The Detention Center
City Justice Center
- Operated byCity of St. Louis Division of Corrections (Department of Public Safety)
- Who runs itCommissioner of Corrections, Division of Corrections, Department of Public Safety — the county does not name the current holder
- Answers tothe City's Division of Corrections, under a Commissioner of Corrections in the Department of Public Safety. The City's elected Sheriff has no jail role
- Why this is differentThe elected county sheriff does not run this jail.
- Jail address200 South Tucker Boulevard, St. Louis, MO 63102
- Beds860, published by the City
- Opened2002
- Jail line(314) 621-5848
- Average daily population783 in 2026; 774 in 2025; 731 in 2024; 640 in 2023; 556 in 2022; 661 in 2021; 845 in 2020; 1,109 in 2019; peak 1,947 in 2012
- WorkhouseThe City's Ordinance 71217 Final Report, dated 26 August 2020, concerns the closure of the Medium Security Institution
- VisitsOne one-hour social visit per week for pre-approved visitors, 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. daily, requested two days in advance
- Commissary depositsBy money order, phone, online or lobby kiosk; kiosk deposits carry a $3.00 fee
- BondCash only, in person, at the CJC 1st floor 24/7 for police custody, or at the courthouse locations the City lists; non-refundable processing fees may apply
- Inmate lookupExact-name search only, through a separate locator site the City links
Source: City of St. Louis - City Justice Center · checked 2026-09-18
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
- ✗Phone, video and commissary rates — not published
The Building
You paid for it. Here is what the record says it cost.
- Year built2002
- Original costNot found
- Paid for byNot found
- Beds860
Since then
- Not found
The Sheriff
Sheriff John Hayden
- Runs the jailNo - the elected Sheriff of the City of St. Louis does not run the jail. The City Justice Center is run by the Division of Corrections in the City's Department of Public Safety
- How the office is filledElected citywide to a four-year term; one of six elected county-function offices of the independent city
- What the office doesSecurity of the courtrooms of the 22nd Judicial Circuit, transport of prisoners between the courts and detention facilities, service of court papers and eviction notices, land tax sales, and concealed carry permits
- VacancyBoard of Aldermen Resolution 193 (introduced 5 December 2025) addresses a permanent vacancy in the Office of the Sheriff occurring more than nine months before the next general election; no page opened names a current or appointed Sheriff
- Exception to RSMo 221.020RSMo 221.020 ordinarily gives each county sheriff charge of the jail; in the City of St. Louis the jail is instead a city corrections function
- 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)St Louis City Sheriff's Office, 1114 Market Street, St Louis, MO 63101; phone (314) 622-4131
- Detention budget requested vs. approved, by year
- Jail staffing levels and vacancy rate
- Lawsuits and settlements involving the jail
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
Missouri's 1940 Nonpartisan Court Plan covers the Supreme Court and Court of Appeals statewide, and at circuit level it applies in only six jurisdictions - Clay, Greene, Jackson, Platte, St. Louis County and St. Louis City. This jurisdiction is one of the six, so its circuit and associate circuit judges are appointed by the governor from a three-name panel sent by a nonpartisan judicial commission and then stand in yes/no retention elections. They are state judicial officers, not county officials. The City's Sheriff's Office pages state that the Sheriff serves the 22nd Judicial Circuit Court of the City of St. Louis. The City's government-structure page notes that the Circuit Clerk and Public Administrator are appointed by the Circuit Judges. No individual judge's name was confirmed from a page that could be opened.
- 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
The City pays for the jail. Its Division of Corrections runs it, not the elected Sheriff.
- What they controlThe detention budget, the building itself, and the agreements that let other agencies rent its beds.
- What they don'tThe City Justice Center is run by the Division of Corrections under a Commissioner of Corrections. The City's elected Sheriff has no jail role.
- The boardThe City's governing body →
Notes on the record
- The independent City of St. Louis, a county-equivalent since 1876 and not part of St. Louis County. It is one of three Missouri exceptions to the sheriff-as-jailer rule: the elected Sheriff handles court security, prisoner transport, civil process, evictions and land tax sales, and has no jail role.
- The jail is the City Justice Center, run by the Division of Corrections in the Department of Public Safety. The Commissioner's Office page and a profile page name Nathaniel Hayward as Commissioner of Corrections but give no appointment date; a mayoral release dated 27 January 2025 announced Doug Burris as Interim Commissioner. No page opened establishes which of them holds the post now, so jail_administrator.name is Not found and both are described in appointed_by.
- No current Sheriff is recorded. Board of Aldermen Resolution 193, introduced 5 December 2025, concerns filling a permanent vacancy in the Office of the Sheriff; no page opened names the person who now holds or was appointed to the office.
- The most transparent jurisdiction in this group. The City publishes the jail's bed count (860) and an average daily population series from 2010 to 2026, so the capacity check is met on both beds and population.
- The City publishes a list of Corrections Division contracts (commissary, food service, inmate healthcare, pest control, regional jail management system and a correctional communications amendment), commissary and security RFP committee meetings as recent as 26 August 2026, and monthly reports for 2017 to 2025. None of these, as displayed, is a contract to hold another agency's prisoners with a per-diem rate, so the contracts check is recorded as no. The contract PDFs and monthly report PDFs themselves were not opened.
- The kiosk commissary deposit fee ($3.00) is published, but no telephone or video-visit rate was found, so the fees check is recorded as no.
- The City's PREA page states a zero-tolerance policy and reporting routes but publishes no PREA audit report, so the prea check is no.
- The City's inmate lookup returns only exact-name matches and runs on a separate locator site that was not opened, so the roster check is recorded as no - it is not a public list of who is in custody.
- No corrections budget document, death-in-custody report or inspection report was found among the Division's published documents.
- No Missouri state agency inspects county jails. The Department of Corrections operates and inspects state prisons under RSMo chapter 217; that authority does not reach chapter 221 county and city jails. The Missouri Sheriffs' Association publishes non-binding jail guidance and runs jail-administrator training, but it is a private association of sheriffs, not a regulator. The only statutory mechanisms are local and lay: a grand jury visit to the jail under RSMo 221.300, and a county board of visitors under RSMo 221.320-221.350, which RSMo 221.350 requires to report yearly to the county.
- Missouri has no death-in-custody reporting law and no public dataset; RSMo 58.451(1)(5) requires only notice to the coroner.
- The City of St. Louis has no county commission. It is governed by a Mayor, elected citywide to a four-year term, and a Board of Aldermen of 14 aldermen elected by ward plus a President elected citywide who casts the 15th vote. The City's budget is controlled by the Board of Estimate and Apportionment - the Mayor, the Board President and the Comptroller - and the Board of Aldermen approves it annually. The City's own government-structure page names the current Mayor as Cara Spencer. Board of Aldermen Resolution 193 lists President Megan E. Green as a co-sponsor.
These three offices decide who sits in a cell in St. Louis City 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 City's elected Sheriff does not run this jail. The officials who pay for it are elected.
Names verified 2026-09-18 · dollars and outcomes still being gathered