Portable Jail Modules – Unbelievable!

You can park your family car in the garage on levels one, two, and three, but the basement level is reserved for convicts. That’s right, prisoners occupy the entire lower level of this concrete parking structure.

The sheriff of this Ohio county solved his jail overcrowding issues by installing ten mobile housing units inside a fenced-in area, in the lower level of the county jail’s parking garage. The units, called modules, are similar to cargo shipping containers.

Not only did the sheriff make good use of a small space, he saved the county hundreds of thousands of dollars in construction costs. The prisoners, all non-violent, low-level offenders, actually say they like their little basement hide-a-way.

Each module is equipped with heat and air conditioning. A jail officer is stationed at the booth (outside the module enclosure) in the top center of the of the above photograph.

Interior of a module. Each units houses ten inmates.

The space between the modules serves as a recreation area for basketball, card playing, and board games.

The entire module area is monitored by video cameras that feed images in real-time to the deputy in the control booth.

Hopefully, our computer issues will be cleared up today. If so, we’ll return to normal blog posting tomorrow. Thanks for your patience.