Jail Administrator Sgt. Karla Pleiman, center, talks to Shelby County Common Pleas Court Chief Adult Probation Officer Ruth Cooper, left, and Shelby County Common Pleas Judge James Stevenson about the new intake facility recently built onto the Shelby County Jail during a ribbon cutting ceremony on Friday, Oct. 16. The facility was built to isolate inmates from the rest of the jail until they can be safely checked for any hidden drugs to prevent them from contaminating the rest of the facility with such dangerous drugs such as fentanyl. The intake facility has separate ducts from the rest of the prison so that if a cloud of fentanyl powder were to be sucked up into an air vent it would not spread far. An emergency shut off button can also be used to shut down the air flow in the intake center to limit any drug exposure for other inmates in the intake center’s other rooms. The intake center is also being used as a 14 day quarantine for new inmates to make sure they don’t potentially infect other inmates with COVID-19. The facility opens on Monday, Oct. 19.
