The Detention Center
St. Clair County Jail
- Operated bySt. Clair County Sheriff's Department
- Jail address700 N. 5th St, Belleville, IL 62220
- Rated capacity (IDOC 2025)422 (377 male, 45 female)
- Population on inspection day (IDOC 2025)410
- Year built (IDOC 2025)1970
- 2026 budget, Sheriff Jail$9,031,109 (General Fund appropriation)
- Jail AdministratorMajor Tammy Grime — Named as jail administrator in the IDOC 2025 inspection report
Source: IDOC 2025 jail inspection report · checked 2026-09-20
Transparency rating
4/10Partial- ✓The jail is named
- ✓Who is in custody
- ✗Beds and daily population — not published
- ✓What it costs taxpayers
- ✗Deaths in custody — not published
- ✓PREA audits
- ✗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 built1970 (IDOC 2025 report)
- Original costNot found
- Paid for byNot found
- Beds422 rated (IDOC 2025 report)
Since then
- Not found
The Sheriff
Sheriff Richard Watson
- Runs the jailYes — the sheriff is warden of the county jail (55 ILCS 5/3-15003)
- How the office is filledElected, four-year term
- Office address700 N. 5th St., Belleville, IL 62220
- Detention budget requested vs. approved, by year
- Jail staffing levels and vacancy rate
- Lawsuits and settlements involving the jail
Source: St. Clair County Sheriff's Department page · 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.
St. Clair 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 chairman listed on the board page: Mark Kern.
- The boardSt. Clair County Board →
- Where the jail money is decidedAgendas and minutes →
Notes on the record
- Sheriff's site links an inmate search of current inmates, 'updated hourly' (vendor-hosted at stclairil.goejail.com behind a browser check).
- PREA page gives reporting routes and posts a 2023 PREA Coordinator's Annual Report and 2022/2023 PREA statistics.
- County auditor posts annual budget appropriations; 2026 budget has a 'Sheriff Jail' department totalling $9,031,109.
- Commissary deposits via Access Corrections; inmate messaging via ICSolutions — no rates published on the pages opened.
- No bond/pretrial release guidance, capacity figures, deaths-in-custody information, contracts or inspection reports found on county pages opened.
- State inspection/oversight: IDOC Jail and Detention Standards Unit, inspected 16 April 2025: rated capacity 422, population 410 that day; noncompliances: cell assignment and bedding — "Detainees were observed sleeping on portable plastic beds"; supervision — "943 out of 982 checks were timely, giving a compliance percentage of 96%".
These three offices decide who sits in a cell in St. Clair 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