The Detention Center
Keweenaw County Sheriff's Office Lockup Facility
- Operated byKeweenaw County Sheriff's Office
- Jail address5105 Fourth Street, Eagle River, MI 49950
- Facility typeA fully accredited 72-hour lockup; the county's own site states inmates held longer than 72 hours are housed via contract with neighboring counties, though it does not name which county
- BedsNot found
Source: Keweenaw County Sheriff's Office · 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
- ✗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
- BedsNot found; described only as a '72-hour lock up facility'
Since then
- Not found
The Sheriff
Sheriff Curt Pennala
- Runs the jailThe Sheriff's Office operates a 72-hour lockup facility and contracts with neighboring counties to house inmates held longer than 72 hours, per the office's own site
- How the office is filledElected; the county's site notes Sheriff Pennala's current term expires in 2028
- Statutory basisMCL 51.75 gives the elected county sheriff custody of the county jail/lockup
- Detention budget requested vs. approved, by year
- Jail staffing levels and vacancy rate
- Lawsuits and settlements involving the jail
Source: Keweenaw County Sheriff's Office · 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.
Keweenaw 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://keweenawcountyonline.org/commissions-board.php →
- Where the jail money is decidedAgendas and minutes →
Notes on the record
- Keweenaw County (Michigan's least populous county) operates only a 72-hour lockup rather than a full-service county jail; the Sheriff's Office's own site states that inmates held longer than 72 hours are transferred under contract to a neighboring county's jail, but does not name that county on the page opened.
- The Sheriff's Office page references meeting minutes dating back to 2010 and a FOIA request form, but no dedicated budget, PREA, inspection, bond, fee, or roster pages were found.
- State inspection/oversight: Michigan county jails/lockups are subject to inspection under the Michigan Department of Corrections' Administrative Rules for Jails and Lockups; no county-published inspection reports were found on keweenawcountyonline.org.
These three offices decide who sits in a cell in Keweenaw 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