The Detention Center
Chouteau County Detention Center
- Operated byChouteau County Sheriff's Office
- Address1215 Washington St, Fort Benton, MT 59442 (mailing: PO Box 459)
- Inmate population listPublished as a downloadable PDF (example dated June 29, 2026), names and charges only — no stated bed capacity
- Year built / cost / bedsNot found — checked chouteaucountysheriff.com and co.chouteau.mt.us/departments.htm
Source: Chouteau County Sheriff's Office · checked 2026-08-24
Transparency rating
2/10Closed- ✓The jail is named
- ✓Who is in custody
- ✗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
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 Justin D. Smith
- Runs the jailYes — the Chouteau County Detention Center
- Combined officeThe county's own site lists him as "Sheriff/Coroner"
- How the office is filledElected
- Detention budget requested vs. approved, by year
- Jail staffing levels and vacancy rate
- Lawsuits and settlements involving the jail
Source: Chouteau County Sheriff's Office · checked 2026-08-24
The Judges
Montana District Court judges (12th Judicial District, covering Chouteau, Hill and Liberty counties) and the Justice of the Peace are both elected and are not county officials. The 12th District judge's name was not found on the county's own site (co.chouteau.mt.us); it is sourced here from a legal-directory site, montanacourtlocator.com, flagged as a lower-confidence source.
12th Judicial District Court
- Hon. Daniel Boucher
Justice Court — Justice of the Peace
- Seth Broesder
- The county's bond schedule
- Share of the jail population held pretrial
- Median time from booking to first appearance
Source: the state judiciary · checked 2026-08-24
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 →
Notes on the record
- Montana has no confirmed statutory adult jail inspection agency; state_inspection is left blank per the research brief.
- The inmate population PDF lists names, booking dates and charges but no total bed capacity, so the capacity check is marked no.
- Board of County Commissioners: Clay Riehl, Bob Pasha, Rick Darlington. No dedicated online agenda/minutes page was found on the county's site.
These three offices decide who sits in a cell in Chouteau 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 2026-08-24 · dollars and outcomes still being gathered