The Detention Center
Dawson County Correctional Facility (DCCF)
- Operated byDawson County Sheriff's Office
- Address440 Colorado Blvd, Glendive, MT 59330
- Also known asReferred to elsewhere as the Dawson County Regional Prison / Dawson County Jail
- Population heldSite distinguishes "State Inmate" and "County Inmate" visiting rules, indicating DCCF holds both county and State of Montana Department of Corrections inmates
- Bail/bondCash, U.S. Postal money order, or certified bank draft only — no personal checks
- Year built / cost / bedsNot found
Source: Dawson County, MT — DC Correctional Facility · checked 2026-08-24
Transparency rating
4/10Partial- ✓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
- ✗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 builtNot found
- Original costNot found
- Paid for byNot found
- BedsNot found
Since then
- Not found
The Sheriff
Sheriff Ross Canen
- Runs the jailYes — the Dawson County Correctional Facility
- How the office is filledElected (4-year term; re-elected 2022)
- CoronerA separate elected office — Tyler Silha — unlike some other counties in this group where Sheriff and Coroner are combined
- Detention budget requested vs. approved, by year
- Jail staffing levels and vacancy rate
- Lawsuits and settlements involving the jail
Source: Dawson County, MT — Your Elected Officials · checked 2026-08-24
The Judges
Montana District Court judges (7th Judicial District, covering Dawson, McCone, Prairie, Richland and Wibaux counties) and the Justice of the Peace are both elected and are not county officials.
7th Judicial District Court
- Hon. Olivia Rieger
- Hon. Scott Herring (appointed Feb. 2025, completing the term of Katherine Bidegarey)
Justice Court — Justice of the Peace
- Stacy Nerison (also spelled "Stacey Nerison" on the county's own Justice of the Peace page)
- 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 →
- Where the jail money is decidedAgendas and minutes →
Notes on the record
- Montana has no confirmed statutory adult jail inspection agency; state_inspection is left blank per the research brief.
- The facility's own page links a DCCF PREA Policy, a 2022 PREA Annual Report, and a 2022 PREA Audit Final Report, so prea is marked yes.
- Phone system (Century Link) is named but no specific per-minute rate is published on the county's own site, so fees is marked no.
- Board of County Commissioners: Brad Mitchell (District 1), Dennis Zander (District 2), Joe Sharbono (District 3)
These three offices decide who sits in a cell in Dawson 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