The Detention Center
Perry County Jail
- Operated byPerry County Sheriff's Office
- Jail address12 E. Water St, Pinckneyville, IL 62274
- Rated capacity (IDOC 2025)56
- Population on inspection day (IDOC 2025)32 (25 Mar 2025)
- Year built (IDOC 2025)1987
- FY2026 budget, Jail (Dept 20)$856,306
- FY2026 budget, Sheriff (Dept 14)$1,208,653
- Jail AdministratorMajor Doug Clark — Named as jail administrator in the IDOC 2025 inspection report; the county's jail org chart lists a Major but no name
Source: Perry County Jail organizational chart · checked 2026-09-20
Transparency rating
2/10Closed- ✓The jail is named
- ✗Who is in custody — not published
- ✗Beds and daily population — not published
- ✓What it costs taxpayers
- ✗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 built1987 (IDOC 2025 report)
- Original costNot found
- Paid for byNot found
- Beds56 rated (IDOC 2025 report)
Since then
- Not found
The Sheriff
Sheriff Chad Howard
- Runs the jailYes — the sheriff is warden of the county jail (55 ILCS 5/3-15003)
- How the office is filledElected, four-year term (listed as R on the county officials page)
- Office size (county site)25 full-time and 10 part-time employees; operating budget $2,511,095 from the general fund
- Detention budget requested vs. approved, by year
- Jail staffing levels and vacancy rate
- Lawsuits and settlements involving the jail
Source: Perry 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.
Perry County Circuit Court
- Resident Circuit Judge, Perry County: James W. Campanella
- 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).
- NoteThree-member Board of Commissioners: Bruce Morgenstern (Chairman), Joseph Folden, Jennifer Martin.
- The boardPerry County Board of Commissioners →
- Where the jail money is decidedAgendas and minutes →
Notes on the record
- County officials page places the sheriff at the Perry County Jail in Pinckneyville; the county posts a jail organizational chart titled 'Perry County Jail' (positions only, no names).
- Sheriff's page gives contact details, staffing and a civil process fee sheet, but no roster, bond guidance, visiting/phone/commissary fees, PREA or inspection material.
- FY2026 general-fund budget on the county site shows separate Sheriff and Jail departments.
- The county homepage could not be fetched (permission not granted); other county pages were read.
- State inspection/oversight: IDOC Jail and Detention Standards Unit, inspected 25 March 2025: rated capacity 56, population 32 that day; noncompliances: 701.130(a)(2) supervision — "A jail officer shall provide personal observation ... at least every 30 minutes"; the sample found 203 of 432 checks timely (47%).
These three offices decide who sits in a cell in Perry 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