The Detention Center
Crawford County Jail
- Operated byCrawford County Sheriff's Office
- Jail address203 South Jefferson St., Robinson, IL 62454
- Rated capacity (IDOC 2025)45 (33 male, 12 female)
- Population on inspection day (IDOC 2025)26 (16 male, 10 female)
- Year built (IDOC 2025)1987
- Jail AdministratorChief Fred Chinn — Jail Administrator, named in IDOC 2025 inspection report only
Source: Crawford County Illinois — Sheriff's Office · checked 2026-09-20
Transparency rating
3/10Closed- ✓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
- ✗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 built1987 (IDOC 2025 report)
- Original costNot found
- Paid for byNot found
- Beds45 rated (IDOC 2025)
Since then
- Not found
The Sheriff
Sheriff William Rutan
- Runs the jailYes — the County Jail operates under the Sheriff's Department
- How the office is filledElected, four-year term
- Office address203 South Jefferson St., Robinson, IL 62454
- Detention budget requested vs. approved, by year
- Jail staffing levels and vacancy rate
- Lawsuits and settlements involving the jail
Source: Crawford County, Illinois — Sheriff Department · checked 2026-09-20
The Judges
Illinois circuit judges are elected on a partisan ballot and then stand for retention every six years (60% yes needed); associate judges are appointed by the circuit judges. They are state judicial officers, not county officials. Since 18 September 2023 Illinois has no cash bail — judges decide pretrial release or detention at a hearing.
Crawford County Circuit Court
- Not found
- The county's bond schedule
- Share of the jail population held pretrial
- Median time from booking to first appearance
Source: the state judiciary · checked 2026-09-20
The County Board
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 is the warden of the jail by state law (55 ILCS 5/3-15003).
- Note10 members, two per district in five districts; chairman William Burke Jr. (2024–2026 list).
- The boardCrawford County Board →
- Where the jail money is decidedAgendas and minutes →
Notes on the record
- The county runs two sites (crawfordcounty.illinois.gov and crawfordcountyil.org); the newer site says some functionality is not yet active.
- The sheriff's page links the county's own jail roster at jail.crawfordcountyil.org; the roster itself was blocked by robots.txt in this session.
- County jail page carries a PREA statement with a reporting phone line (618-546-1515 ext. 2).
- Deposit and messaging vendors linked (Court Money, JailATM, Cidnet) with no rates shown.
- Board minutes are posted; no budget document, capacity, bond guidance, deaths or contracts found.
- State inspection/oversight: IDOC Jail and Detention Standards Unit, inspected 24 February 2025: rated capacity 45, population 26 that day; noncompliances: 701.30 Records — monthly population and JMIS reports not submitted despite "multiple requests from the JDSU"; 701.130 — supervision checks 98.7% timely, and "Individual cell doors have not been repaired"; 701.250 — "An audit was not produced on the date of the compliance monitoring."
These three offices decide who sits in a cell in Crawford 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 county board members who pay for it.
Names verified 2026-09-20 · dollars and outcomes still being gathered