Union County, Ohio — The Jail, the Sheriff, the Judges

The Detention Center

Tri-County Regional Jail

Operated byTri-County Corrections Commission (a multicounty board under Ohio Rev. Code 307.93)
Jail address4099 State Route 559, Mechanicsburg, OH 43044
Member countiesChampaign, Madison and Union
What Union County says"Tri-County Jail houses Union County inmates, as well as those from Champaign and Madison Counties."
Governing boardCommissioners and sheriffs from the three member counties
Own holding facilityNot found — no Union County short-term holding facility is mentioned on the county's site
Jail AdministratorScott E. Springhetti — Executive Director, Tri-County Regional Jail

Source: Union County, Ohio — Tri-County Regional Jail · checked 2026-09-20

Transparency rating

2/10Closed

✓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 — not published

This rates disclosure, not conduct — what Union County publishes about a jail its taxpayers own, checked 2026-09-20. Nothing here says the jail is run well or badly. Every mark moves the moment the county posts the document.

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 Mike Justice

Runs the jailNo — Union County's prisoners are held at the Tri-County Regional Jail in Mechanicsburg, run by the Tri-County Corrections Commission; the sheriff sits on that commission rather than running the jail
How the office is filledElected, four-year term
Office221 West 5th Street, Marysville

Still needed

Detention budget requested vs. approved, by year
Jail staffing levels and vacancy rate
Lawsuits and settlements involving the jail

Source: Union County, Ohio — Message from the 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.

Union 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 commissioners meeting Wednesdays at 8:30 a.m. at 233 West Sixth Street, Marysville.
The boardUnion County Board of Commissioners →
Where the jail money is decidedAgendas and minutes →

Notes on the record

Union County is a member of a multicounty jail. The elected sheriff does not run the jail: prisoners go to the Tri-County Regional Jail at Mechanicsburg, operated by the Tri-County Corrections Commission, whose board is drawn from the commissioners and sheriffs of Champaign, Madison and Union counties.
Checks were judged on both the county's own site (unioncountyohio.gov) and the regional jail's own site (tricountyregionaljail.com), which is first-party for its member counties. The county page names the facility and links its in-custody roster; the regional jail's site links the same roster.
Neither site publishes a rated capacity, year built, cost, PREA material, inspection report, deaths-in-custody information or any jail contract, and neither gives bond or bail guidance.
Phone service (ICSolutions), trust-account funding (accesscorrections.com) and video visitation (JailATM) are named on the regional jail's site, but no fee rates are published, so the fees check is no.
The county auditor publishes monthly fund-balance reports and annual financial reports on the county's own site; the 2024 annual report was opened and no sheriff, jail or Tri-County Regional Jail expenditure line was visible, so the budget check is no.
Nothing on the county's site indicates Union County keeps its own short-term holding facility.
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 Union 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