The Detention Center
Ross County Jail
- Operated byRoss County Sheriff's Office
- Jail address28 North Paint Street, Chillicothe, OH 45601
- Rated capacityNot published on the sheriff's site
- People in custody153 listed on the linked roster when it was opened on 20 Sep 2026
- DivisionsOperations, Jail Support Services, Community Corrections, Court Services/Security and Inmate Transport
- CommissaryDistributed Tuesdays and Fridays; candy, coffee, instant drinks, crackers and hygiene items
- Jail AdministratorGary Clever — Chief Deputy, Jail Administrator
Source: Ross County Sheriff's Office — Jail Inmate Handbook (PDF) · checked 2026-09-20
Transparency rating
3/10Closed- ✓The jail is named
- ✓Who is in custody
- ✗Beds and daily population — not published
- ✗What it costs taxpayers — not published
- ✗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
The Building
You paid for it. Here is what the record says it cost.
- Year builtNot found
- Original costNot found
- Paid for byNot found
- BedsNot found
Since then
- Not found
The Sheriff
Sheriff George W. Lavender, Jr.
- Runs the jailYes — the sheriff's office runs the Ross County Jail at 28 North Paint Street, Chillicothe.
- How the office is filledElected, four-year term (Ohio Rev. Code 311.01)
- Non-emergency phone740-773-1186
Still needed
- Detention budget requested vs. approved, by year
- Jail staffing levels and vacancy rate
- Lawsuits and settlements involving the jail
Source: Ross County Sheriff's Office · 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.
Ross County Circuit Court
- Not found
Still needed
- 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.
- NoteThree-member board: Jack Everson, James 'Oody' Lowe and David Glass. The commissioners' site publishes member biographies; no agenda, minutes or budget document link was found on it.
- The boardRoss County Board of Commissioners
- Where the jail money is decidedNot found
Notes on the record
- The sheriff's own site publishes a Jail Inmate Handbook as a PDF. It names the Ross County Jail and sets out the jail's charges: a $5.00 'processing in' and a $5.00 'processing out' fee on everyone admitted and released; $3.00 for a nurse assessment or treatment; $10.00 for a physician assessment or treatment; a $3.00 a month processing fee on each prescription; and $5.00 for an inmate-requested diagnostic test. That is why 'fees' is a yes.
- Video visitation is described as two fifteen-minute periods a week, with extra off-site visits available 'for a fee' — the amount is not published.
- The in-custody roster is at ross.miamivalleyjails.org, linked from the sheriff's own site. It opened and showed people currently in custody at the Ross County Jail (153 listed, updated every 30 minutes on 20 Sep 2026). It is hosted on the Miami Valley Jails service run by Montgomery County's commissioners, not on a Ross County domain, but it is plainly Ross County's own roster and is published as such.
- The sheriff's Zuercher portal (ross-so-oh.zuercherportal.com) is closed to our reader by robots.txt and was not examined.
- PREA — recorded as a no. The inmate handbook carries one line on the subject: 'Sexual contact and/or conduct between inmates or inmates and staff is strictly forbidden. Anyone who witnesses or victim of any sexual act is to report it to a Deputy immediately.' There is no PREA policy, audit or reporting page, so this was not scored a yes; the sentence is recorded here so a reader can judge it.
- No rated capacity, bond guidance, death-in-custody record, county copy of an inspection report or contract document was found on the sheriff's site or the commissioners' site.
- Budget: the county auditor's old page redirects to auditor.rosscountyohio.gov, which carries property-tax tools only and no budget or appropriations document. The commissioners' site publishes no budget either.
- Sheriff's name confirmed on the sheriff's own site and spelled there George W. Lavender, Jr.
- 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 Ross 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