The Detention Center
Not found — the county's sheriff page gives the jail's address but publishes no facility name, referring only to 'the county jail'
- Operated byBarton County Sheriff's Office
- Jail address1010 Cherry Street, Lamar, MO 64759
- Who it holdsPage states the Sheriff's Office is currently not housing female inmates
- VisitationSundays
- Published pricesVisitation phone cards $10 each; e-cigarettes $10 each; nicotine pouches $15 per 20-pack; cash only, exact amount, no cards or checks
- What was triedOpened the county sheriff page, the county commissioners page and a commission-minutes page on countyofbarton.gov, and the sheriff's page on lamarmo.com, which carried only images
Source: Barton County Sheriff · checked 2026-09-18
Transparency rating
1/10Closed- ✗The jail is named — not published
- ✗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 Simpson
- Runs the jailYes — the sheriff's office operates the county jail (RSMo 221.020)
- In officeServing since 2020, per the county's sheriff page
- Office and jail address1010 Cherry Street, Lamar, MO 64759
- County domaincountyofbarton.gov, the county's own site
- Detention budget requested vs. approved, by year
- Jail staffing levels and vacancy rate
- Lawsuits and settlements involving the jail
Source: Barton County Sheriff · checked 2026-09-18
The Judges
Barton County is not one of the six Missouri jurisdictions (Clay, Greene, Jackson, Platte, St. Louis County, St. Louis City) where the 1940 Missouri Nonpartisan Court Plan reaches the trial bench, so its circuit and associate circuit judges are elected on a partisan ballot. They are state judicial officers, not county officials. No court page was opened, so no judge is named here.
- The county's bond schedule
- Share of the jail population held pretrial
- Median time from booking to first appearance
Source: the state judiciary · checked 2026-09-18
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 boardBoard of County Commissioners →
- Where the jail money is decidedAgendas and minutes →
Notes on the record
- Barton County publishes on its own domain, countyofbarton.gov. The sheriff page names Sheriff John Simpson and gives the jail address at 1010 Cherry Street, Lamar, and publishes commissary and visitation-phone-card prices, which is why the fees check passes.
- The named check is 'no' on a narrow point: the page refers to 'the county jail' but publishes no facility name. No roster, no bed count or daily population, no bond guidance, no budget figure, no PREA result, no inspection report and no prisoner-housing contract were found.
- The county does post commission meeting minutes by date. The March 2, 2026 minutes page was opened and contained no jail item; Missouri's board-of-visitors reports, where they exist, usually appear in minutes like these, so this is where a future check should look.
- Note for anyone re-checking this county: bartoncounty.org is Barton County, Kansas, and bartoncounty.com is the local chamber of commerce. Neither is the Missouri county government.
- No Missouri state agency inspects county jails. The Department of Corrections inspects state prisons under RSMo chapter 217; that authority does not reach chapter 221 county jails. The only statutory mechanisms are local and lay — grand jury visits under RSMo 221.300 and a county board of visitors under RSMo 221.320–221.350, which 221.350 requires to report yearly. No such report was found published by Barton County.
- Missouri has no death-in-custody reporting law and no public dataset; RSMo 58.451 requires only that the coroner be notified. Nothing opened records a death in Barton County custody.
- Missouri county jails are funded by the county — RSMo 221.080 puts jail expense on the county commission.
- Three-member County Commission: David Johnson, Presiding Commissioner; Ben Reed, District One; Jeff Tucker, District Two. The commission meets every Monday, 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., at the courthouse; the office is at 1004 Gulf Street Rm 102, Lamar. The county posts commission meeting minutes pages; the March 2, 2026 minutes page opened carried no jail item, no jail budget figure and no board-of-visitors or grand jury jail report.
These three offices decide who sits in a cell in Barton 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 2026-09-18 · dollars and outcomes still being gathered