The Detention Center
Hardin County Jail
- Operated byHardin County Sheriff's Office
- Jail address (IDOC 2025)104 E. Market St, P.O. Box 246, Elizabethtown, IL 62931
- Year built (IDOC 2025)1940
- Rated capacity (IDOC 2025)6
- Population on inspection day (IDOC 2025)0
- Jail AdministratorJessica Fricker — Jail administrator, named in the IDOC 2025 inspection report and the Illinois Sheriffs' Association listing
Source: IDOC 2025 jail inspection report · checked 2026-09-20
Transparency rating
The Building
You paid for it. Here is what the record says it cost.
- Year built1940 (IDOC 2025 report)
- Original costNot found
- Paid for byNot found
- Beds6 rated capacity (IDOC 2025)
Since then
- Not found
The Sheriff
Sheriff Jerry Fricker
- 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 lists him as elected 2014)
- Phone618-287-2271
- Also named inIDOC 2025 inspection report
- Detention budget requested vs. approved, by year
- Jail staffing levels and vacancy rate
- Lawsuits and settlements involving the jail
Source: Illinois Sheriffs' Association, Hardin County · 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.
Hardin 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).
- NoteNo county website was found or opened; governing body not confirmed from a county page.
- The boardNot found
- Where the jail money is decidedNot found
Notes on the record
- No county or sheriff website was found: Wikipedia lists no official site, the Illinois Sheriffs' Association lists none, and a guessed hardincountyil.gov could not be opened. The ten checks were not judged.
- Sheriff and jail administrator names come from the IDOC 2025 report and the Illinois Sheriffs' Association directory, which agree.
- A six-bed jail built in 1940 held no one on the inspection day.
- State inspection/oversight: IDOC Jail and Detention Standards Unit, inspected 12 Nov 2025: rated capacity 6, population 0 that day; noncompliances: personnel — "Each jail must have sufficient personnel to provide adequate 24-hour supervision of detainees" (the facility relies on part-time officers and non-dedicated staff); observation checks — 139 of 156 timely (89%) against the 30-minute personal-observation standard.
These three offices decide who sits in a cell in Hardin 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