The Detention Center
Not found
- Operated byNot found
- No jail listedBear Lake County does not appear in the Idaho Sheriffs' Association's Directory of Idaho's Jails
- County siteNo jail or detention facility is mentioned on the Bear Lake County Sheriff, Commissioners, Courts, Departments, Officials, or History pages checked
- Where prisoners goNot found — no source checked states which facility holds Bear Lake County's prisoners
- What was triedhttp://www.bearlakecounty.info/sheriff.html, /commissioners.html, /courts.html, /departments.html, /officials.html, /history.html; the separate Bear Lake County Sheriff's Office site (blcso.us) returned a 403 error on every attempt
Source: Idaho Sheriffs' Association — Directory of Idaho's Jails (no Bear Lake County listing) · checked 2026-08-24
Transparency rating
0/10Closed- ✗The jail is named — not published
- ✗Who is in custody — not published
- ✗Beds and daily population — not published
- ✗What it costs taxpayers — not published
- ✗Deaths in custody — not published
- ✗PREA audits — not published
- ✗Independent inspection — not published
- ✗Who else it holds, and for how much — not published
- ✗How to post bond — not published
- ✗Phone, video and commissary rates — not published
The Building
You paid for it. Here is what the record says it cost.
- Year builtNot found
- Original costNot found
- Paid for byNot found
- BedsNot found
Since then
- Not found
The Sheriff
Sheriff Bart Heslington
- Runs the jailNo confirmed county jail — see jail entry below
- How the office is filledElected; Idaho Code Title 20 Ch. 6 makes the sheriff jailer where a county operates one
- Office location30 No Main, P.O. Box 365, Paris, ID 83261
- Detention budget requested vs. approved, by year
- Jail staffing levels and vacancy rate
- Lawsuits and settlements involving the jail
Source: Bear Lake County Idaho — Sheriff · checked 2026-08-24
The Judges
Idaho's District Court serves the judicial district (Bear Lake is in the Sixth Judicial District, with Bannock, Caribou, Franklin, Oneida, and Power counties) and Magistrate Court judges are appointed by a district magistrates commission and then face retention election. Both are state judicial officers, not county officials.
Sixth Judicial District Court — Administrative District Judge
- Hon. Javier Gabiola
Bear Lake County Magistrate Court
- Todd Garbett
- The county's bond schedule
- Share of the jail population held pretrial
- Median time from booking to first appearance
Source: the state judiciary · checked 2026-08-24
The County Commissioners
They pay for the jail. The sheriff runs it.
- What they controlThe detention budget, the building itself, and the agreements that let other agencies rent its beds.
- What they don'tDay-to-day operations. The sheriff is separately elected and answers to voters, not to the board.
- The boardBoard of County Commissioners →
- Where the jail money is decidedAgendas and minutes →
Notes on the record
- No jail or detention facility for Bear Lake County was found on the county's own site or in the Idaho Sheriffs' Association jail directory — treated as a county with no jail of its own per the brief's Idaho guidance, though where its prisoners are actually held was not confirmed by any source checked.
- Idaho has no confirmed statutory adult jail inspection agency; the Idaho Sheriffs' Association runs a voluntary jail standards/inspection program whose reports are not public.
- Bear Lake County Board of Commissioners — three members: Alan P. Eborn (District I), Rex L. Payne (District II, Chair), Wynn S. Olsen (District III)
These three offices decide who sits in a cell in Bear Lake 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.
Names verified 2026-08-24 · dollars and outcomes still being gathered