The Detention Center
Mason County Jail
- Operated byMason County Sheriff
- Jail address (IDOC 2025)102 West Market Street, Havana, IL 62644
- Rated capacity (IDOC 2025)44 (40 male, 4 female)
- Population on inspection day (IDOC 2025)15 (14 male, 1 female)
- Year built (IDOC 2025)1989
- Jail AdministratorDave Baker — Chief Deputy, named as jail administrator in the IDOC 2025 inspection report
Source: IDOC 2025 jail inspection report · checked 2026-09-20
Transparency rating
0/10Closed- ✗The jail is named — not published
- ✗Who is in custody — not published
- ✗Beds and daily population — not published
- ✗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 — not published
- ✗Phone, video and commissary rates — not published
The Building
You paid for it. Here is what the record says it cost.
- Year built1989 (IDOC 2025 report)
- Original costNot found
- Paid for byNot found
- Beds44 rated (IDOC 2025 report)
Since then
- Not found
The Sheriff
Sheriff Paul Gann
- Runs the jailYes — sheriff is warden of the county jail under Illinois law
- How the office is filledElected, four-year term
- Name sourceMason County elected officials page on masoncountyil.gov (also IDOC 2025 report)
- Detention budget requested vs. approved, by year
- Jail staffing levels and vacancy rate
- Lawsuits and settlements involving the jail
Source: Mason County — Officials · 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.
Mason 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).
- NoteMason County Board, chairman Kenneth Walker; meets the second Tuesday of each month at 9:00 a.m. at the courthouse in Havana (county board page). Committees: Finance, Road and Bridge, Building and Grounds, Planning-Agri-Business; no jail or public-safety committee listed. FY2026 budget posted as a scanned PDF.
- The boardMason County Board →
- Where the jail money is decidedAgendas and minutes →
Notes on the record
- County site masoncountyil.gov opened on 20 Sep 2026 (home, county board, officials, committees, 2026 agendas and minutes, FY2026 budget PDF, board minutes Apr and May 2026, finance committee minutes Jul 2026).
- The county site has no sheriff or jail page; the officials page lists 'Paul Gann - Sheriff' with no contact details. No separate sheriff website was found. All ten checks are no.
- Budget: the FY2026 final budget (https://masoncountyil.gov/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/Final-Budget-26.pdf) is a scanned PDF with no machine-readable text, so a sheriff or jail line could not be confirmed; budget = no.
- Board minutes opened mention the sheriff only for vehicles lost in accidents (May 2026) and an employee's pay while on light duty (Jul 2026 finance committee); nothing on the jail.
- Courthouse address on the county site: 125 North Plum Street, Havana, IL 62644.
- Jail administrator name comes from the IDOC 2025 report, not the county site.
- State inspection/oversight: IDOC Jail and Detention Standards Unit, inspected 26 August 2025: rated capacity 44, population 15 that day; noncompliances noted: "Inadequate staffing" (one officer on certain shifts), male and female detainees lacking adequate sight and sound separation, inoperable individual cell doors, objects obstructing sightlines on cell doors, and undergarments not issued at intake (as summarised from the report).
These three offices decide who sits in a cell in Mason 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