The Detention Center
Hancock County Jail
- Operated byHancock County Sheriff's Office
- Jail address98 Buchanan Street, Carthage, IL 62321
- Capacity (county site)Maximum 54 inmates
- Average daily population (county site)About 30 (about 15% female)
- Opened (county site)January 1987
- Rated capacity (IDOC 2025)54 (42 male, 12 female)
- Population on inspection day (IDOC 2025)12 (10 male, 2 female)
- Visitation (county site)Wednesdays and Saturdays, 15–30 minutes, monitored, by appointment
- Jail AdministratorKelly Twaddle — Jail administrator named in the IDOC 2025 inspection report (not named on the county site pages opened)
Source: Hancock County Jail Visiting and Rules (county site) · checked 2026-09-20
Transparency rating
3/10Closed- ✓The jail is named
- ✗Who is in custody — not published
- ✓Beds and daily population
- ✗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
- ✗Phone, video and commissary rates — not published
The Building
You paid for it. Here is what the record says it cost.
- Year builtOpened January 1987 (county site; IDOC 2025 says built 1987)
- Original costNot found
- Paid for byNot found
- Beds54 (county site and IDOC 2025 rated capacity)
Since then
- Not found
The Sheriff
Sheriff Travis Duffy
- Runs the jailYes — the sheriff is warden of the county jail (55 ILCS 5/3-15003)
- How the office is filledElected, four-year term (Illinois Sheriffs' Association page says elected in 2022)
- Phone217-357-2115
- Detention budget requested vs. approved, by year
- Jail staffing levels and vacancy rate
- Lawsuits and settlements involving the jail
Source: Hancock County Jail Visiting and Rules (county site) · 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.
Hancock 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).
- NoteCounty site posts agendas and minutes for the board and committees (e.g. Finance Committee), budgets FY2020–FY2026 and audit reports on its County Finances page.
- The boardHancock County Board →
- Where the jail money is decidedAgendas and minutes →
Notes on the record
- The sheriff's jail page names the Hancock County Jail, gives capacity (54) and average daily population (about 30), visitation rules, and says commissary deposits and bail payments can be made 24/7 via jailatm.com (cash, money order, credit card; no personal checks).
- Bond guidance is limited to how to pay; the page does not describe the post-2023 pretrial release process.
- The posted jail rules PDF says calls are prepaid or by phone cards sold by the jail but gives no rates; no PREA content found in it.
- The FY2026 budget is posted on the County Finances page, but the PDF has no machine-readable text, so a sheriff or jail line could not be confirmed and the budget check was not credited.
- No inmate roster found on the county site; the sheriff's page links OffenderWatch (sex-offender registry) only.
- The IDOC 2025 report names a jail administrator (Kelly Twaddle).
- State inspection/oversight: IDOC Jail and Detention Standards Unit, inspected 23 Sep 2025: rated capacity 54, population 12 that day; noncompliances: staffing — "The jail utilizes one jail officer and a radio dispatcher to staff the jail during evening and overnight hours"; supervision — 26 of 169 personal observations exceeded the 30-minute requirement, "an on-time percentage of 87%"; sanitation — graffiti and wall-adhered puzzles observed in living areas.
These three offices decide who sits in a cell in Hancock 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