The Detention Center
Allen County Confinement Facility
- Operated byAllen County Sheriff's Department
- Jail address417 S. Calhoun Street, Fort Wayne, Indiana 46802
- Opened1981 (county jail-project page)
- Federal court caseFiled 2 January 2020, N.D. Indiana (Fort Wayne); Opinion & Order 31 March 2022 on conditions incl. chronic overcrowding (county's description)
- Planned new jailAbout 400,000 sq ft, five pods for roughly 1,300 inmates, behind 2911 Meyer Road
- New jail cost$320M hard and soft costs; bond estimated at $280-290M (county FAQ)
- New jail fundingBonds, repayable from property taxes, income taxes or both, per county
Source: Allen County — Future of the Allen County Jail · checked 2026-09-20
Transparency rating
2/10Closed- ✓The jail is named
- ✓Who is in custody
- ✗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 built1981
- Original costNot found
- Paid for byNot found
- BedsNot found
Since then
- New jail planned: about 1,300 inmates, $320M total (bond est. $280-290M), site behind 2911 Meyer Road
The Sheriff
Sheriff Troy Hershberger
- Runs the jailYes — the sheriff keeps the county jail (IC 36-2-13-5)
- How the office is filledElected, four-year term
- Took officeElected November 2022, sworn in 29 December 2022
- Detention budget requested vs. approved, by year
- Jail staffing levels and vacancy rate
- Lawsuits and settlements involving the jail
Source: Allen County Sheriff homepage · checked 2026-09-20
The Judges
Indiana circuit and superior court judges are state judicial officers, not county officials. In most counties they are elected to six-year terms; a few counties choose some judges through a nominating commission followed by retention votes.
Allen 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 Commissioners and County Council
They pay for the jail. The sheriff runs it.
- What they controlThe three county commissioners own and maintain the jail building and sign its contracts; the seven-member county council adopts the budget and appropriates the jail's money.
- What they don'tDay-to-day operations. The sheriff is separately elected and keeps the jail by state law (IC 36-2-13-5).
- NoteCommissioners: Ronald W. Turpin, Therese M. Brown, Richard E. Beck. Seven-member County Council is the fiscal body (president Robert A. Armstrong), per https://www.allencounty.in.gov/474/County-Council. Council rejected a correctional-facilities LIT on 20 July 2023 (county jail page). AgendaCenter pages are blocked by robots.txt and could not be opened.
- The boardAllen County Board of Commissioners →
- Where the jail money is decidedAgendas and minutes →
Notes on the record
- Sheriff's site hosts an inmate search by name or booking date.
- One free 25-minute video visit weekly; extra visits cost a fee via InmateSales, but no rate is published on the sheriff's site.
- Commissary deposits via JailATM.com, tablet/phone funding via InmateSales.com; no rates published. Jail rules mention a medical fee without an amount.
- County says the jail has not met the 80% capacity best-practice rating any year since 1981, but it publishes no bed count or population figure on the pages opened.
- County budget page exists (https://www.allencounty.in.gov/477/Allen-County-Budget) but its links did not resolve to a budget book, so no sheriff/jail line was verified.
- No PREA, bond, death-in-custody or inspection material found on the sheriff's or county site.
- State inspection/oversight: IDOC Jail Services inspects annually (IC 11-12-4); reports are public record on request but not posted by the state. None found on the county's own site.
These three offices decide who sits in a cell in Allen 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 commissioners and council members who pay for it.
Names verified 2026-09-20 · dollars and outcomes still being gathered