The Detention Center
Coffey County Law Enforcement Center (Detention Facility)
- Operated byCoffey County Sheriff's Office
- Address625 Neosho Street, 1st Floor, Burlington, KS 66839; jail line (620) 364-3199
- Capacity (Kansas Sheriffs' Association profile, not the county's own site)21 total beds — 17 male, 4 female; daily board rate $50.00; Jail Administrator Joshua Nauertc named on that profile.
- Public inmate rosterThe Sheriff's Office site publishes a current-inmate roster and a separate 48-hour-release list, with a disclaimer that the office “cannot certify the accuracy and/or authenticity of any information.”
- Bond guidanceAn “Approved Bonding Agencies” list, sourced to the Coffey County District Court and dated (“Through 12/31/2026…Updated 04/08/2026”), names 20-plus bonding companies with contact information.
- FeesRemote video visits via NCIC InTouch: $0.35/minute, up to 30 minutes, any day. On-site kiosk visits: free, up to 20 minutes, Sundays 1-4pm, one per week. CHIRPS text-messaging device: $0.10 per message sent or received plus a monthly rental fee, funded via inmatesales.com.
- Not found on the county's own siteDeaths in custody, PREA audit results, inspection results, and any out-of-county contract rate were not published on coffeycountysheriff.org.
- What was triedcoffeycountyks.org (the general county government site, as opposed to the Sheriff's Office site) could not be opened this session — it carried no WebFetch provenance from the search performed — so county commissioner names and a county-wide budget line for the jail were not obtained.
Source: Coffey County Sheriff's Office — home · checked 2026-09-17
Transparency rating
4/10Partial- ✓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
- ✓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
- BedsNot found
Since then
- Not found
The Sheriff
Sheriff Thomas L. Johnson
- Runs the jailYes — K.S.A. 19-811 gives the sheriff charge and custody of the county jail and its prisoners; K.S.A. 19-1903 makes the sheriff responsible for the manner in which it is kept.
- 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 contact625 Neosho St. 1st Floor, Burlington, KS 66839; (620) 364-2123
- 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 4th Judicial District has adopted the nonpartisan method: a local nominating commission of lawyers and non-lawyers sends the Governor a list of names, the Governor appoints, and the judge then faces retention votes. Kansas districts choose this by ballot under K.S.A. 20-2901; partisan election is the default they opted out of.
District Court — 4th 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
Notes on the record
- Coffey County's Sheriff's Office site (coffeycountysheriff.org) is the best-documented site in this group of seven: it names the facility, publishes a live roster, a court-sourced bonding-agency list, and specific visitation/messaging fees. Capacity (21 beds) and a $50/day board rate were found only on the Kansas Sheriffs' Association profile, not on the county's own site, so 'capacity' is scored 'no' under the rule that only the county's own domain can satisfy a check.
- The general county government site (coffeycountyks.org) was not reachable this session, separate from the Sheriff's Office site, so county-wide budget and commissioner information is not from Coffey County's own site.
- 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)
- Governed by a Board of County Commissioners under K.S.A. 19-201 et seq. coffeycountyks.org, the county government's own domain, could not be opened this session, so the current commissioner roster, meeting schedule and minutes were not confirmed from the county's own site.
These three offices decide who sits in a cell in Coffey 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