure — including a failure to provide one operable toilet and shower for every 12 inmates, a shortfall the report tied directly to overcrowding.
County Weighs a New Jail
Fixing the column is only the latest line item on a much larger repair bill. Clark County Jail requires more than $2 million in repairs and improvements, including a new roof, jail locks, HVAC equipment, boilers and chillers. County officials are working on plans for a new public safety complex and jail, and a feasibility study for a potential replacement facility is currently underway, according to the Springfield News-Sun. Officials have also floated a 0.5% increase to the county's sales tax for 20 years to help fund construction and operation of a new detention facility.
For now, the fix is a temporary brace holding up a column at a facility that opened in 1980 while inmates sit in another county's jail. The deeper infrastructure problems — the undersized beds, the aging boilers, the overcrowded cellblocks — remain unresolved, waiting on the outcome of the feasibility study and whatever voters eventually decide about funding a new facility.
