AKRON, Ohio – For much of the past decade, no Summit County inmates checked out a book or shot basketball hoops because the jail’s library and gym were closed.

But now, thousands of books are available to inmates who are also allotted free time in the gym.

The expanded programs for inmates are part of changes at the jail that stem from recommendations by the Summit County Jail Advisory Commission, which formed in 2017 to improve conditions at the jail.

Rebecca McCutcheon, director of inmate services for the jail, said the facility had struggled to provide services following a round of staff layoffs in August 2009.

A year ago, the jail advisory commission made recommendations to improve jail operations for staff and inmates. In addition to improving inmate services, the 11-member panel suggested staffing changes and replacing old security cameras.

At her third State of the County address on Thursday, County Executive Ilene Shapiro said the jail has implemented many of the commission’s recommendations over the past year.

The county has replaced 107 jail cameras – some of which were more than 20 years old – and added 261 new ones, Shapiro said during her address at the John S. Knight Center.

Summit County also converted the Glenwood Jail in Akron to a “community alternative sentencing center,” which allowed for the transfer of 18 deputies to the county jail.

Deputies now work in 12-hour shifts, which was suggested as a way to reduce overtime costs and free up funding for programming.

“I’m happy to announce that overtime costs at the jail have decreased 26%, sick time has been reduced by 13% and injury pay is down 59%,” Shapiro said.

Over the past year, McCutcheon said the inmate services department has hired six full-time employees, bringing the total to 12. Additional employees allowed the jail to implement additional church services as well as Narcotics Anonymous and Alcoholics Anonymous programs for both male and female inmates.

The jail usually houses between 700 to 750 inmates who typically stay for 30 to 45 days, with some staying overnight and others in custody for more than a year.

“The gym is probably one of the best things that have happened so far,” McCutcheon said. “It gives those inmates the release of getting off the housing unit, the pod, going to the gym for an hour a day, five days a week.”

Twice a week, staff open the jail’s two libraries, one for men and one for women, so inmates can check out books to read.

“It keeps their mind busy when they’re in their cell. It gives them something to do,” McCutcheon said. “And maybe it’ll be a positive impact on them when they’re released because we got a lot of college books, high school books, GED books.”

After the Sheriff’s Office posted on its Facebook page earlier this month to ask for books for the jail library, McCutcheon was bombarded with thousands of donations from across the country.

“We collected close to 15,000 books in one week,” she said. “People from Chicago and California were contacting me and wanted to ship me books.”

The jail is no longer accepting donations of books, but McCutcheon hopes that inmate services will continue to grow.

“It’s just really been beneficial for the Sheriff’s Office as a whole, as well as these inmates,” she said.

Want more Akron news? Sign up for cleveland.com’s Rubber City Daily, an email newsletter delivered at 5:30 a.m. Monday through Friday.