New jail proposal for Muskingum County and Guernsey County

ZANESVILLE, Ohio- The Muskingum County Sheriff’s Office and the county commissioners are working together to try and find a new way to build a new jail.

A proposed levy for a new jail failed in November and in a previous interview Sheriff Matt Lutz said it was in the County Commissioners hands now. Since then,Guernsey County Commissioners and Muskingum County Commissioners have been in talks about combining together to build a new Jail. Sheriff Lutz said safety is the biggest reason for the need of a new jail.

“When you start talking about overcrowding, you’re talking about safety for the inmates and safety for the Corrections officers. We have great people who work over there. It’s a very hard job to do and obviously, the folks that are in there don’t want to be in there. It is all about safety and it is all about numbers. I mean just sheer numbers. We are constantly over our recommended by the state number,” said Sheriff Lutz.

A regional jail system is already in use in several places, including Muskingum County’s Juvenile system. Sheriff Lutz said Knox and Coshocton are part of that shared system. He said this shared system could be very affordable for Muskingum County.

“The idea is that if each county kicks in that maybe we wouldn’t have to do anything with taxes, but that’s not anything definite. We would have to get an idea of how many people we are talking about and then get an idea what the price is,” said Sheriff Lutz.

Sheriff Lutz said this idea is just in the preliminary stages so there is a long way to go. Both he and the commissioners see a lot of positive aspects in this plan. He said he can see this regional jail system extending to more counties than just Muskingum and Guernsey. This would likely lower the amount of money each county needs to spend.