The Detention Center
Not found
- Operated byJay County Sheriff's Office
Source: Jay County — Sheriff's Office page · 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
- Runs the jailYes — the sheriff keeps the county jail (IC 36-2-13-5)
- How the office is filledElected, four-year term
- Non-emergency dispatch260-726-8188 (county contact page)
- State directory listsLarry "Ray" Newton Jr. — 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 The State of Indiana's sheriff directory (in.gov/sheriffs) was out of date for 4 of the 66 counties we could check against county pages, so this name is shown for reference only.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: Jay County — Contact · 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.
Jay 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).
- NoteCounty site lists a Board of Commissioners and a County Council (fiscal body) with a meeting calendar (commissioners' meetings 14 and 28 Sept 2026; joint commissioners/council special session 17 Sept 2026). No member names, agendas or minutes were readable on the pages opened.
- The boardJay County Board of Commissioners →
- Where the jail money is decidedAgendas and minutes →
Notes on the record
- The county site (jaycounty.net) has a Sheriff's Office department page, but the page as read showed only the county template (courthouse address, calendar), with no sheriff name or jail details.
- Courthouse: 120 North Court Street #2, Portland, IN 47371.
- jaycountysheriff.org (returned by search) is NOT a sheriff site — it now hosts unrelated gambling content. Not cited.
- in.gov/sheriffs/jay/ returned 404. Commercial roster sites ignored.
- Current sheriff not confirmed on any first-party page opened.
- Not scored: County sheriff page showed only the template, and no working sheriff site was found. 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 Jay 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