The Detention Center
Isabella County Correctional Facility
- Operated byIsabella County Sheriff's Office
- Jail address5270 East Remus Road, Mount Pleasant, MI 48858
- BedsNot confirmed on the county's own site; third-party contractor/architect pages (Clark Construction, Integrated Architecture) report differing figures (151 vs. 232 rated beds, expandable to 286) for the newly built facility
- Federal detainee capacityUp to 36 federal detainees (20 male, 16 female) under a 2018 U.S. Marshals Service housing agreement
- Jail AdministratorScott Welch (Jail Administrator, per Sheriff's Office - About page)
Source: Isabella County Jail & Inmate Services · checked 2026-09-19
Transparency rating
6/10Partial- ✓The jail is named
- ✓Who is in custody
- ✗Beds and daily population — not published
- ✓What it costs taxpayers
- ✗Deaths in custody — not published
- ✗PREA audits — not published
- ✗Independent inspection — not published
- ✓Who else it holds, and for how much
- ✓How to post bond
- ✓Phone, video and commissary rates
The Building
You paid for it. Here is what the record says it cost.
- Year builtNot found on the county's own site; contractor/architect pages describe a newly built jail/sheriff's office complex on E. Remus Road (project reported complete around 2025)
- Original costNot found on the county's own site; Clark Construction (contractor) reports approximately $48,000,000
- Paid for byNot found
- BedsNot found on the county's own site; conflicting third-party figures of 151 and 232 rated beds (expandable to 286 via double-bunking)
Since then
- Not found
The Sheriff
Sheriff Michael Main
- Runs the jailThe Sheriff's Office operates the Isabella County Jail/Correctional Facility, per the county site's Jail & Inmate Services pages.
- How the office is filledElected, four-year term, MCL 51.70
- Statutory basisMCL 51.75 gives the elected county sheriff 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: Isabella County Sheriff's Office - About · 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.
Isabella 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 boardhttps://www.isabellacounty.org/boards-commissions-committees/board-of-commissioners/ →
- Where the jail money is decidedAgendas and minutes →
Notes on the record
- Isabella County recently relocated the Sheriff's Office and jail from 207 N. Court St. to a new complex at 5270 East Remus Road, Mount Pleasant; the county's own pages do not yet publish a confirmed bed count for the new facility.
- The county's own site publishes an inmate guide (fees, phone/commissary, bond-status phone line) and an approved bondsman list, plus procurement documents (USMS federal detainee housing agreement, inmate medical services RFP) that serve as the 'contracts' evidence.
- No inmate death records, PREA policy, or jail inspection reports were found published on the county's own site.
- State inspection/oversight: Michigan county jails are subject to inspection under the Michigan Department of Corrections' Administrative Rules for Jails and Lockups; no county-published inspection reports were found on isabellacounty.org.
These three offices decide who sits in a cell in Isabella 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