CLEVELAND, Ohio — Cuyahoga County Council members on Tuesday approved $3.5 million to hire enough corrections officers to end the practice of locking inmates in their cells when they have done nothing to warrant that treatment.

The money will be used to pay for 60 additional corrections officers and the supervisors needed to manage them, bringing the total number of corrections officers approved to work in the jail from 615 to 675.

At that staffing level, Sheriff Pinkney said jail administrators will no longer need to lock inmates down for hours at a time, a practice known in Cuyahoga County as “red-zoning,” according to Council President Dan Brady.

Brady and Vice President Pernel Jones committed to spend $3.5 million on more officers last month. Brady deemed the need “an emergency,” and said he would introduce legislation authorizing the increased staffing levels if the administration of County Executive Armond Budish failed to do so. The administration ultimately complied with Brady’s request, and introduced the legislation ahead of Tuesday’s meeting.

Red-zoning was one of several problems identified by the U.S. Marshals Service in a scathing Nov. 21 report that found “inhumane” conditions at the county jail. Eight jail inmates died in 2018.

The marshals determined that some inmates were locked down for 27 hours straight, or for several days in a row.

Interim jail director George Taylor said last week that lockdowns have been shortened since the release of the marshals’ report and inmates now receive four hours free from the lockdowns each day, but the practice continues due to a shortage of officers.

While red-zoned, inmates have less access to showers, phone calls and dayrooms where they can stretch their legs. Inmates and corrections officers have told cleveland.com that the practice makes inmates restless and feeds tensions inside the jail.