Editor’s note: My final reporting assignment for The Herald-Times was covering the May 26, 2026, Monroe County Council meeting, where disagreement over a new jail that meets Constitutional standards of inmate care dragged on. It was all so familiar.
In 1986, I sat down with then-Monroe County Sheriff Jim Young at the just-built jail at the Zietlow Justice Center. Eighty prisoners would soon be moved in. “The move from the current jail, a crumbing, leaking dilapidated structure at Fourth and Walnut streets, has been long-awaited by jail workers and inmates,” my story said.
Two years later, I wrote a follow-up story with this headline: “New, larger jail has same old problem − Monroe still faces overcrowding.”
Excerpts from June 19, 1988, H-T jail story
∎ On a Thursday back in January of 1985, 81 inmates were incarcerated in the old, dilapidated Monroe County Jail at Fourth and Walnut streets.
”And if I get another one tonight, there’s no place to put him,” said Phil Siscoe, who was commander of the old jail. He pleaded with Sheriff Jim Young and the county’s judges to find a way to alleviate the overcrowded conditions.
∎ Today, Monroe County has a shiny new jail − two floors atop the downtown Justice Building. The jail, opened early in 1986, has 128 cells to accommodate prisoners.
The 127,000-square-foot jail is a welcome relief from the old facility: the plumbing works, the plaster isn’t crumbling and temperatures are cool in the summer and warm in the winter.
But on Sunday, May 22, the Monroe County Jail had 147 inmates behind bars. May 15, there were 145. One day in April, and on another day in March, the jail housed 142 prisoners. Feb. 7, the inmate count was 144. Finally, this month, the number of inmates has stabilized below the 128-person capacity.
∎ There were times in February and March that Monroe County inmates were sent to the Owen or Morgan County jail because of no space. ”We have an economical crisis, an overcrowding crisis and a staffing crisis,” Young said.
∎ ”Everybody’s really pulling together to find a way to deal with the overcrowding − for a long period, not just the immediate problem,” jail commander Toni Hinds said. ”We want to help rehabilitate prisoners, not just house them, but when we’re overcrowded, we can’t focus as much on that.”
When she is feeling frustrated about the overcrowding/understaffing dilemma, Hinds picks up her scrapbook of pictures from the old jail. Flipping through pages reflecting horrible conditions reminds her how much worse life inside the jail could be.
”We’ve come a long way,” Hinds said, remembering the days of no heat in the winter, floods from ancient plumbing, dangerous conditions, the fuchsia-colored drunk tank, decaying walls and floors. ”I look at my book and remember where we started.”
This article originally appeared on The Herald-Times: A step back in time | Current jail was overcrowded two years after built
Reporting by Laura Lane, The Herald-Times / The Herald-Times
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