The Detention Center
Scioto County Correction Center
- Operated byScioto County Sheriff's Office
- Jail address1025 16th Street, Portsmouth, OH 45662
- Rated capacity190 beds (2024 state inspection report)
- Divisions under CorrectionsJail Operations, Food Service, Prisoner Transport, Court Security
- Name noteThe facility name comes from the state's 2024 inspection report; the sheriff's own site calls it only "Corrections/Jail"
- Jail AdministratorCaptain Damon Roberts — Corrections Division Commander
Source: ODRC Bureau of Adult Detention, 2024 Scioto County inspection report · checked 2026-09-20
Transparency rating
1/10Closed- ✗The jail is named — not published
- ✓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 — 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
- Beds190 (rated capacity, 2024 state inspection report)
Since then
- Not found
The Sheriff
Sheriff David Thoroughman
- Runs the jailYes — the sheriff's office operates the county jail at 1025 16th St, Portsmouth
- How the office is filledElected, four-year term
- Corrections contactCorrections/Jail (740) 355-8277
- Detention budget requested vs. approved, by year
- Jail staffing levels and vacancy rate
- Lawsuits and settlements involving the jail
Source: Scioto 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.
Scioto County Circuit Court
- Scioto County Court of Common Pleas
- Scioto County Domestic Relations Court
- 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; meets Tuesdays and Thursdays at 9:30 a.m. at the Scioto County Courthouse, room 310.
- The boardScioto County Board of Commissioners →
- Where the jail money is decidedAgendas and minutes →
Notes on the record
- The sheriff's website listed in the state association directory (sciotocountysheriff.com) is closed to our reader; the live site is sciotocountysheriff.org, found by search.
- The sheriff's own pages never give the jail a published name — they say only "Corrections/Jail" — so the 'named' check is no even though the state's inspection report calls it the Scioto County Correction Center.
- The Inmate Information page links a current in-custody listing headed "Scioto County Jail" (174 people listed when opened), so the roster check passes.
- Commissary is described (orders twice weekly, $60 per-order limit) and offsite video visits are said to carry a fee, but no phone, visit or commissary rates are published, so the fees check is no.
- Nothing on the sheriff's site addresses bond posting, PREA, deaths in custody, inspections, contracts or the jail's rated capacity.
- The county's own site (sciotocountyoh.com) carries the commissioners and elected offices but no sheriff, jail or budget pages.
- What was tried and refused: sciotocountysheriff.com, www.sciotocountyohio.gov, www.co.scioto.oh.us (all closed to our reader).
- State inspection/oversight: Ohio's Bureau of Adult Detention inspected the Scioto County Correction Center in 2024 under the Minimum Standards for Jails in Ohio (Ohio Adm. Code 5120:1-8); the report is published on the state's site.
These three offices decide who sits in a cell in Scioto 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