Construction crews at the Shelby County Jail in Columbiana wrapped up a building project lasting more than two years, adding dozens of specialty beds built specifically for people in mental health crisis or needing serious medical care. Jail Division Commander Denver McCool says the roughly $28 million expansion was never about packing in more inmates — it was about finally having somewhere to put people the old facility was never designed to hold.
A Jail That Had Nowhere to Put People in Crisis
Before the expansion, McCool said the jail lacked a specific place for people who needed close observation, so staff placed them wherever space allowed — in the medical unit, in single-cell housing, or in the booking area, according to ABC 33/40. None of those spaces were built for people experiencing mental health crises or sitting on suicide watch, the outlet reported. The new construction finally gives the jail a dedicated answer: an 18-bed mental health unit for people with acute mental illness or on suicide or mental health watch, plus a medical unit adding about two dozen beds for people with more serious health needs.
Russell Bedsole, chief deputy with the Shelby County Sheriff's Office, said the goal was to bring more treatment inside the jail's walls rather than relying on outside transports. The expansion, he said, should reduce the need to send some people to a hospital for care that can now happen on-site. Bedsole added that the benefits to people in custody and to jail staff outweigh the project's cost — a cost he put at just under $28 million.
How the Numbers Line Up
That figure tracks with earlier reporting on the project. Shelby County commissioners approved funding for the expansion in August 2023, with the project estimated at the time to cost close to $28 million, according to ABC 33/40's earlier coverage. The county commission approved a $24,820,000 bid to Clements Dean Building Company, LLC to carry out the work, the Shelby County Reporter reported at the time. Construction broke ground in February 2024, per project records from constructconnect.com, and McCool said the build ultimately took more than two years to complete.
The commission funded the project using set-aside money rather than borrowing, and the overall addition came to about 44 specialty beds split between mental health and medical care. The medical unit includes about 23 beds. The mental health unit itself was actually up and running for several months before the rest of the expansion was finished, McCool said.
More Supervision, Not More Capacity
The new mental health unit is built for direct, continuous supervision, with a deputy assigned specifically to monitor people housed there and staff present at all times, according to earlier reporting from 280 Living. The unit also includes a dedicated room for counseling, and the jail employs three full-time mental health counselors. McCool framed the expansion beds as specialty housing rather than a bump in general population capacity; 280 Living projected that the jail would have a 550-plus-bed capacity upon expansion.
McCool said the jail has seen a greater concentration of people with significant medical and mental health needs even as its overall population has declined, a dynamic that helped drive the push for dedicated treatment space. Ahead of the project's completion, the WBRC reported the Shelby County Sheriff's Office was recruiting nine new jail deputies to staff the expanded units, with officials describing the project as an effort to prioritize mental health care and long-term rehabilitation rather than simply add space. The Shelby County Jail, located at 380 McDow Road, is a nationally accredited facility that holds over 500 inmates, according to the Shelby County Sheriff's Office.
Behavioral Health Expansions Beyond Shelby County
A similar buildout is underway at the Bibb County Law Enforcement Center in Georgia, where later construction phases include dedicated behavioral health units for male and female inmates along with consultation and group rooms, Macon.com reported. Bibb County's next construction phase is slated to add roughly 30,000 square feet and create a 150-bed housing unit that includes 24 beds set aside for inmates with mental health challenges. River Edge Behavioral Health, which provides care to Bibb County inmates, logged 9,574 contacts with inmates in the 2025-2026 fiscal year, up from 7,603 the year before, with the reported share of inmates experiencing behavioral health disorders climbing from roughly 30-35% to roughly 35-40% over that span.
