The Detention Center
Not found
- Operated byDearborn County Sheriff (by statute, IC 36-2-13-5)
- Sheriff's Law Enforcement Center301 W High St, Lawrenceburg, IN 47025 (county page does not say the jail is there)
Source: Dearborn County Sheriff's Office page (county site) · checked 2026-09-20
Transparency rating
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
- Office locationLaw Enforcement Center, 301 W High St, Lawrenceburg, IN 47025
- Office phone(812) 537-3431 or (812) 537-8700
- State directory listsShane J. McHenry — 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 The State of Indiana's sheriff directory (in.gov/sheriffs) was out of date for 4 of the 66 counties we could check against county pages, so this name is shown for reference only.
- Detention budget requested vs. approved, by year
- Jail staffing levels and vacancy rate
- Lawsuits and settlements involving the jail
Source: Dearborn 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.
Dearborn 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).
- NoteBoard of County Commissioners (executive; county Animal Control page says it reports to the County Board of Commissioners) and seven-member County Council (fiscal body). No board or minutes page opened.
- The boardDearborn County Board of Commissioners
- Where the jail money is decidedNot found
Notes on the record
- County site's Sheriff's Office page gives the Law Enforcement Center address, phones and hours but no sheriff's name and no jail information.
- The sheriff's own site dearborncountysheriff.org home page opened but showed no sheriff name or jail content; its /jail path is blocked by robots.txt.
- County home page links the state Gateway financial dashboard, which is not a county-posted budget.
- Not scored: The sheriff site's /jail path was blocked; only contact-level home pages were read. Marking the rest 'not published' would claim more than was checked.
- 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 Dearborn 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