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

The Detention Center

Hancock County Jail

Operated byHancock County Sheriff's Office
Jail address398 Malcolm Grass Way, Greenfield, IN 46140
Capacity (county site)446 beds
OpenedMay 2022
Custody staff (county site)50 full-time
Phone rate (county site)$0.21 per minute (Combined Public Service); new arrestees get a free 5-minute call
Bond fee (county site)$5 fee on criminal case bonds (not on a writ)
VisitationVideo visitation only, two 20-minute sessions per week
Jail AdministratorCaptain Nichole Stark — Jail Commander

Source: Hancock County Jail page · checked 2026-09-20

Transparency rating

5/10Partial

✓The jail is named
✓Who is in custody
✓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
✓Phone, video and commissary rates

This rates disclosure, not conduct — what Hancock 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 builtOpened May 2022
Original costNot found
Paid for byNot found
Beds446

Since then

Not found

The Sheriff

Sheriff Brad Burkhart

How the office is filledElected, four-year term; no more than eight years in any twelve (Ind. Const. art. 6, §2)
Runs the jailYes — the Hancock County Jail is under the Sheriff's Office, with a captain as jail commander

Still needed

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

Source: Hancock County Sheriff 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.

Hancock 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).
NoteThe seven-member Hancock County Council is the fiscal body; its agendas and minutes (including a Budget, Efficiency and Revenue Committee) are in the same Agenda Center. Commissioner names not captured.
The boardHancock County Board of Commissioners →
Where the jail money is decidedAgendas and minutes →

Notes on the record

County jail page gives name, address, 446 beds, opening in May 2022, and names the jail commander.
Roster: the county jail page links a 'Current Inmate Lookup' on JailTracker (Hancock_County_IN); the JailTracker page itself did not render when opened.
Bond page explains posting at the jail lobby Jail ATM kiosk or jailatm.com, cash or credit card, with a $5 fee on criminal case bonds; amounts are set by the court.
Phone rate of $0.21 per minute is published; no video-visit rate is published.
Commissioners and Council agendas/minutes are posted in the county Agenda Center; no county-hosted budget document showing the sheriff/jail line was found.
No PREA, deaths-in-custody, inspection report or contract material found on pages opened.
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 Hancock 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