Chautauqua County

The Detention Center

Not found

• Operated byChautauqua County Sheriff's Office
• Retry pass: county's own domain located and openedThe county's real domain is chautauquacountyks.com (not chautauquacountyks.org, the name given by a state portal and searched fruitlessly in the prior pass). This session opened the homepage, the Commissioners page, the Sheriff page, and a 2022 commission-minutes index. The homepage's navigation lists "Sheriff" among elected officials and no separate "Jail" or "Detention" item; the Sheriff page itself gives only the office's address and phone, with no facility name, capacity, roster, budget, PREA, inspection, contract, bond, or fee information. The 2022 minutes page is only an index of links by month — no individual minutes document was opened to check for jail/sheriff budget mentions.

Source: Chautauqua County, KS — homepage · checked 2026-09-17

• ✗The jail is named — not published
• ✗Who is in custody — not published
• ✗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

This rates disclosure, not conduct — what Chautauqua County publishes about a jail its taxpayers own, checked 2026-09-17. 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 builtNot found
• Original costNot found
• Paid for byNot found
• BedsNot found

The Sheriff

Sheriff Richard A. Newby

• Runs the jailYes — the elected sheriff is the statutory keeper of the jail under K.S.A. 19-811
• Runs the jailYes — K.S.A. 19-811 gives the sheriff charge and custody of the jail.
• How the office is filledElected countywide for a four-year term (K.S.A. 19-801a); Chautauqua is not one of Kansas's two exceptions.
• Office (per Chautauqua County's own site)Sheriff's Office address 218 N Montgomery St, Sedan, KS 67361; non-emergency (620) 725-3108, emergency 911. This differs slightly from the Kansas Sheriffs' Association's listed "215 North Chautauqua" — both are near the courthouse (215 N Chautauqua St) and neither was cross-checked further this session.

Source: Chautauqua County, Kansas — Sheriff (county's own site) · checked 2026-09-17

The Judges

Kansas decides judicial selection district by district (Kan. Const. Art. 3 §6; K.S.A. 20-2901): partisan election is the default, and a judicial district's voters may adopt — or later reject — nonpartisan/merit selection by petition and ballot proposition. Which of Kansas's 31 judicial districts covers Chautauqua County, and whether that district has adopted nonpartisan selection or still elects its district judges, was not established this session: the county's own site does not carry it, and the session's WebSearch budget (8 calls, spent locating county domains and sheriff/jail profiles) was exhausted before a district-specific source could be checked. In a district that has not adopted nonpartisan selection, K.S.A. 20-336 has that district's counties each elect their own district magistrate judge, and in most rural Kansas counties the magistrate — not the district judge — sets bail at first appearance (K.S.A. 20-302b). Which method this county's judicial district uses was not established for this record.

Source: the state judiciary · checked 2026-09-17

The County Commissioners

They pay for the jail. The sheriff runs it.

• What they controlThe detention budget, the building itself, and the agreements that let other agencies rent its beds.
• What they don'tDay-to-day operations. The sheriff is separately elected and answers to voters, not to the board.
• The boardBoard of County Commissioners →
• Where the jail money is decidedAgendas and minutes →