Wabash County, Illinois — The Jail, the Sheriff, the Judges

The Detention Center

Wabash County Jail

Operated byWabash County Sheriff's Office
Jail address110 East 4th Street, Mt. Carmel, IL 62863
Rated capacity (IDOC 2025)20
Population on inspection day (IDOC 2025)14 (11 male, 3 female)
Year built (IDOC 2025)1974
Commissary, phone minutes, visit schedulinginmatesales.com
Jail AdministratorJames Sullivan — Named as jail administrator in the IDOC 2025 inspection report

Source: Wabash County Sheriff — Jail FAQs · checked 2026-09-20

Transparency rating

3/10Closed

✓The jail is named
✗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
✓Phone, video and commissary rates

This rates disclosure, not conduct — what Wabash County publishes about a jail its taxpayers own, checked 2026-09-20. Nothing here says the jail is run well or badly. Every mark moves the moment the county posts the document.

The Building

You paid for it. Here is what the record says it cost.

Year built1974 (IDOC 2025 report)
Original costNot found
Paid for byNot found
Beds20 rated (IDOC 2025 report)

Since then

Not found

The Sheriff

Sheriff J. Derek Morgan

Runs the jailYes — the sheriff is warden of the county jail (55 ILCS 5/3-15003)
How the office is filledElected, four-year term

Still needed

Detention budget requested vs. approved, by year
Jail staffing levels and vacancy rate
Lawsuits and settlements involving the jail

Source: Wabash County Sheriff's Office website · 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.

Wabash County Circuit Court

Not found

Still needed

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).
NoteNo county government website was found or opened; governing body not confirmed from a county page.
The boardNot confirmed
Where the jail money is decidedNot found

Notes on the record

Sheriff's inmate roster page says the roster is available 'exclusively through our mobile app'; no roster visible on the web, so roster is marked no.
Jail FAQs: 'Illinois abolished CASH BOND and we are a NO CASH BOND state'; detainees get 'a pre-trial detention hearing as soon as possible'.
Fee schedule (Ordinance No. 30, effective 1 Dec 2018) lists a Bail Bond Fee of $38.00 and Work Release $30.00; phone and commissary rates not published.
No PREA, deaths, capacity, contracts, inspection reports or budget found on the sheriff's site; no county government site was opened.
State inspection/oversight: IDOC Jail and Detention Standards Unit, inspected 1 October 2025: rated capacity 20, population 14 that day; noncompliances: staffing — "Each jail must have sufficient personnel to provide adequate 24-hour supervision of detainees" and "Backup personnel shall be notified and available when cell doors to living quarters are opened"; report notes "there are times when only one officer is on duty".

These three offices decide who sits in a cell in Wabash 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