The Detention Center
LaSalle County Jail
- Operated byLaSalle County Sheriff's Office
- Jail address707 E Etna Road, Ottawa, IL 61350
- Beds305 (county jail page); IDOC 2025 rated capacity 306
- Security levelPredominately medium security; also houses minimum and maximum (county jail page)
- Year built (IDOC 2025)2002
- Population on inspection day (IDOC 2025)95
- Jail AdministratorJason Edgcomb — Jail Superintendent (county staff directory)
Source: LaSalle County — County Jail · checked 2026-09-20
Transparency rating
4/10Partial- ✓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
- ✗Who else it holds, and for how much — not published
- ✗How to post bond — not published
- ✓Phone, video and commissary rates
The Building
You paid for it. Here is what the record says it cost.
- Year built2002 (IDOC 2025 report)
- Original costNot found
- Paid for byNot found
- Beds305 (county); 306 rated (IDOC 2025)
Since then
- Not found
The Sheriff
Sheriff Adam Diss
- Runs the jailYes — the sheriff is warden of the county jail (55 ILCS 5/3-15003)
- How the office is filledElected, four-year term
- Detention budget requested vs. approved, by year
- Jail staffing levels and vacancy rate
- Lawsuits and settlements involving the jail
Source: LaSalle County — Sheriff's Office · 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.
LaSalle 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).
- The boardLaSalle County Board →
- Where the jail money is decidedAgendas and minutes →
Notes on the record
- County jail page publishes 305 beds and fees: phone $0.21 a minute plus fees/taxes, remote video visits $0.20 a minute, video messaging $0.50, 'chirps' $0.10.
- County archive posts its own Jail Inspection Reports for 2021, 2023 (plus follow-up letter), 2024, 2025 and 2026; the PDFs are scanned images the reader could not extract.
- Sheriff's page links an inmate search at isoms.lasallecounty.org, which could not be opened (timeout), so roster not counted.
- No PREA, bond/pretrial, contract or budget material found on pages opened.
- State inspection/oversight: IDOC Jail and Detention Standards Unit, inspected 20 May 2025: rated capacity 306, population 95 that day; noncompliances: none recorded.
These three offices decide who sits in a cell in LaSalle 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