The Detention Center
No county jail — Clark County contracts to the Meade County Jail
- Operated byMeade County (Clark County's own site does not name a Meade County operator or official; the arrangement itself, not Meade's internal operation, is what was confirmed)
- Where Clark County's prisoners goClark County's own Sheriff's Office site states: “All persons who are arrested and taken into custody are transported to the Meade County Jail for booking and incarceration.”
- Statutory basis (state-layer finding, not re-researched)K.S.A. 19-1929 lets a Kansas county “without a sufficient jail… for any other reason” contract with any Kansas city or county having an adequate jail (https://ksrevisor.gov/statutes/chapters/ch19/019_019_0029.html).
- Personal property policyProperty left at the Clark County Sheriff's Office by a released inmate is held 30 days then disposed of — published on the same page.
- Sheriff staffing (Kansas Sheriffs' Association profile)6 sworn, 2 support, no jail staff listed — consistent with running no jail of its own.
- What was triedClark County's own site (clarkcountyks.com) was opened this session at /sheriff and /sheriff/page/jail; neither names a Meade County jail administrator, capacity, budget, PREA result, inspection result, contract rate, bond guidance, or fee schedule for the Meade facility.
Source: Clark County, Kansas — Sheriff: Jail · checked 2026-09-17
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 Heath Heston
- Runs the jailNo county jail to run — Clark County's own site states arrestees are transported to the Meade County Jail for booking and incarceration (see jail section). The sheriff otherwise holds the statutory charge-and-custody duties of K.S.A. 19-811 and 19-1903.
- How the office is filledElected countywide for a four-year term (K.S.A. 19-801a); not one of Kansas's two structural exceptions (Riley County has no sheriff; Wyandotte County's sheriff is separately elected within a consolidated government).
- Office contact221 W. 9th Ave. / PO Box 566, Ashland, KS 67831; (620) 635-2802
- Detention budget requested vs. approved, by year
- Jail staffing levels and vacancy rate
- Lawsuits and settlements involving the jail
Source: Kansas Sheriffs' Association — county profile · checked 2026-09-17
The Judges
Kansas decides judicial selection district by district under Kan. Const. Art. 3 §6 and K.S.A. 20-2901. In most rural Kansas counties the district magistrate judge sets bail (K.S.A. 20-302b). The 16th Judicial District elects its district judges on a partisan ballot - the default under Kan. Const. Art. 3 sec. 6. Its voters have not adopted the nonpartisan nominating-commission method available under K.S.A. 20-2901.
District Court — 16th Judicial District
- 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 2026-09-17
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 →
Notes on the record
- Clark County's own site (clarkcountyks.com) was opened this session and reviewed for all ten checks. It discloses where its prisoners are held (Meade County Jail) but publishes none of the ten transparency items — no roster, capacity, budget, death, PREA, inspection, contract-rate, bond, or fee information for either its own operation or the Meade County arrangement.
- K.S.A. 75-5228, the 1973 Kansas jail inspection statute, was repealed effective April 11, 1996 (its companion 75-5227 followed July 1, 1996) and nothing replaced it — no Kansas agency has statutory authority to inspect this or any county jail. (Kansas state-layer finding; K.S.A. 75-5228, https://ksrevisor.gov/statutes/chapters/ch75/075_052_0028.html)
- This is not scored as a gap in the ordinary sense: Clark County operates no jail, and the finding is where its prisoners go, not an absence.
- Three-member Board of County Commissioners (K.S.A. 19-201): Jim Daily (District 1), Dustin McPhail (District 2), Jalin Johnson (District 3). Budget approval, tax levying and appointment powers are described on the county's own site; a dedicated Meetings subpage is linked but was not separately opened this session.
These three offices decide who sits in a cell in Clark 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 who pay for it.
Names verified 2026-09-17 · dollars and outcomes still being gathered