The Detention Center
Belmont County Jail
- Operated byBelmont County Sheriff's Office
- Rated capacity144 beds — 120 male, 24 female
- Jail addressNot stated on the jail page; the sheriff's office is at 68137 Hammond Road, St. Clairsville
- VisitsTwo on-site visits a day free; unlimited off-site video visits for a fee
- CommissaryTuesdays and Fridays
- Bond fees$3.00 non-refundable fee plus a $25.00 state-mandated fee
- Jail AdministratorStanley Galownia — Chief Deputy, jail administration
Source: Belmont County Sheriff — Jail · checked 2026-09-20
Transparency rating
4/10Partial- ✓The jail is named
- ✓Who is in custody
- ✓Beds and daily population
- ✓What it costs taxpayers
- ✗Deaths in custody — not published
- ✗PREA audits — not published
- ✗Independent inspection — not published
- ✗Who else it holds, and for how much — not published
- ✗How to post bond — not published
- ✗Phone, video and commissary rates — not published
The Building
You paid for it. Here is what the record says it cost.
- Year builtNot found
- Original costNot found
- Paid for byNot found
- Beds144
Since then
- Not found
The Sheriff
Sheriff James G. Zusack
- Runs the jailYes — the sheriff's office operates the Belmont County Jail
- How the office is filledElected, four-year term (Ohio Rev. Code 311.01)
- Office68137 Hammond Road, St. Clairsville, Ohio 43950
- Detention budget requested vs. approved, by year
- Jail staffing levels and vacancy rate
- Lawsuits and settlements involving the jail
Source: Belmont County Sheriff · checked 2026-09-20
The Judges
Ohio common pleas judges are elected to six-year terms; municipal and county court judges also set bail for people arrested in their areas. They are state judicial officers, not county officials.
Belmont County Circuit Court
- Not found
- The county's bond schedule
- Share of the jail population held pretrial
- Median time from booking to first appearance
Source: the state judiciary · checked 2026-09-20
The County Commissioners
They pay for the jail. The sheriff runs it.
- What they controlThe jail budget, the building itself, and the agreements that send prisoners to a regional jail or rent beds to other agencies. In Cuyahoga and Summit, the elected County Executive and County Council.
- What they don'tDay-to-day operations. The sheriff is separately elected and has charge of the county jail by state law (Ohio Rev. Code 341.01) — unless the county uses a regional jail run by a multicounty board.
- NoteThe commissioners' office is at 101 W. Main Street, St. Clairsville. Annual appropriations are also recorded in the first regular meeting minutes of each year.
- The boardBelmont County Board of Commissioners →
- Where the jail money is decidedAgendas and minutes →
Notes on the record
- belmontsheriff.com redirects to the sheriff's current site, belmontsheriffohio.gov; the jail roster is still served from the old domain and was opened — it lists names, charges, court, case status, bail amounts, booking dates and arresting agency for people held now.
- The jail page names the Belmont County Jail, gives 144 beds (120 male, 24 female) and names Chief Deputy Stanley Galownia for jail administration.
- Budget: the commissioners publish appropriations documents; the 2019 general-fund appropriations PDF carries a Sheriff department total and a "SALARIES-JAIL" line, plus a separate Nurses-Jail department.
- The county's main portal (belmontcountyohio.org) returned 403 to our reader; the commissioners' own site answered and was used.
- The jail page states a $3.00 non-refundable bond fee and a $25.00 state-mandated fee but gives no procedure for posting bond, so bond guidance is scored "no". Two jail PDFs on the sheriff's site (2019 jail information and video visitation) contain no machine-readable text, so any rates in them could not be read.
- No PREA material, deaths-in-custody record, county-posted inspection report or jail contract was found.
- No ODRC inspection report for Belmont County was supplied with this kit.
- State inspection/oversight: Ohio's Department of Rehabilitation and Correction, through its Bureau of Adult Detention, inspects full-service county jails each year against the Minimum Standards for Jails in Ohio (Ohio Adm. Code 5120:1-8) and publishes the reports on its own website.
These three offices decide who sits in a cell in Belmont County and what it costs the people who live here. Nationally, almost 77% of the people who died in local jails in 2019 had not been convicted of anything, and suicide was the leading single cause of those deaths (Bureau of Justice Statistics, Mortality in Local Jails, 2000–2019).
How much is your sheriff — and your judge — costing you?
Your VOTE is POWERFUL.
The sheriff who runs this jail is elected. So are the commissioners who pay for it.
Names verified 2026-09-20 · dollars and outcomes still being gathered