Howell County

The Detention Center

Not found

• Operated byNot found
• Openedhttps://howellcountymo.gov/ — the county's own front page, fully enumerated: 38 links covering elections, commission, clerk, collector, assessor, sheriff, jury commission, circuit court clerk, recorder and directory. No jail page, no budget page and no jail content of any kind
• Refusedhttps://www.howellcountysheriff.gov/ (the sheriff's first-party domain, linked from the county front page) and https://howellcountymo.gov/commission/ — both PROVENANCE_REQUIRED on repeated attempts
• Sheriff's office address1106 Missouri Ave, West Plains, MO 65775 — from an explicitly archived 2007 page, recorded here only as what was seen, not as a current finding
• Commercial sites ignoredhowellcountyjailmo.org, howellcountyjail.org, howelljailroster.org, howellcountysheriff.org, missourijailroster.com, missouricountyjails.org — scraped aggregators, not sources

Source: No first-party source reached · checked 2026-09-18

• ✗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 — not published

This rates disclosure, not conduct — what Howell County publishes about a jail its taxpayers own, checked 2026-09-18. Nothing here says the jail is run well or badly. Every mark moves the moment the county posts the document.

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

The Sheriff

Sheriff Matthew Roberts

• Runs the jailNot confirmed from a page opened — the Sheriff's Office has its own first-party domain, https://www.howellcountysheriff.gov/, which refused every attempt
• How the office is filledElected county sheriff; RSMo 221.020 gives the sheriff custody, rule, keeping and charge of the county jail
• County page searchA site at howellcountysheriff.com opened but states on its face that it is an archive of the office's 2007 pages. The sheriff it names has not been confirmed as the current officeholder, so 'Not found' is recorded rather than a possibly former sheriff
• Source of the nameName from the Missouri Law Enforcement Agencies list kept by the Missouri Department of Public Safety (POST program), a state list, not a county page; checked 18 September 2026
• Office (state list)Howell County Sheriff's Office, 1106 Missouri Ave, West Plains, MO 65775; phone (417) 256-2544

Source: Missouri Law Enforcement Agencies list (Missouri Department of Public Safety, POST program; shown on the Attorney General's Police and Sheriffs Contacts page) - statewide list, checked 18 September 2026 · checked 2026-09-18

The Judges

Howell County is not one of the six Missouri jurisdictions under the Missouri Nonpartisan Court Plan at circuit level, so its circuit and associate circuit judges are elected on a partisan ballot. They are state judicial officers, not county officials. The circuit number could not be sourced from a page actually opened.

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