The Detention Center
Jefferson County Justice Center
- Operated byJefferson County Sheriff's Office
- Jail address911 Casey Ave, Mt. Vernon, IL 62864
- Rated capacity (IDOC 2025)246
- Population on inspection day (IDOC 2025)168 (152 male, 16 female)
- Year built (IDOC 2025)2004
- Jail AdministratorCaptain Bonnie May — Jail administrator named in the IDOC 2025 inspection report
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 built2004 (IDOC 2025 report)
- Original costNot found
- Paid for byNot found
- Beds246 rated (IDOC 2025)
Since then
- Not found
The Sheriff
Sheriff Jeff Bullard
- Runs the jailYes — the sheriff is warden of the Jefferson County Justice Center jail
- How the office is filledElected, four-year term
- Name sourceNamed as sheriff in the IDOC 2025 inspection report; the sheriff's own site could not be opened
- Detention budget requested vs. approved, by year
- Jail staffing levels and vacancy rate
- Lawsuits and settlements involving the jail
Source: IDOC 2025 jail inspection report · 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.
Jefferson 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 Board; budgets page lists FY2013-14 through FY2025-26 budget documents.
- The boardJefferson County Board →
- Where the jail money is decidedAgendas and minutes →
Notes on the record
- Sheriff's own site (jeffcoil.com, linked from the county site) was refused by robots.txt, so none of the sheriff's jail pages could be examined; checks left empty rather than marked 'no'.
- County site (jeffersoncounty.illinois.gov) was opened: it links out to the sheriff's site and has no jail page; its Documents & Reports page has nothing on the jail.
- County Budgets page lists an FY2025-26 final budget packet, but the PDF (served from a Revize CMS host) was refused, so a sheriff/jail line could not be confirmed.
- Illinois Sheriffs' Association page lists 249 beds at 911 Casey Ave; IDOC 2025 gives rated capacity 246.
- State inspection/oversight: IDOC Jail and Detention Standards Unit, inspected 22 May 2025: rated capacity 246, population 168 that day; noncompliances: none recorded.
These three offices decide who sits in a cell in Jefferson 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