The Detention Center
The county publishes no formal name for this facility.
- Operated byThere is no county jail in Kauai County
- Who holds people awaiting trialHawaii Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (DCR), Correctional Institutions Division
- Who runs the facilityThe state. Each of the four jails - Hawaii Community Correctional Center, Kauai Community Correctional Center, Maui Community Correctional Center and Oahu Community Correctional Center - is a state facility run by the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation and staffed by state adult corrections officers. No county official and no elected official operates a jail anywhere in Hawaii.
- WhyHawaii has no county jails. The state Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation holds everyone awaiting trial, in four state-run community correctional centers - one on Hawaii Island, one on Kauai, one on Maui and one on Oahu.
- What this means for this pageThe ten transparency checks ask what a county publishes about its own jail. This county does not operate one, so it is not scored. The questions belong to the state.
Source: Hawaii Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (DCR), Correctional Institutions Division · checked 2026-08-23
The Sheriff
Sheriff There is no sheriff here
- Does a sheriff run a jail here?No
- How that work is done insteadHawaii has no county sheriff. The Sheriff Division is a division of the state Department of Law Enforcement, headed by an appointed State Sheriff; its deputy sheriffs secure courts and state buildings, serve legal process, execute warrants, guard detainees at police cellblocks and transport prisoners. The division operates no jail. Ordinary policing is done by the four county police departments, which run short-term station cellblocks but no jail.
- Detention budget requested vs. approved, by year
- Jail staffing levels and vacancy rate
- Lawsuits and settlements involving the jail
Source: Hawaii — how law enforcement is organised · checked 2026-08-23
The Judges
- The county's bond schedule
- Share of the jail population held pretrial
- Median time from booking to first appearance
Source: the state judiciary · checked 2026-08-23
These three offices decide who sits in a cell in Kauai 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.
Hawaiʻi runs elections through each county’s elections division. Links from vote.gov and USA.gov.
Names verified 2026-08-23 · dollars and outcomes still being gathered