we're in the jailhouse now

We're in the jailhouse now, we're in the jailhouse now
I told the judge right to his face
We didn't like to see this place
We're in the jailhouse now — Jimmie Rodgers

THE OHIO STATE Reformatory was closed by federal judge Frank Battisti, the Boyd Consent Decree. Prisoners sued on account of inhumane conditions.  It was to go in effect 1986, but the new prison in the back was not finished until 1990. The land that it sits on was a Civil War camp. Building began in 1886, and was completed in 1910 with several buildings, a courtyard, and a perimeter wall. The first prisoners came in 1896. During the 1960s, it became a maximum security prison. The smaller buildings, and the exterior wall are gone. This gate was saved and moved.

This was a reformatory, and then a maximum security prison. To-day, there are schools built that are more depressing buildings. The original architect was Levi Scofield, who designed the limestone  (partly) in Richardsonian Romanesque. Scofield was a Clevelander, who designed the Soldiers' and Sailors' Monument on Cleveland's Public Square, and also the Lunatic Asylum in Athens, which was called "the North Green" by the students at THE OHIO University.

The dedicatory stone on the warden's porch says "Intermediate Penitentiary", as it was called in its first five years. It was for young offenders too old for the Boys Industrial School in Lancaster, and not as criminal as the prisoners at the State Penitentiary in Columbus.

Mansfield Reformatory Preservation Society bought the remains for a dollar in 1995, and have made it a museum. There are tours, for several weeks a year it becomes a Hallowe'en haunt, it has had concerts (country western), Murder Mystery Dinner, and other events. The prison is available to be rented out. It has become a tattoo parlor: "Hey honey, i'm going to get a prison tattoo at the prison".  It has been filmed for shows on ghosts, and the paranormal. Movies, and music videos are filmed there. "The Shawshank Redemption" filmed in 1993, being the most noted.