The Detention Center
Not found
- Operated byJewell County Sheriff's Office (elected sheriff is statutory jailer, K.S.A. 19-811)
- Jail staff / bed capacityNot published — the Kansas Sheriffs' Association profile for Jewell County lists only sheriff contact information (address, phone, fax) and does not show sworn/support/jail staff counts or bed capacity
- Whether Jewell operates its own jailNot established from sources reviewed. The county's own directory page (jewellcountykansas.net/directory) lists only a general Sheriff's Office non-emergency phone number, with no jail, staffing, or capacity detail
- What was triedhttps://jewellcountykansas.net/directory (phone numbers only, no jail detail)
Source: Kansas Sheriffs' Association — Jewell County profile · 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 Don Jacobs
- TitleJewell County Sheriff
- Office address307 North Commercial, Mankato, KS 66956
- Phone785-378-3194
- Runs the jailYes, as statutory jailer under K.S.A. 19-811
- How the office is filledElected countywide for a four-year term under K.S.A. 19-801a
- Detention budget requested vs. approved, by year
- Jail staffing levels and vacancy rate
- Lawsuits and settlements involving the jail
Source: Kansas Sheriffs' Association — Jewell County profile · checked 2026-09-17
The Judges
Kansas Constitution Art. 3 §6 makes partisan election of district judges the default; a judicial district may instead adopt nonpartisan (merit) selection under K.S.A. 20-2901. In most rural Kansas counties, including presumptively Jewell, bail at first appearance is set by a district magistrate judge under K.S.A. 20-302b. Jewell County's judicial district number and selection method were not established from sources reviewed in this pass. Which method this county's judicial district uses was not established for this record.
District Court (judicial district not independently confirmed) — Clerk of District Court/Judge
- 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
- Jewell County's own website (jewellcountykansas.net) was reachable, but its directory page names no jail, capacity, budget, roster, PREA, inspection, contracts, bond, or fee information for the Sheriff's Office beyond a general phone number. None of the ten checks could be satisfied on the county's own domain.
- State inspection: repealed. K.S.A. 75-5228, Kansas's 1973 adult jail inspection statute, was repealed effective April 11, 1996 (companion K.S.A. 75-5227 repealed effective July 1, 1996); nothing replaced it, and the Kansas Department of Corrections runs no county-jail inspection program.
- County Commissioners' office listed with a general phone number (785-378-4040) on the county directory; individual commissioner names, board page, and minutes/agenda URLs were not found on the pages reviewed, though the county's site does have general 'minutes' pages.
These three offices decide who sits in a cell in Jewell 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