The Detention Center
Not found
- Operated byGranite County Sheriff's Office (per the county site's statement of statutory duties)
- County site statementThe Sheriff & Coroner's Office page states the office 'supervises the county jail and prisoners,' but no dedicated jail/detention facility page, name, address, bed count, or roster was found anywhere on the county's site
- What was triedReviewed granitecountymt.gov's Departments and Sheriff-Coroner's Office pages and full department listing (Justice, Sheriff-Coroner's Office, Justice of the Peace, County Attorney's Office) — no jail/detention subpage exists
Source: Granite County, MT — Sheriff & Coroner's Office · checked 2026-08-24
Transparency rating
0/10Closed- ✗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 — 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 Rico Barkell
- TitleSheriff/Coroner
- Undersheriff/Deputy CoronerChris Robinson
- Phone406-859-3251
- Duties (per county site)Sheriff's Office 'serves writs and processes of the courts, seizes property after judgment, enforces traffic laws on county roads, and supervises the county jail and prisoners'
- Detention budget requested vs. approved, by year
- Jail staffing levels and vacancy rate
- Lawsuits and settlements involving the jail
Source: Granite County, MT — Sheriff & Coroner's Office · checked 2026-08-24
The Judges
Montana District Court judges (elected, serving a multi-county judicial district) and county Justices of the Peace (elected countywide) are the judicial officers who handle bail; neither is a county administrative official. The Justice of the Peace typically sets bail at first appearance.
3rd Judicial District Court (Deer Lodge, Granite, and Powell Counties)
- Hon. Jeffrey Dahood
- 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
- Granite County's Sheriff & Coroner's Office page states the office 'supervises the county jail and prisoners' as a matter of statutory duty, but the county's website has no dedicated jail/detention facility name, page, address, or roster. Recorded as Not found rather than assumed to mean no facility exists.
- Montana has no confirmed statutory adult jail inspection agency; state_inspection recorded as empty per the research brief.
- Board of County Commissioners: Paul G. Kulaski (Chairperson), Scott C. Adler, Blanche McLure.
These three offices decide who sits in a cell in Granite 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