The Detention Center
Tippecanoe County Jail
- Operated byTippecanoe County Sheriff's Office (Corrections Division)
- Jail address2640 Duncan Road, Lafayette, IN 47904
- Capacity (sheriff's About Us page)603 inmates
- SizeDescribed by the sheriff as among the top 10 largest jails in Indiana
- Video visitation20 cents per connected minute, 20-minute maximum
- Inmate deposits$3 per lobby kiosk transaction (plus about 10% by card); 10% online via JailATM
- Jail AdministratorCaptain Donald Miller — Corrections Division Commander
Source: Tippecanoe County Sheriff's Office — About Us · checked 2026-09-20
Transparency rating
4/10Partial- ✓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 — not published
- ✓Phone, video and commissary rates
The Building
You paid for it. Here is what the record says it cost.
- Year builtNot found
- Original costNot found
- Paid for byNot found
- Beds603 (capacity stated on sheriff's About Us page)
Since then
- Not found
The Sheriff
Sheriff Robert Goldsmith
- Runs the jailYes — Corrections is one of the Sheriff's Office's three divisions
- How the office is filledElected, four-year term (Ind. Const. art. 6, §2)
- StaffOver 180 personnel across Administration, Patrol and Corrections
- Chief DeputyTerry Ruley
- Detention budget requested vs. approved, by year
- Jail staffing levels and vacancy rate
- Lawsuits and settlements involving the jail
Source: Tippecanoe County Sheriff's Office staff directory · 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.
Tippecanoe 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).
- NoteTippecanoe County Council (fiscal body) also posts agendas and minutes in the Agenda Center.
- The boardTippecanoe County Board of Commissioners →
- Where the jail money is decidedAgendas and minutes →
Notes on the record
- Corrections page links a 'Current Inmate Listing' (JailTracker, Tippecanoe_County_IN); the roster page itself returned an error when fetched.
- Visitation page publishes online video-visit rate of 20 cents per connected minute; Inmate Funds page publishes deposit fees.
- Bond payment is only a link to jailatm.com ('Pay Bonds or Deposit Money') with no guidance on how bond is set or posted, so bond_info is 'no'.
- No PREA, deaths-in-custody, contracts or inspection report found on pages opened; site search blocked by robots.txt, so budget not located.
- 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 Tippecanoe 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