The Detention Center
Not found
- Operated byElk County Sheriff's Office
- What was triedThe county's own sheriff page (elkcountyks.org) was opened and gives full sheriff/undersheriff contact information, but names no jail facility and publishes no capacity, roster, budget, deaths, PREA result, inspection result, contract, bond guidance, or fee schedule. Elk County is one of the smaller counties in Kansas by population; whether it operates its own jail or contracts out under K.S.A. 19-1929 was not established from any source actually opened this session.
Source: Elk County — Sheriff page · checked 2026-09-17
Transparency rating
0/10Closed- ✗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
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 John Walker
- 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).
- Office address100 N. Cedar St., PO Box 127, Howard, KS 67349
- Phone(620) 374-2108
- StaffingUndersheriff Kelly Young, per the county's own sheriff page.
- Detention budget requested vs. approved, by year
- Jail staffing levels and vacancy rate
- Lawsuits and settlements involving the jail
Source: Elk County — Sheriff page · 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). Whether the 13th Judicial District has adopted nonpartisan/merit selection, and the names of its sitting judges, were not established this session. The 13th 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 — 13th 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
- Elk County's own site was opened — sheriff page and commission page both loaded, and the commission page is unusually well documented with named commissioners, a full meeting schedule, and posted agendas/minutes — but neither page names a jail facility or publishes any of the ten transparency items, so all ten checks are 'no' based on pages actually examined.
- State-layer finding applies: K.S.A. 75-5228, the 1973 Kansas jail inspection statute, was repealed effective 11 April 1996 (its companion 75-5227 followed 1 July 1996), and nothing replaced it.
- Elk County is governed by a three-member Board of County Commissioners. The Board's own page lists District 1 Commissioner Perry Russell, District 2 Commissioner (and Chairman) Doug Hendricks, and District 3 Commissioner Jake Liebau. Meetings are typically held the 2nd and last Monday of the month at 1 PM in the commissioners' room on the first floor of the Elk County Courthouse in Howard; a 2026 schedule of 24 meetings (January 12 through December 28, plus one on January 11, 2027) is posted. Agendas and approved minutes are posted on the same site.
These three offices decide who sits in a cell in Elk 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