The Detention Center
Scott County Law Enforcement Center
- Operated byScott County Sheriff's Office (shared building with the Scott City Police Department)
- Capacity (county's own site)'a jail facility for 24 inmates', per https://scottcountyks.com/departments/law-enforcement.html; the Kansas Sheriffs' Association's county profile separately lists 23 beds and a $40.00 daily boarding rate.
- Shared facilityThe Law Enforcement Center is described on the county's own site as a shared building housing both the Scott County Sheriff's Office and the Scott City Police Department, with office space, a dispatch area, and a meeting room. Source: https://scottcountyks.com/departments/law-enforcement.html
- What was triedScott County's own site (scottcountyks.com) was opened this session: the Sheriff elected-office page and the Law Enforcement Center departments page. No jail budget, PREA audit, inspection result, death-in-custody disclosure, contract/rate information, bond-posting guidance, or fee schedule was found published there.
Source: Scott County, Kansas — Law Enforcement Center · checked 2026-09-17
Transparency rating
2/10Closed- ✓The jail is named
- ✗Who is in custody — not published
- ✓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
- Beds24
Since then
- Not found
The Sheriff
Sheriff Jeffrey Pounds
- TitleScott County Sheriff
- Office contact602 West 5th Street, Scott City, KS 67871; (620) 872-2133
- Staffing (per Kansas Sheriffs' Association profile)5 sworn personnel, 5 jail staff
- 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 (Scott County) · 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 25th 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.
25th Judicial District — District Court
- 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
- Scott County's own site names its jail (the 'Scott County Law Enforcement Center') and publishes its capacity ('a jail facility for 24 inmates'). The Kansas Sheriffs' Association's county profile separately lists 23 beds and a $40.00 daily boarding rate, but that is the Association's own figure, not the county's, so it is recorded only as a sheriff/jail fact.
- No jail budget, PREA audit, inspection result, death-in-custody disclosure, contract/rate information, bond-posting guidance, or fee schedule was found published on Scott County's own site this session.
- State-layer finding: 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. The Kansas Department of Corrections runs no county-jail program.
- Not found — Scott County's own commissioners page was not opened this session. K.S.A. 19-201 requires each Kansas county to have three, five, or seven commissioner districts.
These three offices decide who sits in a cell in Scott 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