MONTGOMERY COUNTY — Nearly $20 million has been approved for a behavioral health unit at the Montgomery County Jail.
[DOWNLOAD: Free WHIO-TV News app for alerts as news breaks]
As reported on News Center 7 at 11:00, county commissioners have been working on this project since 2017.
They said the money will help create a safer, more supportive environment at the jail.
“We were able to take the existing facility, make it better, enhance it, and come up with one set of treatment. So this is the way you want to go,” Montgomery County Administrator Michael Colbert said.
TRENDING STORIES:
- School board votes to fire staff member accused of having ‘inappropriate relationship’ with student
- Ohio public library mistakenly sends around $400K to fake vendor in scam
- Bodies pulled from Great Miami River identified as missing father, 9-year-old daughter
There was a long list of approvals for the Montgomery County Commissioners on Tuesday night, but none of them were more expensive than the nearly $20 million taxpayer-funded jail project.
Still, the commissioners were quick to approve it.
“This is helping both the inmates and the staff from the standpoint of safety,” Colbert said.
The plan is to turn more than 200 beds in the jail’s general population into a behavioral health and medical wing.
Currently, the jail has just a dozen beds to treat inmates’ behavioral and medical problems.
“The jail gives you an opportunity to treat individuals and stabilize them. And when we look at the healthcare portal, it gives you an opportunity to find out where they’ve been and how we continue that treatment,” Colbert said.
The commissioners said behavioral health is a growing problem.
Since the pandemic, the county has seen a 26% increase in behavioral health, mental health, and addiction problems.
“As that population shifts, we are able to address that infrastructure in that way,” Colbert said.
He added that the improved features are a trend he is seeing across the country.
“Individuals across the state are spending millions of dollars, hundreds of millions of dollars to build new jails,” Colbert said.
News Center 7’s Mason Fletcher asked Colbert if this project intends to make the county safer.
“I think this project is going to help individual inmates from the standpoint of giving them the services and the treatment they need,” he said.
Construction will start in late October and last until 2027.
News Center 7 will continue to follow this story.
[SIGN UP: WHIO-TV Daily Headlines Newsletter]
©2025 Cox Media Group
