The Cuyahoga County Jail underwent two inspections in 2024, revealing some improvements, while also noting other long-term problems inside the oft-criticized facility. 

A November 2024 jail inspection by Donald Leach, a corrections consultant hired as part of a civil lawsuit settlement, found the facility continues to address longstanding issues such as officer training and food quality. However, the report illustrates other issues in the jail’s medical grievance procedures. 

This article was published in partnership with The Marshall Project, a nonprofit news organization covering the U.S. criminal justice system.

In January, The Marshall Project – Cleveland reported that the Ohio Bureau of Adult Detention placed the Cuyahoga County Jail on a corrective action plan in April 2024 after staff ignored an incarcerated person’s pleas for medical help for several days.

Leach found that paper grievance forms were not readily available, forcing incarcerated people to file grievances through electronic kiosks. The jail’s medical cart used outdated forms, according to the report. 

The jail provided Leach with 893 grievances filed in October, though he noted that most were requests for services or court information rather than actual medical concerns. 

In January, High Priest Aaron Pampley Jr. filed a handwritten civil rights lawsuit against the Cuyahoga County Jail alleging he was denied access to grievance kiosks while he was incarcerated at the jail.

Leach’s next visit is scheduled for May. Read his inspection here. 

Meanwhile, Cuyahoga County’s 2024 jail inspection by the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction shows the jail did not comply with seven standards, the lowest deficiency count in recent years.

In 2022 and 2023, the jail did not comply with 13 standards — notably, failures in training jail staff.

Cuyahoga County made national news in 2018 after a U.S. Marshal Services probe and state inspections identified 84 substandard citations. 

On the day of the 2024 inspection, the ODRC found seven deficiencies, including improper security post staffing, poor jail lighting and access to sunlight, and insufficient shower space. 

“This report reinforces our ongoing efforts to enhance operations at the current facility while we also plan for the new Central Services Campus,” Sheriff Harold Pretel said in a statement after the state inspection. You can read the report here or below.

Brittany Hailer is a staff writer for The Marshall Project - Cleveland. She reports on local criminal justice stories and examines the persistent problems in Cleveland,. Hailer joined The Marshall Project after serving as the director of the Pittsburgh Institute of Nonprofit Journalism, a news outlet she co-founded in 2021. She won the best investigative journalism award in the 2022 Nonprofit News Awards for her reporting on jail deaths.

The Marshall Project is a nonpartisan, nonprofit news organization that seeks to create and sustain a sense of national urgency about the U.S. criminal justice system. Through a partnership with Signal Cleveland, The Marshall Project is weaving more resident voices into its reporting and building an understanding about how the justice system works — and doesn’t work — in Cleveland.