The Detention Center
Clare County Jail
- Operated byClare County Sheriff's Office
- Jail address255 W. Main Street, Harrison, MI (Sheriff's Office mailing address: 255 W. Main Street, Box 407, Harrison, MI 49625-0407).
- BedsNot found
Source: Clare County Michigan - Sheriff · checked 2026-09-19
Transparency rating
2/10Closed- ✓The jail is named
- ✗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
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 John S. Wilson
- Runs the jailThe Sheriff has statutory custody and control of the county jail.
- How the office is filledElected, four-year term, MCL 51.70.
- Statutory basisMCL 51.75 (county sheriff has charge and custody of the county jail)
- Detention budget requested vs. approved, by year
- Jail staffing levels and vacancy rate
- Lawsuits and settlements involving the jail
Source: Clare County Michigan - 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.
Clare 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 2026-09-19
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 boardClare County Board of Commissioners; meets the 3rd Wednesday of every month at 9:00 a.m. (chair not named on the page reviewed). →
- Where the jail money is decidedAgendas and minutes →
Notes on the record
- The Sheriff's page publishes a full civil-process fee schedule (base fees ranging from $8 for a mortgage adjournment to $50 for a Sheriff's Sale, plus $1.005/mile) but no jail booking/bond fee schedule specific to incarceration.
- The page names a jail administrator in third-party (Michigan Sheriffs' Association) summaries reviewed during research, but that name could not be confirmed on the county's own site within the pages opened, so it is recorded as not found here.
- State inspection/oversight: Michigan county jails operate under the Michigan Department of Corrections' Administrative Rules for Jails and Lockups (promulgated under MCL 791.262), with periodic compliance inspections; Benzie County's own site cites continuous compliance since 2000 with a inspection most recently in 2022, and Calhoun County's 2020 annual report references state and federal inspections conducted that year.
These three offices decide who sits in a cell in Clare 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