Arenac County, Michigan — The Jail, the Sheriff, the Judges

The Detention Center

Arenac County Jail

Operated byArenac County Sheriff's Office
Jail addressStandish, MI 48658 (exact street address not confirmed on the page opened)
Beds46 beds, per the office's own site

Source: Arenac County Sheriff · checked 2026-09-19

Transparency rating

3/10Closed

✓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
✗Who else it holds, and for how much — not published
✗How to post bond — not published
✗Phone, video and commissary rates — not published

This rates disclosure, not conduct — what Arenac County publishes about a jail its taxpayers own, checked 2026-09-19. Nothing here says the jail is run well or badly. Every mark moves the moment the county posts the document.

The Building

You paid for it. Here is what the record says it cost.

Year builtNot found
Original costNot found
Paid for byNot found
Beds46

Since then

Not found

The Sheriff

Sheriff James Mosciski

Runs the jailArenac County Sheriff's Office operates the Arenac County Jail
How the office is filledElected, four-year term, MCL 51.70
Statutory basisMCL 51.75 gives the sheriff custody of the county jail

Still needed

Detention budget requested vs. approved, by year
Jail staffing levels and vacancy rate
Lawsuits and settlements involving the jail

Source: Arenac County Sheriff · checked 2026-09-19

The Judges

Michigan circuit and district court judges are elected on a nonpartisan ballot to six-year terms under Mich. Const. art. VI — state judicial officers, not county officials.

Arenac County Circuit Court

Not found

Still needed

The county's bond schedule
Share of the jail population held pretrial
Median time from booking to first appearance

Source: the state judiciary · checked 2026-09-19

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 boardNot found
Where the jail money is decidedNot found

Notes on the record

The office's own site states the jail received '100 percent compliance ratings from the Michigan Department of Corrections' with yearly inspections, confirming state inspection activity for this facility.
State inspection/oversight: Arenac County's own site states the jail undergoes yearly inspections by the Michigan Department of Corrections and reports 100 percent compliance ratings.

These three offices decide who sits in a cell in Arenac 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 2026-09-19 · dollars and outcomes still being gathered