TOLEDO, OH (WTOL) - Each day, officers and nurses risk their lives and heath to manage the hundreds of inmates houses inside the aging Lucas County Jail.
And as old piece of equipment becomes outdated, the danger inside grows.
""The gates have begun to fail," Captain David Friddell of the Lucas County Sheriff's Office said. "The locks have begun to fail and it puts the officers on an island that nobody should have to work on."
The jail is vertical, built with a reliance on elevators to move inmates, food and supplies. Those elevators are now aging to the point they pose a danger.
"Top five things that are a danger and a hazard to the officers here it's those elevators," Patrick Mangold, president of UAW 3056. "You have to take them to court on an elevator, you have to get them to rec on another elevator. The trays come up on an elevator. So everything is dependent on these elevators. All of this inmate movement is again, unsafe."
The most severe threat is overcrowding. Units never meant to hold multiple inmates now house several.
Another threat is the nurses and officers that work in the medical.
"Severely mentally ill people back here," said Magold. "That's why they're feeding them through the food slots because they're unpredictable."
There are several concerns they need to worry about from the tight hallways and tiles breaking away from the floor to unstable inmates.
Mangold says the county jail should not hold inmates with mental health issues for those same risks.
"Once they get here in the jail we can't always meet their basic needs and when we can't meet their basic needs and get them stabilized that's what's dangerous for the officers," said Mangold.
But the wing itself also poses a danger. There are places under broken tiles inmates can store shanks, or homemade knives. Also, the corridors make it hard for officers to have a quick response in an emergency situation.
All of these factors make it hard for the jail to recruit new officers.
"Now we do the jail tour up front. I would guarantee you that out of a class of 15 [or] 20, at least one, if not two, will quit after seeing the tour and walking the catwalks and seeing what they have to deal with," Capt. Friddell said.
Sheriff John Tharp says these are the reasons is why the county needs a new jail. Sheriff Tharp says the new jail will have a medical unit that creates a safer environment for the officers and nurses that help care of the inmates.
Sheriff Tharps plans the new jail to have one level so officers can move easily throughout the facility without an elevator.
