The Detention Center
Manistee County Jail
- Operated byManistee County Sheriff's Office
- Jail address1525 E Parkdale Ave, Manistee, MI 49660
- Beds82 inmates
- Year built1989, with an addition in 2009 that added three more blocks
- Jail AdministratorChris (Christopher) Banicki, per the county's own Jail Administrator page
Source: Manistee County, MI - Jail · checked 2026-09-19
Transparency rating
2/10Closed- ✓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 — not published
- ✗Who else it holds, and for how much — not published
- ✗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 built1989
- Original costNot found
- Paid for byNot found
- Beds82
Since then
- 2009 addition adding three more blocks
The Sheriff
Sheriff Brian Gutowski
- Runs the jailThe Sheriff's Office operates the Manistee County Jail, per the county's own Jail page
- How the office is filledElected, four-year term, MCL 51.70; the county's own Sheriff page states 'In 2021, Brian started as the elected Sheriff of Manistee County'
- 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: Manistee County, MI - 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.
Manistee 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.manisteecountymi.gov/263/Board-of-Commissioners →
- Where the jail money is decidedAgendas and minutes →
Notes on the record
- The county's Jail page describes central control monitoring, a recreation room with library and workout equipment, mental health/medical care, video visitation added in 2024, and a body scanner added in 2024, but no roster, budget, death records, PREA policy, inspection reports, contracts, bond information, or fee schedule.
- What was tried: checked the Sheriff's Office 'Services' page (lists Civil Process, Employment, CodeRED, Forms, FOIA, Firearms Registration, Incident/Insurance Reports, Patrol & Property Checks) and a guessed Finance page (404); neither produced jail-related bond, fee, or budget information.
- State inspection/oversight: Michigan county jails are subject to inspection under the Michigan Department of Corrections' Administrative Rules for Jails and Lockups (authorized under MCL 791.262 et seq.); no county-published inspection reports were found on manisteecountymi.gov.
These three offices decide who sits in a cell in Manistee 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