The Cuyahoga County jail is housed in a foreboding brutalist structure known as the Justice Center. Built in 1976, the complex is made of concrete and includes the Cleveland Police headquarters and the Cuyahoga County and Cleveland Municipal Courts tower.
When it first opened, the Justice Center was heralded as a new era for humane conditions for the incarcerated. It replaced the “leaky old jail” — compared in the press to a “crumbling coffin” — where, in the span of six months, 16 prisoners escaped through the windows. The Justice Center was expanded in 1995 and renovated four years later to add more beds
Today, “Jail 1,” the original highrise built in 1976, doesn’t have a single window in the north section of the tower. The 1996 expansion does have windows—thin slits that don’t let in much light. As a result, the people incarcerated there — and the jail’s employees — do not have access to fresh air or sunlight for most of their stay.
Incarcerated people routinely complain that the disconnection from the outside is disorientating, said one jail staffer who worked in the building from 2017 until last year. She spoke to The Marshall Project on the condition she not be named for fear of being retaliated against by people who still work in the jail. She said the incarcerated people she interacted with told her they could only tell what time of day it was by the meals they were served.
State law mandates natural light in housing units in every jail in the state, and the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction has repeatedly cited the Cuyahoga County jail for falling short, state records show. Even though the jail was cited in 2019, 2021, 2022 2023 and 2024, county jail officials have never faced penalties for failing to meet the standard.
Little has changed in the 30 years since the second building was built.
This article was published in partnership with The Marshall Project, a nonprofit news organization covering the U.S. criminal justice system. Reporters from The Marshall Project’s local news teams offer a closer look at the effects of limited sunlight access on people held in jails in Cleveland, St. Louis and Jackson. Read all of the pieces.
Bringing sunlight and fresh air into jails often takes a back seat
Jails are notorious for inhumane conditions. Detainees often complain of violence, inedible food, limited programming and subpar healthcare. Lack of sunlight may be an unexpected addition to the list. But sunlight deprivation causes a myriad of serious issues, including high blood pressure, osteoporosis, and an increased risk of diabetes, as well as a host of mental health problems such as depression and sleep disorders.
Jails built in the last century often have few windows and little room for recreation and natural light, making them “obsolete” by today’s design standards, according to Kenneth Ricci, prison and jail architect with Nelson Worldwide, a design firm.
Bringing sunlight and fresh air into jails often takes a back seat to other pressing issues. But a lawsuit in San Francisco suggests forcing detainees to live in the dark could violate their constitutional rights. In 2021, a group of men awaiting trial at two California jails sued the city and county of San Francisco for being confined without fresh air and sunlight.
U.S. Magistrate Judge Sallie Kim ultimately agreed with the men. In 2023, she ruled that the jails had violated the Constitution’s due process clause. The officials “created the problem by building a jail without a secured outdoor exercise yard and then relies upon that problem to claim that it cannot provide a secure way for inmates to have access to direct sunlight,” she wrote.
These issues are top of mind for residents who have followed the opening and closure of jails in Cleveland and other cities including St. Louis and Jackson, Mississippi, where detainees can go years without seeing the sun.
The jails in all three cities have requirements to provide sunlight and fresh air, either mandated by jail policy, or by the state or federal governments. Yet all three have consistently fallen short, according to jail officials and state and federal inspection reports.
Jail administrators in Cleveland and Mississippi are banking on new facilities to improve conditions. City officials in St. Louis closed their crumbling older jail in 2021, but shuffling detainees into the remaining, newer jail hasn’t solved the problems. In each city, questions remain about whether new jails will address the web of challenges — building design, court backlogs and understaffing chief among them — that keep detainees from seeing the sun.
The windows one tower at the Cuyahoga County jail, left, are thin slits, roughly 1.5 inches by 5 inches with steel fixtures secured on the outside, the county executive confirmed. The windows of the jail’s second tower, right, are 2.3 inches by 2.3 inches. (Photos by Michael Indriolo for The Marshall Project.)
Emphasis on security over sunlight impacts people held in the Cuyahoga County Jail and staff, too
Darrell Houston was booked into jail in 1991 after being charged for a murder. His conviction was later reversed, and he was exonerated after serving 18 years in state prison. But he still remembers the lack of air and sunlight in the county jail.
He said the windows on the main housing units are “a little slot. You have to peek out. You don’t get a full view. It’s about the width of your finger.” (The windows in one tower of the jail are roughly 1.5 inches by 5 inches with steel fixtures secured on the outside, County Executive Chris Ronayne confirmed. In the jail’s second tower, the windows are 2.3 inches by 2.3 inches.
Houston also remembered the windowless “dead rooms” in the jail, which were used as punishment.
The emphasis on security over sunlight affects employees, too. Adam Chaloupka, general counsel for the Ohio Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association, which represents the county’s corrections officers, said union members call it “a sick building.” Over the years many officers said they have developed breathing problems from the lack of fresh air, he added.
“No real air circulates. All air is recycled,” Chaloupka said. “In the rec rooms, which are little gyms in a few parts of the jail, they can open up shutters. That’s about the only access to outside air.”
He said the county’s hopes of resolving the complaints seem to lie in the construction of a new jail.
County officials have budgeted nearly $1 billion for a replacement facility, which officials say will address the jail’s substandard conditions. However, Cuyahoga County Council members have expressed frustration and concern about the county executive’s lack of clear communication about the building plans.
In June, the county will present its design planning progress to the council’s Public Safety Committee. A jail steering committee was established in 2019, but hasn’t convened since 2022. Last year, four Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court judges wrote a letter pleading with the county executive to reinstate the committee to ensure accountability and oversight of the new project.
A spokesperson for the county executive told The Marshall Project – Cleveland that the new building will provide access to “fresh air and natural light” and that the administration takes “the health and safety of our staff and those in our custody at the Cuyahoga County Corrections Center seriously.”
The new facility is expected to be completed in late 2028 or early 2029.
The Marshall Project’s Ivy Scott and Dajá Henry contributed to this story.
