The Detention Center
No county jail
- Operated byNot applicable
- County jailNone — the Illinois Sheriffs' Association directory lists "County Jail Address: No Jail"
- IDOC inspection reportNo 2025 or 2024 report found at the standard IDOC URL (404)
- Where prisoners goNot found
Source: Illinois Sheriffs' Association — Pope County · checked 2026-09-20
Transparency rating
The Building
You paid for it. Here is what the record says it cost.
- Year builtNot applicable (no county jail)
- Original costNot applicable
- Paid for byNot applicable
- BedsNot applicable
Since then
- Not applicable
The Sheriff
Sheriff Jerry Suits
- Runs the jailNo county jail listed (Illinois Sheriffs' Association directory: "No Jail")
- How the office is filledElected, four-year term
- Year first elected (ILSA directory)2010
- Office address (ILSA directory)216 E. Decatur St., Golconda, IL 62938
- CaveatName taken from the Illinois Sheriffs' Association directory; no county or sheriff website was found to confirm it
- Detention budget requested vs. approved, by year
- Jail staffing levels and vacancy rate
- Lawsuits and settlements involving the jail
Source: Illinois Sheriffs' Association — Pope 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.
Pope 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).
- NoteGoverning body not confirmed: no county website could be opened.
- The boardNot found
- Where the jail money is decidedNot found
Notes on the record
- No county or sheriff website was found: the one search returned only the sheriffs' association page, Facebook and aggregator sites; popecountyil.gov could not be fetched. Checks left empty because no first-party page was examined.
- Illinois Sheriffs' Association directory lists Pope County as having no jail.
- No IDOC inspection report for Pope County at the 2025 or 2024 URL pattern (404).
- The 2025 IDOC report for neighbouring Pulaski County lists contract housing for the U.S. Marshals, Alexander and Union counties; Pope is not mentioned, so where Pope County's prisoners are held was not found.
- State inspection/oversight: No 2025 IDOC Jail and Detention Standards Unit report found for Pope County (standard 2025 and 2024 report URLs return 404); the county has no jail according to the Illinois Sheriffs' Association directory.
These three offices decide who sits in a cell in Pope 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