Smart and Sustainable Justice System Serves as a County Model 

The County Commissioners made a simple request — design the Franklin County Corrections Center to be a national model for the rest of the country to follow. 

A multidisciplinary team of experts in the areas of jail operations, inmate behaviour management, correctional medical and mental health care, and inmate therapeutic treatment and reintegration was assembled.  This architect-led team developed a program and architectural design that focuses on best practices and emerging trends.  The resulting facility is treatment-based and outcomes-focused rather than the County’s former containment model.  All jail operations were re-imagined to develop a more intentional, coordinated, and robust process of intake, assessment, program matching, service tracking, behavioural incentivization, and transition planning for inmates. 

Designed in association with DLZ, the design process involved a significant number of workshops with the owner and the users to develop a design that is operations-focused, normalised, efficient and safe. The jail will be built in two phases. The first phase will provide:

• All of the core support spaces for a complete build out of 2,800 beds
• Eighty percent of the 870 beds are designed for inmates with special needs, including those requiring medical care and mental health care
• Special behaviour management housing units that incorporate recent federal guidelines on the design and use of restrictive housing
• Intake/Release (booking)
• Food Service, Laundry and Warehouse
• Court Transport