The Detention Center
Finney County Jail
- Operated byFinney County Sheriff's Office
- LocationTop floor of the Finney County Law Enforcement Center, 304 N. Ninth Street, Garden City, KS 67846
- CapacityExpanded from an original 50 beds to 220 beds
- RosterA public online inmate search lists people currently in custody by name, booking number, photo, charges with Kansas statute citations, bond amount, arresting agency, booking date, and age/sex/race; the roster showed between 83 and 89 people in custody at the times it was checked this session
- PREAThe jail publishes a PREA page describing reporting channels (620-272-3700; mail to Finney County Jail, Attn: PREA Department, 304 N. 9th Street) and defining substantiated/unsubstantiated/unfounded outcomes, but this is a policy and reporting-procedure page, not published audit results
- VendorsVideo visitation through HomeWav; phone calls and trust-fund deposits through ICSolutions and Access Corrections; property release cards through Access Freedom — named, but no specific rates published
- What was triedNo specific phone/video/commissary rate schedule, bond-posting procedure, inspection result, death record, or budget figure was found anywhere on finneycountysheriffks.gov. The county government site (finneycounty.org) redirected to finneycountyks.gov, and WebFetch declined to open the redirected URL for lack of search-result provenance; this session's search budget was exhausted before that domain could be unlocked, so Finney County's own commission and budget pages were not reached.
Source: Finney County Sheriff's Office — Jail Division · checked 2026-09-17
Transparency rating
3/10Closed- ✓The jail is named
- ✓Who is in custody
- ✓Beds and daily population
- ✗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
- Beds220 (expanded from an original 50)
Since then
- Capacity expanded from 50 to 220 beds; the expansion date is not given on the pages read
The Sheriff
Sheriff Steven R. Martinez
- Runs the jailYes — elected sheriff under K.S.A. 19-811 and 19-1903
- OfficeFinney County Law Enforcement Center, 304 N. 9th Street, Garden City, KS 67846; phone 620-272-3700, fax 620-272-3777
- Jail division staffingAn Administrator, Assistant Administrator, Lieutenant, four Sergeants, eight Corporals, twenty-two Jail Deputies, a Food Service Manager and five Food Service Assistants; jail division contact is Captain Brett Heckel, (620) 272-3756
- Detention budget requested vs. approved, by year
- Jail staffing levels and vacancy rate
- Lawsuits and settlements involving the jail
Source: Finney County Sheriff's Office · checked 2026-09-17
The Judges
Kansas decides judicial selection district by district: Kan. Const. Art. 3 §6 makes partisan election of district judges the default, and a judicial district's voters may adopt (or later reject) nonpartisan merit selection under K.S.A. 20-2901; district magistrate judges are elected county by county under K.S.A. 20-336 unless the district uses merit selection, and in most rural counties the magistrate sets bail at first appearance (K.S.A. 20-302b). No source naming Finney County's judicial district or its judges was opened this session — not established. Which method this county's judicial district uses was not established for this record.
- 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
- Finney County's own sheriff domain (finneycountysheriffks.gov, distinct from the county government's finneycounty.org) is the most transparent site found in this group: it names the jail, runs a live public roster with bond amounts and charges, and publishes a PREA reporting-procedure page — though not audit results, specific fee rates, a budget figure, or bond-posting instructions.
- The PREA check is marked "no" because the published page is a policy/reporting-procedure page, not published audit results, which is what the check asks for.
- The bond amount for each charge appears on the public roster, but no page found gives instructions on how to actually post bond, so bond_info is marked "no".
- Kansas counties are governed by a Board of County Commissioners (K.S.A. 19-201). Finney County's own commission roster and agenda pages were not reached this session — the county's main site (finneycounty.org) redirected to finneycountyks.gov, which WebFetch declined for lack of provenance, and no search budget remained to unlock it.
These three offices decide who sits in a cell in Finney 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