The Detention Center
NONE - no jail or house of correction
- Operated byNantucket County Sheriff's Office
- Office address20 South Water Street, PO Box 419, Nantucket, MA 02554
- Phone(508) 228-7263
Source: Nantucket County Sheriff's Office · checked 2026-09-20
Transparency rating
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 James A. Perelman
- Runs the jailNo — this office operates no jail. Its own site lists 'transportation of detainees/inmates to and from Barnstable House of Correction via boat or plane'
- How the office is filledElected county sheriff, six-year term (MGL ch. 37 § 1)
- County governmentStill a governmental unit. Nantucket County Commissioners (the Select Board sits as County Commissioners).
- Detention budget requested vs. approved, by year
- Jail staffing levels and vacancy rate
- Lawsuits and settlements involving the jail
Source: Nantucket County Sheriff's Office · checked 2026-09-20
The Judges
Not found
Nantucket County Circuit 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 2026-09-20
The Legislature, and in six counties a county board
The state pays for the jail. The elected sheriff runs it.
- What they controlThe appropriation. Massachusetts abolished county government in eight of the fourteen counties — Berkshire, Essex, Franklin, Hampden, Hampshire, Middlesex, Suffolk and Worcester — and their sheriffs and houses of correction are managed by the state Executive Office of Public Safety and funded by the Legislature. Six counties still function as governmental units: Barnstable (as Cape Cod Regional Government), Bristol, Dukes, Nantucket, Norfolk and Plymouth.
- What they don'tDay-to-day operations. The sheriff is separately elected to a six-year term (MGL ch. 37 § 1) and has custody and control of the jail, the prisoners and the staff (MGL ch. 126 § 16). The Department of Public Health inspects the facilities and publishes the reports.
- The boardNantucket County Commissioners (the Select Board sits as County Commissioners) →
- Where the jail money is decidedAgendas and minutes →
Notes on the record
- This office operates no jail or house of correction. Its own site lists among its duties the transportation of detainees to and from the Barnstable House of Correction by boat or plane.
- People arrested or sentenced in Nantucket courts are held at the Barnstable County Correctional Facility under a long-standing contract. The Nantucket Police Department keeps short-term booking cells only.
- The county is recorded as not scored rather than given ten marks against it for records of a jail it does not run.
These offices decide what happens to people arrested in Nantucket 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.
This county runs no jail. The offices that decide what happens to people arrested here are still elected — and still answerable.
Names verified 2026-09-20 · dollars and outcomes still being gathered