Clay County, Indiana — The Jail, the Sheriff, the Judges

The Detention Center

Not found

Operated byClay County Sheriff (by statute, IC 36-2-13-5)

Source: · checked 2026-09-20

Transparency rating

Not scored. Clay County's and its sheriff's own websites could not be reached or read in the session that produced this record, so their disclosures were never examined. This is a gap in the research, not a finding about the county.

The Building

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

Year builtNot found
Original costNot found
Paid for byNot found
BedsNot found

Since then

Not found

The Sheriff

Not found

How the office is filledElected, four-year term
State directory listsBrison Swearingen — not confirmed on a county or sheriff page. The State of Indiana's sheriff directory (in.gov/sheriffs) was out of date for 4 of the 66 counties we could check against county pages, so this name is shown for reference only.

Still needed

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

Source: State of Indiana sheriff directory (not a county page) · 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.

Clay 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 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).
NoteBoard of County Commissioners (executive) and seven-member County Council (fiscal body). No county page could be opened.
The boardClay County Board of Commissioners
Where the jail money is decidedNot found

Notes on the record

No page on the county's or sheriff's own site could be opened, so no checks were judged.
What was tried: search returned only aggregator sites; in.gov/sheriffs/clay/ returned 404; claycountyin.gov refused (robots fetch failed).
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 Clay 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