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

The Detention Center

Daviess County Security Center

Operated byDaviess County Sheriff's Office (Jail Command)
Jail address101 NE 4th Street, Washington, IN 47501
Beds (county site)260 in main facility + 52 in work release center
Other cells6 holding cells, 2 drunk tanks, 1 padded cell

Source: Daviess County Jail Command page · checked 2026-09-20

Transparency rating

2/10Closed

✓The jail is named
✗Who is in custody — not published
✓Beds and daily population
✗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

This rates disclosure, not conduct — what Daviess 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 builtNot found
Original costNot found
Paid for byNot found
Beds260 main facility + 52 work release (county site)

Since then

Not found

The Sheriff

Sheriff Gary Allison

Runs the jailYes — Jail Command is a division of the Sheriff's Office on the county site
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: Daviess County Sheriff's Office page (county site) · 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.

Daviess 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). County site has an Agenda Center (https://www.daviess.org/agendacenter, linked, not opened).
The boardDaviess County Board of Commissioners
Where the jail money is decidedNot found

Notes on the record

Jail Command page names the Daviess County Security Center, gives its address and publishes bed counts (260 + 52 work release).
Jail Command has sub-pages for Bonding Procedures, Commissary/Canteen, Communicating with Inmates, Visitation and Inmate Medical; these could not be opened (PROVENANCE_REQUIRED), so bond_info and fees stay unconfirmed.
No PREA, deaths-in-custody, inspection report or budget page found among the Sheriff's Office links.
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 Daviess 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