Cassia County, Idaho — The Jail, the Sheriff, the Judges

The Detention Center

Mini-Cassia Criminal Justice Center Jail

Operated byCassia County Sheriff's Department
Address129 East 14th Street, Burley, ID 83318 (Sheriff's Office); jail listed by ISA at 1415 Albion Ave, Burley, ID 83318
Beds170 (per Idaho Sheriffs' Association jail directory; not stated on the county's own site)
What was tried for capacity/budget/PREA/inspectionscassia.gov sheriff, jail-roster, and courts-law-enforcement pages checked; not published

Source: Idaho Sheriffs' Association — Directory of Idaho's Jails · checked 2026-08-24

Transparency rating

2/10Closed

✓The jail is named
✓Who is in custody
✗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

This rates disclosure, not conduct — what Cassia County publishes about a jail its taxpayers own, checked 2026-08-24. Nothing here says the jail is run well or badly. Every mark moves the moment the county posts the document.

The Building

You paid for it. Here is what the record says it cost.

Year builtNot found
Original costNot found
Paid for byNot found
Beds170 (Idaho Sheriffs' Association directory, not confirmed on county's own site)

Since then

Not found

The Sheriff

Sheriff Jarrod Thompson

Runs the jailYes — Cassia County Sheriff's Department operates the Mini-Cassia Criminal Justice Center Jail
How the office is filledElected; Idaho Code Title 20 Chapter 6 places the sheriff in charge of the county jail

Still needed

Detention budget requested vs. approved, by year
Jail staffing levels and vacancy rate
Lawsuits and settlements involving the jail

Source: Cassia County — Law Enforcement page · checked 2026-08-24

The Judges

Idaho District Court judges and Magistrate judges are state judicial officers, not county officials. Magistrate judges are appointed by a district magistrates commission and then face a retention election. Cassia County is in the Fifth Judicial District per the county's own site; current judges' names are not published there.

Fifth Judicial District Court

Not found

Magistrate Court

Not found

Still needed

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

Board of County Commissioners (three members); meets Mondays 9:00–noon.

These three offices decide who sits in a cell in Cassia 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