The Detention Center
Mason County Jail
- Operated byMason County Sheriff's Office
- Jail address306 North Delia St., Ludington, MI 49431
- Beds104 (originally built 1958 with 45 beds; expanded in 1999 to 104)
- FeesSentenced inmates are charged $35.00 daily for room and board; nurse visits cost $25.00 each; prescriptions billed at actual cost; bills due within 30 days of release
Source: Mason County, MI - Mason County Jail · 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 — 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 built1958
- Original costNot found
- Paid for byNot found
- Beds104
Since then
- 1999 expansion from 45 beds to 104 beds
The Sheriff
Sheriff Kim Cole
- Runs the jailThe Sheriff's Office operates the Mason County Jail, per the county's own Sheriff and Jail pages
- How the office is filledElected, four-year term, MCL 51.70; the county's own Sheriff page states Kim Cole 'took office on January 1, 2013'
- 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: Mason 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.
Mason 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.masoncounty.net/government/board_of_commissioners/index.php →
- Where the jail money is decidedAgendas and minutes →
Notes on the record
- The jail page describes visitation on Saturdays and Sundays only in two time blocks, substance abuse counseling, medical/mental health services, an inmate work crew program (since 2013), and video visitation via icsolutions.com.
- What was tried: checked a guessed Finance/budget department page and a guessed Board of Commissioners URL, both of which 404'd before the correct board URL was found; no dedicated Sheriff/jail budget page, bond information, PREA policy, death records, inspection reports, or contract documents 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 (authorized under MCL 791.262 et seq.); no county-published inspection reports were found on masoncounty.net.
These three offices decide who sits in a cell in Mason 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