The Detention Center
Vigo County Jail
- Operated byVigo County Sheriff's Office
- Jail address600 West Honey Creek Drive, Terre Haute, IN 47802
- Jail phone(812) 462-3226, option 5
- Medical co-pays$15 each for doctor visit, nurse sick call, medication and dental visit
Source: Vigo County Sheriff's Office — Inmate Mail · checked 2026-09-20
Transparency rating
2/10Closed- ✓The jail is named
- ✓Who is in custody
- ✗Beds and daily population — not published
- ✗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
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
Sheriff Derek Fell
- Runs the jailYes — the Vigo County Jail is run by the Sheriff's Office
- How the office is filledElected, four-year term (Ind. Const. art. 6, §2)
- ServiceWith the Sheriff's Office since 2002, per the sheriff's About page
- Detention budget requested vs. approved, by year
- Jail staffing levels and vacancy rate
- Lawsuits and settlements involving the jail
Source: Vigo County Sheriff's Office — About · 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.
Vigo 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).
- NoteIndiana counties have a three-member Board of Commissioners and a seven-member County Council (fiscal body). Board pages on vigocounty.in.gov were not opened.
- The boardVigo County Board of Commissioners
- Where the jail money is decidedNot found
Notes on the record
- Sheriff's Look Up an Inmate page points to its 24/7 Jail Tracker in-custody roster.
- The county government's Sheriff's Office page (vigocounty.in.gov) still carries a message from Sheriff Greg T. Ewing; the sheriff's own site (About page, modified 30 June 2026) names Sheriff Derek Fell, which is used here.
- Pay a Bond, Contact an Inmate, Visit an Inmate, Commissary Deposit and Custody Status pages showed only an error message when fetched, so bond_info and fees are 'no'.
- Medical co-pays ($15) are published but are not phone/video/commissary/booking fees.
- No capacity, PREA, deaths, contracts or inspection report 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 Vigo 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